‘The White Lotus’ breaks its own ratings record and the victim talks about that shocking final twist

Warning, SPOILERS!

*This article includes spoilers from the end of “The White Lotus” season 2. If you haven’t seen it, don’t read on.

When in doubt, we can now classify “The White Lotus” as one of the public phenomena of the year. The HBO anthology series, created by Mike White, just wrapped its second season, cementing its success with audiences, as well as its prime position in the series conversation this year. In a scenario where it is increasingly difficult to keep the public’s attention alive, the series has managed to grow in viewers every week, something that can be directly attributed to the classic weekly premiere format with which HBO continues to prevail over binge-watching. And, of course, its quality.

The second season of ‘The White Lotus’ resulted in a large increase in its viewership compared to the first. This second batch enjoyed an average of 10.1 million viewers per episode in the United States, 50% more than the first season., according to The Hollywood Reporter. The seventh and final episode, in which the identity of the victim proceeding from the first chapter was revealed, reached 4.1 million viewers on all HBO platforms in the United States, only on its first night of broadcast; that is to say more than double compared to the end of the first season (closed with 1.9 million). It’s also an impressive 46% increase from the previous season 2 episode, which already surpassed the previous series’ record with 2.8 million.

Initially conceived as a miniseries, ‘The White Lotus’ has become one of the great television revelations of 2021, upsetting the latest edition of the Emmys with 10 statuettes, including Best Miniseries. Its success led HBO to revamp it as an anthology series, with a new location and cast. The series, which narrates the stay of a group of privileged people in a resort of the fictional brand The White Lotus, was set in Hawaii in the first season and crossed over to Sicily in the second. The only character from the former who was repeated in the latter is Tanya McQuoid, played by Jennifer Coolidge. The Series It has already been renewed for a third season and there are rumors that it will take us to an Asian destination..

A blow to the public

If she was already an eminence in comedy, Jennifer Coolidge shot to fame thanks to her acclaimed work in “The White Lotus”, which earned her the Emmy for best supporting actress in a miniseries in the last edition of these awards, and that without a doubt we will see nominated again for the second season. Her character, Tanya, has become the main banner of the series, being the only one to appear in its two seasons to date, and with her portrayal has achieved iconic status. Therefore the ending was a blow to fans of the series, revealing that she is the drowning victim this season.

Although White has played tricks on us to survive, Tanya ends up dying in the most tragically serendipitous way. After discovering that the group of gays who have taken her in as their queen are actually in league with her husband and are planning to kill her to inherit her fortune, Tanya manages to shoot him. But when she tries to escape from the yacht where the violent confrontation takes place, slips and hits his head hard, falling into the sea and thus losing his life.

After the premiere of the episode, which shocked fans with this tragic turn, Coolidge opened up about the death of his character. In an interview with Variety, the actress reveals her reaction when the showrunner told her her character was going to die this season. “I didn’t like it at all!”Coolidge is sincere. “But Mike White is a genius, so I knew my ending was going to be good. When he told me I was going to die, I didn’t have the ending yet, I hadn’t fully orchestrated it. I was sorry, but Mike tells a story better than anyone else, so I knew I had to trust him. It’s impossible to convince Mike White of anything, so I’ll have to go on a different adventure this year and maybe visit Mike when they shoot season three.”.

Throughout his career, Coolidge has become an absolute icon for the LGBTQ+ community. For this White knew exactly what he was doing when he decided that Tanya was going to die at the hands of a group of homosexuals. “That’s So Mike White”says Coolidge of that wickedly ironic final blow. “That situation wouldn’t have occurred to me. Gay men can be vicious, but they tend to be the good guys in a lot of the movies I’ve seen. Mike White described them as twisted men with corrupted souls. He told me, ‘you end up kidnapped by a group of… shall we say, bad gays.’ I was fascinated”.