Walton Goggins appeared on “CBS Morning” on Monday to discuss the explosive season finale of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” which has left fans reeling from its unexpected twists and revelations.
The actor, who portrayed Rick, a man searching for answers about his father’s mysterious past at a luxury resort in Thailand, opened up about the shocking finale that no one saw coming.
“I finally have people to talk to,” Goggins joked during the interview, referring to having to keep the finale’s secrets for so long.
Despite numerous fan theories circulating online, particularly on TikTok, Goggins revealed that no one correctly predicted the finale’s outcome. “All of us had the good fortune of listening to people tell us their version of the story out on the street,” he said. “Some of them got very close, but no one guessed it.”
Spoiler Warning
The interview included a spoiler warning before discussing the major revelation that Rick’s quest to find the man he believed killed his father ended with him killing Jim (played by Scott Glenn) – only to discover that Jim was actually his father.
“I sympathize so greatly with Rick’s pain, because his entire life story was defined by this event,” Goggins explained. He noted that in the moment of revelation, creator Mike White’s genius showed through as “Rick only has a couple of seconds to register it before he is being fired at.”
Goggins also discussed a particularly memorable scene with fellow actor Sam Rockwell, who delivered an intense monologue in episode five. He revealed that since they’re good friends off-screen, they approached the scene with minimal preparation.
“Sam’s a really good friend of mine… We didn’t rehearse it. We didn’t really even talk about it very much at all,” Goggins said. “We just kind of sat opposite this table, and he just kind of went into it the way that he went into it, and it happened so organically.”
Beyond the shocking paternal revelation, Goggins touched on Rick’s relationship with Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), describing it as “the first love story in ‘The White Lotus.’”
“It was always a love story,” Goggins said, explaining how their relationship at the beginning of the season had evolved significantly from when they first met three years prior.
Beyond the finale, the series continues to stay in the news. Late last week, Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, the acclaimed composer of “The White Lotus,” said he won’t be back for Season 4. In an interview with the New York Times, the three-time Emmy winner said he and creator Mike White had different visions for the show’s theme song, which started in Season 1 and intensified during production of the third season. For the show’s first two seasons, Tapia de Veer’s eery theme song contributed to the show’s unsettling atmosphere with strange sounds including a recurring “ooh-loo-loo-loo” chorus. But the “ooh-loo-loo-loos” were cut for Season 3, igniting confusion.
This season, the composer said White had in mind more of “background music … a song that is more like something you would listen to in Ibiza, in some clubby place with a chill, sexy vibe.” Ultimately, for Season 3, the theme song became more of a traditional lounge tune (sans the “ooh-loo-loo-loos”), which has divided fans of the show.
