The Surprising Dharma of the “White Lotus” Finale

The White Lotus has been dominating the TV conversation for weeks, producing memes (“Piper, noooo!”) and endless online discourse about incest, male onscreen nudity, and Lorazepam. But one major facet of this season has fueled fewer hot takes and text chains: its overt Buddhism. (Warning: major spoilers ahead.)

Though the show, as a watercooler sensation, keeps plot details secret until it airs, creator Mike White teased the season by saying it would be about “death and Eastern religion and spirituality.” As a practicing Buddhist, I went into the season, set in predominantly Buddhist Thailand, quite skeptical, as I do when any pop culture tries to tackle Buddhism. Would it just be reduced, as it is so often, to a bunch of platitudes about peace and love? 

White’s anthology series features a different set of ultra-wealthy characters each season (with a bit of overlap) vacationing at a different White Lotus luxury resort location. Each season ends in a death, allowing viewers to try to guess how it will happen as guests and staff clash with each other throughout the group’s stay. This season focused on the Thai location that’s apparently near a major monastery, which is of particular interest to 20-something Piper Ratliff (Sarah Catherine Hook), who has lured her wealthy North Carolina family there under the pretense of writing a thesis about the monks there. In fact, however, she is hoping to spend a year there, but knows her parents will object.

“In reality, Buddhist practice is nothing but returning, returning, and returning again after having strayed, a larger version of what we do when we sit.”

Tackling major religious themes is an ambitious goal for an already overstuffed and tonally unique franchise like White Lotus, which offers a blend of camp, satire, slapstick, soap, and murder mystery. While other seasons have taken on class warfare, adding serious spirituality to the mix is a gamble. Perhaps buckling under the weight of it all, this season at times felt plodding, clumsy, and heavy-handed, with characters’ motivations often unclear. The Hollywood Reporter wondered if it was a “series low point” that’s “probably more rewarding to think about than it was to watch.”

On the other hand, every week it delivered quotable lines, shocking moments, and tour de force acting performances, and the finale made for a decent, if imperfect, examination of those promised Buddhist themes. In the 87-minute final installment, after Piper has revealed that she doesn’t think she can handle the spartan monastery life after all, the Ratliffs head home, presumably about to learn that patriarch Tim (Jason Isaacs) has lost their money in a financial scheme and is probably going to prison. That’s why he’s been popping his wife’s anxiety meds all week — and why he nearly poisoned two of his kids and his wife with deadly pina coladas the night before. Meanwhile, the spiritual and free-spirited Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), who turned eldest Ratliff child Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) down for sex and gave him books on Buddhism instead, died with her soulmate Rick (Walton Goggins) in a climactic shootout. There, professed Buddhist security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) abandoned his values to prove himself to his employers and his girlfriend.

Yes, The White Lotus is a lot.

I am not a Buddhist teacher nor a practitioner in the Theravada tradition that’s depicted on the series; I am a Zen student of 15 years and a professional pop culture critic. (In fact, for a teacher’s take, please see this piece by Carlo Carranza.) But from that perspective, I can tell you about the parts of this season and its resolution that worked for me as a keen observer of the ways Buddhism is portrayed in mainstream culture.

I got nervous when the Ratliffs all went to check out the monastery together, worried for how cartoonish it might be. But it seemed reasonable, even if every detail wasn’t perfect. The scenery-chewing Parker Posey as Victoria Ratliff offered some hilariously over-the-top resistance to her daughter’s spiritual journey that particularly resonated with me as an American who was raised Christian and not taught to seek other traditions. Victoria’s insistence that one of the major world religions could be a “cult” run by a “guru” that she needed to be rescued from feels very much like some reactions I have experienced as a native Midwesterner from friends and family. (On the other hand, it wasn’t the worst idea for Victoria and Tim to check things out just in case; there have, indeed, been Buddhist-adjacent cults and bad Buddhist actors, alas, as a number of documentaries will tell you.) 

However, this monastery appears to be quite lovely, and dad Tim seems moved by Abbot Luang Por Teera words when he meets with him one-on-one: “Everyone runs from pain towards the pleasure,” the teacher says, “but when they get there, only to find more pain. You cannot outrun pain.”

The abbot, incidentally, is played with authenticity and gravitas by Suthichai Yoon, a famous Thai journalist and television personality who has documented his own journey of faith, studying under Thich Nhat Hanh. (His grounded performance feels informed by the famous Zen teacher.) Meditation, he teaches Piper and Lochy later during a group session, is about facing truth and suffering in your own life — a step forward from the way that meditation is often portrayed as a miracle cure. The abbot’s words, too, seem to at least eventually sink in for Tim as the patriarch calmly faces heading home with his family about to find out what he’s done. He cannot outrun pain, or consequences.

On the other hand, security guard Gaitok was wildly underdeveloped as a character throughout the season, but his Buddhism — which had him questioning the very nature of his job, where everyone around him was encouraging him to be more aggressive — infused his climactic moment with some import. I actually believed he might choose his Buddhist values in the end, but instead he fired the shot that killed Rick and changed his own life, elevating him to the vaunted position of bodyguard to the resort’s owners. The setup was cartoonish and contrived, with his crush Mook constantly haranguing him to be more ambitious, and Chekhov’s proverbial gun obsessing him throughout the season. But it was nice to feel even a hint of hesitation in the kind of classic gun battle we’ve gotten so used to seeing in American entertainment that we rarely question whether or why someone might shoot.

Another Buddhist journey depicted on the show lends some extra resonance to Gaitok’s: that of Frank (Sam Rockwell), Rick’s old friend and co-conspirator. When the two reunite after years apart, Frank explains, in a monologue that’s arguably the highlight of the season, how he found sobriety and Buddhism after an obliterating period of sex addiction and autogynephilia.

“I got into Buddhism, which is all about, you know, spirit versus form, detaching from self, getting off the never-ending carousel of lust and suffering,” he explains after a riveting tale of complex desire. After helping Rick with his revenge plot against the man he believes killed his father, Frank goes on a bender that ends once again with cavorting with local prostitutes. But when we see him in the same ending montage that shows Gaitok as a bodyguard, Frank is back to his practice. I’ve seen some criticism online of this, that genuine spiritual practice doesn’t allow for “cheat days,” and I get that. But I’ve learned that in reality, Buddhist practice is nothing but returning, returning, and returning again after having strayed, a larger version of what we do when we sit — wander through thoughts, then return to our breath and the moment. 

Granted, for most of us, this straying might look more like not sitting as much as we should, or telling a lie or gossiping, not, you know, drug-fueled group sex after helping an old friend lie to possibly kill a guy. Still, I found his juxtaposition with Gaitok telling. We had a “good” Buddhist go bad, and a “bad” Buddhist return. Maybe someday, Gaitok will return, too. 

If there’s anything I’m sure about, it’s that pretty much every character on this show could have used some major quality time at that monastery, and it’s a shame that no one checked in. Maybe next season?