HBO‘s The White Lotus brought its third season to a close in quite the deadly fashion, though it almost included a surprising sex scene, according to series creator Mike White.
While the first two seasons began with a flash-forward scene that teased one death that would be revealed in the finale, there were three people killed this season – Rick (Walton Goggins), his girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and hotel owner Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn).
As it turned out, though, the 90-minute season finale almost included a sex scene between the chaste Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Zion (Nicholas Duvernay), the son of Belinda (Natasha Rothwell).
The surprising detail was revealed by White on the official White Lotus Season 3 podcast that debuted after the finale aired on Sunday night.
While it doesn’t seem that the scene was actually filmed, he did write it into the finale script, though it was cut at some point.
‘The part that was cut too, which is very disappointing, is that she decides to lose her virginity in the script in the last episode. And she actually has sex with Zion,’ White revealed, which stunned podcast hosts Jia Tolentino and Josh Bearman.
The White Lotus season 3 finale almost included a sex scene between the chaste Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Zion (Nicholas Duvernay), the son of Belinda (Natasha Rothwell)
That scene would have brought things full circle, in a way, for Piper, since in the season premiere her brother Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) told her other brother Lochlan (Sam Nivola) about how Piper was ‘hot’ but didn’t think she’s had sex yet.
Lochlan – who had a much stronger bond with Piper than Saxon – even brought it up in a private conversation but she didn’t confirm or deny that she was a virgin.
White added, ‘There’s a whole scene where she’s like, “It’s true. Saxon’s right about this one thing. I need to get this over with.” And you know, like after she leaves the monastery, she’s just like, “I need to…” You know, “I need to, like, have sex.”‘
He added in that scene she was ‘scoping the restaurant’ and ultimately finds Zion, though the scene was ultimately cut for time.
‘It was just like one of these things where it was like… you know, it’s an hour and a half already. And it would have added, like, ten minutes to the thing,’ White said.
He added, ‘And it had a little bit of a romantic rom-com vibe in the middle of like, you know, trying to kill the family with the… with the pong pong fruits. And it was just like… It just felt like I was trying to do too much, you know, narratively.’
White also said when he was tinkering with ideas for the Ratliff family, he was playing off the Mossbacher family in the first season, which had a pair of contentious siblings played by Sydney Sweeney and Fred Hechinger.
‘And then as far as Saxon and Piper, I was trying to think about the last family and how it began with a Sydney Sweeney’s character being like, “We don’t want you in here.” And the kid has to go sleep on the beach. Cause like, he’s this kind of like, you know, reject. And I was like, what could be the… something that feels like it’s like a play on that, which is like, they all want him in his room,’ White said.
While it doesn’t seem that the scene was actually filmed, he did write it into the finale script, though it was cut at some point.
That scene would have brought things full circle, in a way, for Piper, since in the season premiere her brother Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) told her other brother Lochlan (Sam Nivola) about how Piper was ‘hot’ but didn’t think she’s had sex yet
Lochlan – who had a much stronger bond with Piper than Saxon – even brought it up in a private conversation but she didn’t confirm or deny that she was a virgin
He added in that scene she was ‘scoping the restaurant’ and ultimately finds Zion, though the scene was ultimately cut for time.
HBO ‘s The White Lotus brought its third season to a close in quite the deadly fashion , though it almost included a surprising sex scene, according to series creator Mike White
He added, ‘One kid is sort of, like, this carnal… Not only just exists that way, but actually has a philosophy around it, which is, like, you want to get pussy. Like, the pleasures of life are very basic and, like, you know, and that, like, life is about wanting things and getting them.’
‘And if you can get them, then you’re gonna be happy. You know what I mean? And a lot of times, people who… retreat from life are just afraid that they’re not going to be able to get the things they want. Or they say they don’t actually want the things they want,’ White added.
While that’s Saxon’s ideology, Piper was into Buddhism, ‘a whole religion about that, which is renounce things because wanting things is suffering. And so it’s just two different arguments.’
