‘The White Lotus’ Is Setting Up A Specific Murderer, So It’s Probably Not Them

This week on The White Lotus, a few of season 2’s grand plans came into sharper focus ahead of next week’s finale where yes, the show is ending after seven episodes, not eight, like you might expect (season 1 was six episodes).

So, it’s pretty clear that Lucia is planning to scam Albie and his whole family out of some large sum of money to “free her” from prostitution, and all this stuff with Alessio is an elaborate set-up for a con.

Simultaneously, while we don’t know the exact nature of his plan, it’s also apparent that Quentin has some sort of scheme to extract a bunch of money from Tonya, whether it’s through blackmail or kidnapping or something like that, as hinted at by his drunken not-nephew, Jack.

But at least at the moment, it’s hard to see either of these plotlines leading to the deaths that have bodies of guests washing up on shore at the end of the series, which we saw at the beginning of the first episode. Rather, the potential murder seems tied to the pair of couples, Daphe and Cam, Harper and Ethan.

Right now, what The White Lotus appears to want to set up is that Ethan is now obsessed with the idea that Harper has cheated on him with Cam as revenge for her thinking he cheated on her with a hooker while she was in Noho. We got a sequence where Ethan is imagining Harper and Cam hooking up in their room right before he got there, though I have to believe that showing that almost makes it abundantly clear it didn’t actually happen. My guess is that while Harper knew what it would look like, and it would drive Ethan crazy, this is her form of revenge on him for lying, her “do what you have to do to feel better” advice from Daphne, and she’s just messing with him.

However, you may…not want to mess with Ethan, or at least that’s what The White Lotus is suggesting. It feels like what the show wants you to think happens is that in a jealous rage, Ethan kills Cam and maybe also Harper, and their bodies are discovered by Daphne floating in the ocean in the opener.

But this is The White Lotus, and season 1 of that show ended with the advertised death being the concierge being accidentally stabbed by a guest after he took a dump on their luggage. The point being…if something feels like a predictable ending, that is probably not going to be what happens.

My secret theory is that Daphne may be the killer, and may finally exact her last revenge on Cam. Daphne has already shown that her version of “revenge” is deeply messed up, purposefully having her trainer father at least one of her children that Cam thinks are his, so how far would she take it, if she really did know about all his sins, or suspected he’d hooked up with Harper on this trip?

I suppose it could be the other groups. Lucia is killed when her scam plan goes wrong. Tanya and Portia are killed by their criminal hosts and dumped in the sea, I don’t know. But I do know that Ethan is probably not going to murder two people, even if that’s what The White Lotus currently wants us to think. We’ll find out next week.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.