news

White Lotus Finale

Published: 2025-03-31 16:15:17 5 min read
Portia’s ‘White Lotus’ Finale Outfit May Be Her Most Chaotic Look Yet

HBO’s, created by Mike White, is a satirical anthology series that dissects the lives of wealthy guests and exploited staff at luxury resorts.

The Season 1 finale, which aired in August 2021, culminates in a shocking death revealed in the opening scene while unraveling themes of colonialism, class, and performative allyship.

The finale’s ambiguous resolution forces viewers to confront uncomfortable truths about systemic inequality and the illusion of justice.

The finale exposes the hollowness of performative justice in a system rigged by privilege, using narrative ambiguity, character arcs, and symbolic violence to critique the perpetuation of inequality even in moments of apparent reckoning.

The finale’s central tragedy Armond’s (Murray Bartlett) murder by Shane (Jake Lacy) epitomizes the show’s critique of privilege.

Despite Shane’s negligence and aggression, he faces no consequences, boarding his flight home unscathed.

Scholar Sarah Banet-Weiser argues in (2018) that wealthy white men often evade accountability through networks of institutional protection.

Shane’s smug smile in the finale underscores this: justice is a luxury the powerless cannot afford.

Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), a wealthy white guest, co-opts Belinda’s (Natasha Rothwell) trauma for self-actualization, promising her a business partnership before abandoning her.

The finale reveals this as another colonial transaction emotional labor extracted from a Black woman and discarded.

As philosopher Frantz Fanon wrote in (1952), colonialism thrives on the exploitation of the oppressed’s desire for recognition.

Belinda’s crushed hopes mirror real-world dynamics where marginalized individuals are instrumentalized for elite redemption arcs.

The finale’s lack of resolution for the Mossbachers a family embodying white liberal hypocrisy mirrors sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence (, 2001), where oppressive systems endure because victims internalize their subjugation.

Quinn’s (Fred Hechinger) escape to Hawaii with the boat crew is the sole happy ending, but his freedom hinges on abandoning his family’s wealth a fleeting, individualistic solution to systemic rot.

Some critics, like ’s Shirley Li, praise the finale’s realism: The lack of catharsis reflects life’s unfairness.

Others, like ’s Kathryn VanArendonk, argue it risks nihilism: Without narrative consequences, the satire loses teeth.

These debates echo academic discussions about art’s role in confronting injustice.

Cultural theorist Lauren Berlant (, 2011) might argue the finale’s ambiguity mirrors the cruel optimism of believing justice is possible under capitalism.

- Banet-Weiser, S.

Who Died on 'The White Lotus'? Season Finale Spoilers Revealed! (Full

(2018).

Duke UP.

- Fanon, F.

(1952).

Grove Press.

- Bourdieu, P.

(2001).

Stanford UP.

- Berlant, L.

(2011).

Duke UP.

The finale is a masterclass in exposing systemic inequity through narrative restraint.

By denying catharsis, it forces audiences to sit with the discomfort of unpunished privilege mirroring a world where wealth insulates the guilty.

The broader implication is clear: without structural change, justice remains a performative spectacle, and the White Lotus resort is merely a microcosm of a broken system.

As viewers, we are complicit if we demand tidy resolutions instead of confronting the rot beneath the luxury.