Who’s going to die in The White Lotus finale?
As the season-one finale nears, A.V. Club staffers speculate on whose body is in the box
TV Features The White Lotus
The White Lotus begins with a mystery in a flash forward. Young newlywed Shane (Jake Lacy, breaking free from nice guy roles, possibly permanently) is deep in thought at an airport, furiously fidgeting with his wedding ring. As an older couple sitting near him unwisely tries to strike up small talk, we learn that Shane is coming back from his honeymoon at The White Lotus resort, where someone was killed, and the body is being boarded onto their flight back to Honolulu. One of Shane’s new acquaintances innocently asks: “Where’s your wife?” and the question hangs heavily over this opening scene, as Shane rudely (but not out of character, as we’ll soon find out) tells the couple to leave him alone. Then he walks over to a window and watches a box ominously marked “Human Remains” get loaded onto the plane.
Since the premiere, we’ve heard nothing else about human remains or someone getting killed at the resort. But with The White Lotus season-one finale airing Sunday, August 15 on HBO, at long last, all will be revealed. We would be engrossed with this series anyway, as each week draws us further into Shane and his new wife Rachel (Alexandra Daddario)’s already shaky marriage, the unbearably pompous privilege of the Mossbacher family (Connie Britton, Steve Zahn, Sydney Sweeney, Fred Hechinger), and the sad but stirring attempts of lonely but clueless Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) to connect with people. To say nothing of the exploits of the staff, like benevolent and ambitious Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), and volatile (to put it mildly) Armond (Murray Bartlett).
As the season finale is finally in our sights, we can’t help but speculate about the reveal of the mysterious victim of The White Lotus. So we asked some A.V. Club staffers to offer their thoughts on the most likely and least likely suspects. If you haven’t watched all the episodes yet, please proceed with caution—but regardless, we recommend that you get caught up before Sunday’s explosive finale (and read Roxana Hadadi’s excellent recaps while you’re at it).
Gwen Ihnat
Most likely: It pains me to say, because he’s one of my favorite characters, but I think it’s got to be Armond in the box. At this point he is self-destructing at such a high level after falling off of the wagon that I just don’t see any way for him to redeem himself—not to mention getting Shane off his back after being caught in an extremely compromising position with staff member Dillon (Lukas Gage), or the fact that Olivia (Sydney Sweeney) and Paula (Brittany O’Grady) are aware he stole their drugs. From Shane’s somber attitude at the airport, I’m guessing that an extremely messed-up Armond fatally loses a fight with him, or something, causing a fed-up Rachel to walk away from Shane for good. But I really hope I’m wrong, because I have immensely enjoyed watching his escapades (Matt, once you pointed out that Armond was like a tropical Basil Fawlty, now that’s all I think about when I’m watching him) and would love to see a second White Lotus season with the same resort staff, but new guests. Like a really fucked-up Love Boat on land. Wow. I’m going to miss this show.
Least likely: From the opening, it seems so obvious that the body in the box is Rachel that I just can’t believe it’s her. I feel like Mike White must be plotting to offer us a much bigger twist than that. Also, I have been loving Alexandra Daddario’s performance as Rachel slowly realizes that she has married the biggest asshole in the known universe (and his mother!), so I really want her to go off and get a job at Jezebel and leave Shane in the dust.
Cameron Scheetz
Most likely: Did anyone else have a physical reaction to Greg’s coughing fit? Maybe it’s these times we’re living in, but those hacks put me on high alert, and have me worried about the fate of Tanya’s BLM activist Bureau Of Land Management beau. Played by the charming Jon Gries (who many have recognized as Napoleon Dynamite’s boastful Uncle Rico), Greg is intent on making the most of his vacation: fishing on the open sea, swimming laps in the pool, and asking his fellow guests out on dinner dates. But is the divorcee’s vitality, that lust for life (and just general lust), masking something? It seems noteworthy, to me, that we haven’t met any of those work buddies he mentioned. Could it be that Greg’s chronic cough is a sign of a knowingly fatal illness, and he packed up for paradise as his sunny swan song? Perhaps he fibbed about his colleagues so as not to prompt any questions wondering why he’s vacationing alone. Given the prominent placement of Greg’s wheezing in the latest teaser, it almost seems too obvious, but his untimely passing would surely make for finale-worthy drama. So soon after Tanya let him see “the core of the onion,” Greg’s tragic death would be a catalyst for her extended downward spiral, which at that point would likely drag Belinda—and possibly the rest of The White Lotus staff—down with her.
Least likely: Most knew of Molly Shannon’s involvement with The White Lotus before the series started, so it wasn’t a total surprise when she checked in midway through its run. What was shocking was just how unctuous and blissfully backhanded she could be as Shane’s mother Kitty Patton, weaponizing her natural charms. Shannon’s late-breaking villainous turn has inspired pontification online that Kitty may be the one to end up in that pine box, but I, for one, think a true mama’s boy like Shane would be much more of a mess if his cherished, pampering parent were to pass unexpectedly. Plus, by the end of “The Lotus-Eaters,” Kitty’s shipping off to flaunt her “money, money, money” at another resort, presumably out of harm’s way.
Gabrielle Sanchez
Most likely: It pains me to put Tanya McQuoid in this spot, as Jennifer Coolidge’s performance of the self-described “alcoholic lunatic” keeps viewers rooting for her, even when she proves just as unreliable and self-centered as the rest of our elite lot. Even after the “romantic” boat scene, where she has a mental breakdown over scattering her mother’s ashes, she continues to uncover more of the onion in every episode. I’m afraid at the true core is someone who cannot be saved by a man’s touch, especially a man as untrustworthy as Greg. As she launches her mother’s urn into the arms of a man she just met, telling him to get the fuck out through sobs, something feels inherently unstable with our poor Tanya. I think her death could be an accident, spurned by a manic bender following the subsequent fallout of her brief affair. If it is her, it won’t be graceful or kind, just something inevitable as Tanya finds herself alone once again without Belinda there to help her.
Least likely: Dillon’s already been fucked over, and as he takes a major step back in the most recent episode, something cataclysmic would have to occur for him to be the one to die at the end. And I don’t think it would pull any emotional reaction from Shane like the one we see in the opening scene of the series. While he may end up losing his job due to the grade-A rimjob from Armond, it does not appear that Dillon will lose his life.
Marah Eakin
Most likely: Everyone loves to hate Olivia Mossbacher, and for good reason. She’s a negative killjoy of a person who seemingly contributes absolutely nothing to the world beyond a steady stream of faux-woke putdowns and manipulative machinations. I can imagine a scenario in which she meets her maker at the hands of a fed-up Paula, who’s been pushed to the brink by Olivia’s insinuations about Kai (Kekoa Kekumano). (They’re not unfounded insinuations, but they still come from a shitty place.) Paula’s spent her time at The White Lotus becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Mossbachers and their ilk, so if she snapped, I could hardly blame her. Of course, it could also just as easily be Greg, who perhaps came to The White Lotus with a terminal illness to discover death on his own terms with the help of Tanya, but, hey, let’s say Olivia. She deserves it.
Least likely: Armond isn’t a good guy and he’s making terrible choices now that he’s off the wagon and in a full-tilt meltdown, but I still don’t know why anyone would kill him, save maybe Shane. But then he’d be in custody, not sitting by himself in the airport. Beyond that, wouldn’t they just bury him on the island? And if they’re sending his remains to his family, why would he be on a plane to Chicago and not Australia? I just don’t buy it.
Tatiana Tenreyro
Most likely: My pick is Quinn (Fred Hechinger). He doesn’t seem want to leave the resort anytime soon and spends all of his time by the ocean. As depressing as it is to think about, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think he could die by drowning. It would certainly give his family a wake-up call and remind them to stop being assholes.
Least likely: Mike White is too brilliant of a writer to be as obvious about who does as the first scene hints, so it can’t be Rachel. It must be one of the last people we’d expect to die (Greg seems like a viable contender, but that cough seems like a red herring).
Matt Schimkowitz
Most likely: Based on Shane’s apparent irritation and frustration with the human remains, I think the body must belong to someone Shane cannot stand. Shane and Armond have been going at it since episode one, when Armond failed to deliver the Pineapple Room to Shane. Meanwhile, the Basil Fawlty on uppers has been living on the edge practically ever since. He’s relapsed, he’s sexually harassing his employees, and he’s hatching schemes that make his life worse. He’s pretty much only got one more boundary to cross, and it’s to the great beyond. Overall, I think that Armond is probably dying for our customer service-related sins.
Least likely: Shane’s connection is the real linchpin here, which leads me to believe Kitty is still alive. The older couple at the airport distinctly states that they heard someone died at The White Lotus, and last we saw Kitty, she was on her way to The Mauna Kea. Frankly, Shane appears more inconvenienced by the death than anything else, and even though he is a piece of shit of the highest order, Shane does seem like he’d be a little upset by the death of his mother.
103 Comments
Bait-and-switch. Could be everyone lives and the remains are those of Tanya’s mother, which are successfully foisted off to Rachel and/or Shane.
Except pretty sure Shane says “they’re loading the body onto the plane” at some point-
And you see a coffin-sized box being loaded … and the couple at the airport says someone died …
Gwen please stop fact-checking my harebrained schemes.
Yes, she’s just put them in a really big box
Yeah, and the couple says “someone was killed,” and her mom was already dead.
A big part of me wants there to not be an actual answer to this question by the end of the season, kind of like “We’re going to open with a mystery to hook people in, but the actual show has nothing to do with it at all!”
It’d piss people off, but damn that’d be a bold move.
Yeah, I mean even though we only focus on three groups of guests, they aren’t the only ones staying at the hotel. Which means there could be someone else going through something.
I also think it’s weird that we never saw the staff member who gave birth again…
Yeah, but in the shows timeline, her giving birth only happened a couple of days ago, going back to work so soon to a job she only just started would be weirder
Oh god yeah that’d be depressing. There is no way she should be back at work a few days after giving birth. Even some of the worst jobs wouldn’t have that expectation.
RIGHT?
That infant is totally Chekov’s Baby. Lana (Lani?) was such a major part of the first episode; it’s weird that we haven’t heard much else about her. Although I guess her delivering the baby in Armand’s office is what kicks off his downward spiral, so perhaps that was her only real narrative function.
They don’t show us ANYTHING that’s not happening at the resort. So… why would the new mommy be at the resort?? I think that’s quite simply the main reason we haven’t seen her again–the way this show is handled, it would make no sense to have some scenes checking in on her at the hospital.
A commenter predicted we’d never see her again right after the first episode.
This show already feels like a sort of anti-Big Little Lies, so that actually sounds appropriate. BLL was also framed by a mysterious murder, the circumstance of which fueling speculation and dread throughout. But here, the tone is darkly comic, almost the polar opposite. I expect the death is a punchline.In general, while they’re both shows about delusionally rich white liberals in insanely picturesque oceanside havens, BLL asks you to take their problems kind of seriously even if it’s mildly satirical. WL doesn’t hesitate to make the rich people full-tilt assholes. I’d be surprised if the death brings anyone special catharsis, closure, or insight. They don’t deserve it and probably aren’t capable.
I think it’s going to be Tanya (killed by Armond & Belinda after she pulls out of the business deal and an Armond anti-rich screed while on a bender takes hold of both of them and they kill her).My wild card pick is Quinn (killed by the row bros as revenge after Kai gets caught and arrested for the Mossbacher heist). I want this one to not be true because I want the row bros to remain the only pure, unblemished characters in this show.
Yeah, the unsolicited kindness they show to Quinn is heartwarming.
Top 5 likelihood:1. Someone we haven’t met. It just happens to be a body. Seems to fit with this show.2. Quinn. The scuba diving was put off because of the fight. They’ve made a big deal of the scuba montages where they have to deal with the respirator (during which Mark was drunk). Mark just earned his family’s respect. He’s going to freeze in a panic when something goes wrong at scuba and his son dies.3. Tanya/Armond (tie). Both have had the wildest arcs into collapse, either would make narrative sense.5. Paula. Fight with Olivia from the Kai situation, Olivia accidentally pushes her off the rocks or something.Glad it got a second season (which also makes me think Armond lives). This needs to be “Dysfunctional Fantasy Island.”
It’s going to be set at a new location which means new manager.
Huh. Must’ve missed that in the announcement. Seems…. not as great an idea. But they don’t pay me the big bucks.
Mike White said it would be logistically difficult to get the same resort again.
Or a relocated Armond.
Is Armond even going to be employed by the hotel when all is said and done? In the preview for episode 6, he said he was going to give a middle finger to the place.
Relocated or resurrected?
Question: If I was a fan of Enlightened, would I enjoy this show?
Absolutely. Definitely give it a shot.
It has less sweet moments that were really only there because of Dern’s voiceover but still retains a lot of that magic, but I think this show has even sharper writing.
Wow, this series I’ve never heard of on a channel I can’t afford sure seems interesting.
What would constitute having “heard” of this to you? Obvious all the AV Club coverage doesn’t count so I’m legitimately curiously.
That plucky startup, HBO! No wonder you never heard of it.
I hope it’s not Armond, you can always come back from a relapse and he’s obviously a good person when sober. But if the shows commentary about how only the non-elite characters face consequences despite it being the elite guests who essentially create so much of the pain in the show(and the world) then I worry it will be him though. Could also be Molly Shannon, leaving Shane alone if Daddario’s leaves him too and making him even more terrible.
Huh, I viewed his relapse as in part stemming from his realization that he’s a dick when he’s sober too.
I don’t think he realized that he was a dick when sober; I think that he realized he works so hard and is so singularly focused on guest relations that he missed the obvious signs that his trainee was in labor half the day. Once he realized that, combined with how shitty Shane was being, just kind of made him shrug his shoulders and say fuck it.
right and it is important to give armand the agency behind that shrug of shoulders and declaration of “fuck it.” that’s dude’s choice. his choice. heel-turn armand is so much more interesting (and accurate a reading of the show) than victim of mean customers armand
Armond isn’t a heel turn; he’s making bad decisions. Heel turn implies he is thwarting a good person; which Shane certainly is not. Armond is making bad choices and he’s a troll; but he isn’t a heel.
oh okay, my understanding of heel turn was that it was a good guy gone bad, regardless of who was bearing the brunt of the heel character’s actions, thanks for the clarification!
Armond was bad and just got worse. He fell off the wagon because his numerous attempts at gaslighting Shane failed at every turn. All his lies were just digging him in deeper. Armond thought Shane would’ve been more interested in his new bride, but he was dead wrong.
“gaslighting”Shane is a culmination I’m sure of terrible people and was the final straw for Armond. You can’t be angry for someone finally wanting to retaliate back after being treated as not a human being by the guests, and internalizing it to such a degree that you also start behaving like the guests in a topsy turvy way. Shane, Tanya and the family are bad people who will leave the employees destroyed.
You can’t be angry for someone finally wanting to retaliate back after being treated as not a human being by the guestsuh, yes, actually, you can!
you’re a total Shane lol!
i like to think i’m more of a kitty
Wife turned me on this show and as usual HBO doesn’t dissapoint. I have else nothing noteworthy to add to this discussion.
What if it’s just, like, some guy?
Everyone guessing Greg because of his coughing fits is ignoring the wording of the couple in the flash-forward scene – someone was “killed”. That’s not how I would describe someone who naturally succoumbed to some illness. Also, I don’t think it would be such widespread news that people off the island would’ve heard about it.
That’s why I think Tanya kills him, in sort of a Kevorkian style thing he asks for.
I agree. The death has to be A) unnatural and B) big enough that it has resort staff and guests talking about it at another resort on the island. Which is why it’s my assumption that it’s Armand (because resort staff probably know staff or even previously worked at The White Lotus, and I could definitely see them talking about Armand’s death). Otherwise, it’s a guest and it has to be violent or unusual enough that it’s got other resorts’ staff talking.A person dying of cancer or a heart attack or whatever isn’t going to be big enough news.
Yeah but I’m with Marah, why would Armond be getting shipped to America when he’s clearly Australian (that’s also why I think Kai is safe, from death anyway)?
The flight Shane was on was going to Honolulu, to the bigger hub airport. From there, the planes fly internationally.
Weren’t Shane and Rachel going on to Tahiti? That could definitely be the same plane someone would take en route to Australia.
What if it’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in the box? “What’s in the box?!”
The M Night twist ending: we find out in the finale that the airport scene in the beginning is actually Shane in purgatory and he’s watching his own body being loaded up on to the plane. 😛
From your lips to Mike White’s ears. I kind of hate it that we know for sure it’s not Shane.
That’s really good.I still actually think it might be Rachel. Only because everyone here has said it can’t be her, that’s too obvious, so in a way… She’s actually the least obvious choice.
Viewers keep misinterpreting “someone was killed”. Dying of an illness or an overdose is not being killed or getting killed, let alone being murdered. The death in question could be purposeful or it could be an accident. My money is on Quinn going off with the Hawaiian rowers and drowning. I hope not, though.
I’m going with Molly Shannon. She says she’s leaving in the morning and won’t see them. She dies overnight and the staff don’t find her till late in the afternoon. Shane seems too selfish to care about anyone else and/or too “un-self aware” to see a stranger’s body as some apt metaphor for his shit marriage. Unless he murdered Armond or something which seems a bit of a stretch.
Although in retrospect I forgot the “killed” line. Is Shane enough of a maniac to think his mother was “killed” by this place?
Shane didn’t say that. The couple pestering him did.
Although the couple saying that doesn’t preclude a “killing” to mean an accident of some sort to his mother. It does probably eliminate the die in her sleep theory.
Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but wtf is so great about this show? I forced myself to sit through 2 episodes and, yeah, some funny bits, but…what else?
“I really want her to go off and get a job at Jezebel”Jeez, I thought you said you liked that character.
If she comes out of this alive and with more successful journalist opportunities, that could bring her back for Season 2. What trade or site should she be hired by, though?
She’s an approaching mid-thirties woman with no real experience writing. Would even Jezebel hire her?
All of them, and then the plane goes down and takes Shane with it. Can that please be the case? And can the finale go full horror where we get to watch each one of these ass holes get taken out one by one in the most violent way possible?
I can tell everyone has favorites and, uh, not so favorites. I would vote for Armond but he seems like one of those survival Cucaracha types. They are not all bad, I think of Rachel and Quinn, Belinda perhaps. Tanya is a sad character but not mean, and her new love interest has a nasty cough but seems pleasant enough. Even the two girls with their attitude and dismissive selves are just kids, as is Kai and Dillion. There are annoying characters but not all of them are righteous A-holes..
Wait, where was the plane with the body going in Ep 1? Wouldn’t that be a big clue? All the guests and staff of Lotus don’t all go to same city afterward….
Chicago. That’s a hub, though. But that’s why I wrote in my entry I don’t think it’s Armond. Why would they be sending his body to Chicago or east at all?
No, when Shane was talking to the couple at the airport, they said the flight was going to Honolulu, which is the primary airport out of Hawaii. He was still in Maui. Nobody said anything about Chicago. I just watched the scene again to make sure.
I assumed going to Honolulu for an autopsy.
Obviously that’s an assumption, but even still, Chicago wasn’t mentioned at all.
No, they’re boarding a flight to Honolulu. Shane is from Chicago, but he’s supposed to have one more week of honeymoon, in Tahiti. (Here’s hoping Rachel has left his ass, though.)Honolulu is Hawaii’s major hub, so from there the body could be going anywhere. If it’s Armand (I’m worried that it is, which makes me sad), they’d fly him to Honolulu and then, presumably, further west to Australia.
While I really don’t have any idea who it will be, I don’t think Mike White is trying to trick us. Yes, Rachel seemed like the obvious candidate after that first scene, but it pretty quickly became clear that there was another plausible reason why she isn’t flying home with him and why he would be agitated about it. Once that’s out of the way, everybody is on the table.If not for the word “killed”, I’d be willing to lay a few bucks down on it being Greg in the box. Even with that, I’d say he’s still my front runner. But I’m also afraid it might be Quinn. The death of an innocent is the sort of downer ending prestige TV is famous for, so it wouldn’t surprise me. But I suspect that White thinks that the bigger tragedy would be more Quinn to go home and grow up to be a Mossbacher, so maybe Quinn makes it out alive.
I really hope Quinn makes it out alive. That little teenage weirdo has grown on me. I am a little surprised that nobody mentioned Mark Mossbacher as the potential death. That would seem like the kind of move a show like this would make. Let the guy get a little bit of his self respect back, then off him. But I would see Mark’s death being more of an accident, perhaps scuba diving or trying to save Quinn while diving, rather than a killing.Really, I don’t have a good sense of who would be killed, because as things end in the most recent episode, nobody really seems to be boiling over with murderous energy, and nobody seems so deep into something that they might be targeted.
I think it will be an innocent too. I’m guessing it will have something to do with Shane, but not by his hand. Some sort of fight that leads to a threat of violence and a bystander killed. Armond breaks, waives a knife at Shane from a safe distance from Shane, but doesn’t see (whoever, Dillon, Belinda) behind him. Rachel walks away. Open ended as to whether it’s permanent.
For all we know, Rachel might walk into the waiting room with water and snacks for the trip.
I think it’s going to be a completely tangential character, as there being a dead body at the end of a vacation is more to set the show’s mood of “Doom”
Shane doesn’t seem that sad about the person in the casket, he’s pissed off. Meaning — I think — the dead person is someone who’s passing was the final straw for Rachel. So I think it could be anyone Shane’s treated with more than unusual unkindness. Maybe Tanya or Armond. Not the Mossbachers, who are collectively despised by Rachel.
But I still worry about Quinn who seems to be the only rich, white character experiencing anything like revelatory growth. It would be dark to have him die but fit the bleak tone of the season. It that case, Shane’s mood is unrelated to the casket and the opening scene was a red herring.
I agree about Quinn – he’s as they said “dead weight”…
In a more conventional story his death would cause everyone to question their values, as they should have been doing all along. (“I learned something today…”)
Shane is annoyed he didn’t kill Armond himself.
I think Shane is irritated at the airport because Rachel dumped his ass and flew off on her own. The dead person is irrelevant to him.
I’ve been saying this since day one. He’s okay to mention the dead body, but not his wife’s whereabouts, suggesting there’s no connection between the two. He’s clearly annoyed, but he doesn’t seem to be grieving. I think the timing of the death coincided with Rachel leaving him, but he has no connection to the dead person.
I’m going to go with Kai who will ultimately get caught for stealing the jewelry. Maybe has an accident in his attempt to flee the authorities. It seems to me that the ruling class who vacation on the Island will most likely triumph and characters like Kai and Paula will be the victims. Seems to go along with the tone of the show. Although, it could also be Mark who thought he was going to get bad news from the doctor in the beginning of the show, but now has redeemed himself in the eyes of his wife. Mark’s death would also tie into the underlying dark themes of the series. Obviously, it really could be anybody, but considering that the body is being loaded onto the plane, I would assume that it would have to be one of the guest who were killed. This would rule out Kai and Armond as well as any of the Island staff. It could be Greg, but he just seems way too obvious but again, it really could be anyone of the island guests.
Why would they fly Kai’s body anywhere though? He’s from there, the island (assuming it’s Maui or the big island) still has all the municipal services you would use to handle a body.
Also why would Shane be acted all haunted & pissed off looking at the body of an employee that he never interacted with even once? He barely seems to regard “the help” as human.
Doesn’t Shane answer yes when the couple ask him if he’s headed home?So while everyone thinks Rachel would be too obvious, Shane is, at a minimum, not going to Tahiti as planned. I feel like if Rachel left Shane, Shane would still go to Tahiti.
He does say he’s headed home, but they say the flight they’re on is going to Honolulu.
But presumably he would have to go through Honolulu to go anywhere outside the islands.
Well, right, but I’m pretty sure either way he’s flying to Honolulu first.
Logically, how could it be someone other than Rachel or Kitty? Otherwise, why would Shane be at the airport at the same time as the body, presumably sharing a flight with the body. What are the odds that Shane would be on the same flight back with any of the other characters, who presumably live either somewhere else in the continental US (Tanya or the Mossbachers) or on the island (the staff)? Again, that assumes (a) that the body being loaded on the plane is the body of the person killed at the resort and (b) Shane is not looking at a plane that is not his own.
Shane was gazing morosely/sullenly/petulantly at the casket, which makes me think it’s Armond. But my other guesses are as follows: Mark, because he started the series having a cancer crisis, and he has made a big deal about having a close, honest relationship with Dillon, and he has finally won his family’s respect, so it’s a good time to die in a tragic scuba accident. Greg, because we know he has lung cancer and has gone on this trip as a last hurrah, and we’ve seen Tanya go absolutely apeshit at the idea of having her feelings hurt by being left by someone, and I think she could (maybe accidentally while flailing around?) bean him with the box with Mom’s ashes when he tells her about his condition. I am pissed off at Paula for luring Kai into doing something that will ruin his life, because he sure as hell doesn’t have the connections to fence those bangles for what they’re worth, and will surely get arrested, so I wouldn’t feel bad if Olivia killed her and then had to spend the rest of her snarky, spoiled life in jail, but I don’t think that happens.
I’m still in the grey, but yes, I also would put money on Mark for the exact same reasons you state.
I’ll be annoyed if it’s Greg, since we barely know him (also, again, why would Shane care?).
Shane doesn’t care. He was looking at the box with some resentment, as though its existence caused him some delay or inconvenience. It all depends on your inclination when looking at that sour face. He might be sad, or he might just be annoyed.
I don’t think Shane felt sadness, just frustration at the risk of things not being exactly the way he wants them all the time.
I’m reporting from the future, and my Olivia pick was incorrect. I don’t know if this was posted before or after the episode where SPOILERS, I GUESS, BUT PRESUMABLY YOU’VE ALL WATCHED TO THE END BY NOW Paul convinced Kai to rob the Mossbachers’ safe and Olivia very quickly figured out who did it. My thought was she would confront Kai trying again to get between Paul and him, let on that she knew and was going to tell, and he’d accidentally kill her. That would have thrown quite the wrench into the Mossbachers’ perfect world. But honestly letting the show end on the note it did was probably better. The earlier setup with Shane’s hero complex and Chekhov’s knife played out well.I’m glad Armond went out with a bang, in his words.
I was all on board the Armond train given Shane’s reaction in episode one and his downward spiral, but I think I’ve been convinced that it would be strange for his body to be on the same flight. That leaves our introductory characters who all came together on the boat, IMO.With that in mind, I’ll put my money down on Steven Zahn’s dad character. His fear of dying of cancer only to find he is cancer free, the new-found respect he’s garnered from his family, and the upcoming scuba trip all signal to me he’s a strong candidate to be offed.
Bureau of Land Management, not Labor. The Federal Government owns about 1/8 of US land, concentrated in the western states. BLM is a pretty big Federal agency…. with complexity too, monetizing, forestry, conservation, law enforcement, etc.
I laughed my ass off when he said “the BLM” and she went straight to Black Lives Matter. Gold.
One of the male Mossbachers. Possibly the elder. He finally gets his family’s respect, only to be killed by the family of sharks that live just off the beach. They are really adorable…
I have not yet seen “The Lotus Eaters” episode but if I had to choose I would pick Mark (Steve Zahn). First, there doesn’t seem to be any hard evidence that it’s not him, but more importantly it makes thematic sense: he enters the story worried that he might die, his father died when he was his age (or was it one year younger?), and other than obvious survivor Shane and teen weirdo Quinn—they wouldn’t dare kill a kid, right?—Mark is the most important straight white male character, and one of the big themes of the show is that the world could use fewer straight white males.Plus it seems like, emotionally speaking, he’s put his affairs in order: having been freed of his worship of his adulterous father, he goes and tells his son the truth about having an affair. In that sense, he’s paid for his father’s sins. It would not surprise me at all if he dies in some weirdly heroic way, thus fulfilling his lifelong desire to be “the good guy.”
I kind of want all of the guests except for Quinn to die, as they are all pretty horrible people… but I know that’s not possible.Frankly, I think that it is either Rachel or Kitty in the box, as needlessly obvious as it may seem. There’s no one else Shane would care about enough to mourn, aside from himself.
Least likely is poor, poor Kai. Things are going to end badly for him, but in the form of a 15 year bid for daring to accost the American royal class (plus he’s an islander, so why would his body be getting shipped to the mainland anyway?). Most likely is Quinn, although Quinn dying+Kai going to jail would be one nuclear weapon of a downer ending, even for Mike White.