How the petals fall

7 questions for White Lotus Season 3 finale

- NOEL MURRAY

Season 3 of The White Lotus has been the show’s longest, with creator Mike White spending eight episodes instead of six or seven to tell the stories of super-rich tourists and their messed-up personal problems. The extra time has allowed White to now hit pause a bit, to enrich the hour meditation-vibe of the high-end Thailand resort where this season takes place.

But has there been violence? Oh yes. Kinky sex? The kinkiest. Unresolved mysteries? Of course, as storylines that have some to us re-appear from The White Lotus has been abundant this season. Episode 1 began with gunshots, and in the weeks since we have seen armed robbery, white-collar crime, multiple violent threats and arguments and — yikes — fratri-cial incest.

As this season heads into its supersized finale on Sunday night — at around 90 minutes, it will be the show’s longest episode to date — here are a few of the questions we hope will get some answers.

Will Gaitok get a promotion?

This may not seem like the most urgent issue facing The White Lotus characters this year, but I think that by the time the season ends, it will turn out to be very important. Granted, one of the biggest complaints about this season — especially as compared with seasons 1 and 2 — is that White has not integrated the resort’s staff into the story as well as he usually does.

But from way over here, from outside security guard Gaitok (Jayme Thiapanichpong) has been moving closer to the heart of the plot. In Episode 7, he realised that a major heist at the resort was in fact unlikely to yield any money, thanks to Victoria (Valeriya Fedorovych) and his two Russian friends.