There Are So Many Deleted Scenes From the <i>White Lotus</i> Season 3 Finale
Spoilers below for The White Lotus.
There was already so much to digest in Sunday’s season 3 finale of The White Lotus, which clocked in with a 90-minute runtime. But it was initially two and a half hours long (at least according to cast member Patrick Schwarzenegger), which means a bunch of material did not make the final cut. From unexpected hookups to more monologues, here are the scenes that were left on the cutting room floor from that explosive final episode.
Chelsea and Rick had a sweet moment in the bedroom.
Aimee Lou Wood told The Hollywood Reporter:
“There was this beautiful scene with Rick and Chelsea that didn’t make it into the final episode, and I completely get why it didn’t because it would’ve been a double beat. But there was a scene where they’re back in the bedroom, and she asks him if he did anything bad [while he was away], and he says no, and she knows that he’s telling the truth and she’s very happy and joyful. And then she says, ‘This year’s my Saturn return, so it’s either going to be the best or the worst year, and I think it’s going to be the best, don’t you?’ And he says, ‘I do.’ And then he picks her up and he kisses her and he puts her on the bed. And it was beautiful, but if we’d had that, then the scene where he says, ‘That’s the plan’ wouldn’t have been as special. So, I know why it had to go. There was lots of Rick and Chelsea stuff that didn’t make it…”
Wood also shared other scenes that were removed outside of the finale. For example, in the script, before she and Walton Goggins were cast as Chelsea and Rick, there was a scene where Chelsea talks about Rick’s money.
“She’d be like, ‘Oh, it’s okay when you spend money, but not when I spend money,’ and he’s like, ‘Yeah, because it’s my money and you’re not my wife.’ And she’s like, ‘But we’re soulmates; that’s what you said in Cancun.’ And he says, ‘But we were on meth.’ There was way more like that, but it was cut because we can’t have anyone doubt, even for a second, that Chelsea loves Rick,” Wood explained to THR.
She added that “there were other moments where Chelsea fucking gives it to him and those big, fucking gnarly arguments didn’t make it in either.”
The ladies’ dinner scene was longer.Carrie Coon (Laurie) revealed that “so much of our material” in the three women’s storyline was cut, but she understands that some things have to be cut for time when you’re working in television.
“There’s a pickleball monologue that’s gone too...it was Kate’s monologue,” she told The Wrap in a video.
“The scenes with the women are some of the longest scenes in the script,” she added. In fact the scene of Laurie, Kate, and Jaclyn at dinner, where Coon delivers a heartfelt monologue about friendship, “is probably twice as long [in the script] as what you see in the show.”
She even mentioned that “there’s a whole dream sequence of Kate” that was removed in the show, too. “There’s rich character stuff that’s being left on the floor, and every single actor on the show has that stuff,” Coon said.
And in episode 2, when the friends are comparing their biomarker test results, the conversation about beans—when Kate discusses her diet—was also meant to be longer. Coon remembers showrunner Mike White telling her on set, “‘And now Laurie, say you love medium beans!’ He just wanted more beans on prestige TV.”
Piper loses her virginity to Zion.
Yup, it’s true. White originally wrote a scene where Piper hooks up with Belinda’s son after she realizes life in the monastery is not for her. It’s meant to represent how Piper, who began the season in touch with her spirituality, and her brother Saxon, who began more in touch with his carnal side, reversed morals by the finale.
“She’s like, ‘It’s true, Saxon’s right about this one thing, I need to get this over with.’ After she leaves the monastery, she’s just like, ‘I need to have sex.’ And she’s scoping the restaurant,” White revealed on the official White Lotus podcast. But ultimately the scene didn’t fit in the episode. “You know, it’s an hour and a half already, and it would have added like 10 minutes to the thing.”
He also added that the tone of the scene didn’t really fit either: “It had a little bit of a romantic rom-com vibe in the middle of, you know, trying to kill the family with the pong pong fruits....It just felt like I was trying to do too much narratively.”
This story will be updated.
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