Warning: The rest of this article contains major spoilers for The White Lotus season three finale
The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood has explained why the death of her character in the series finale was inevitable.
In the series finale that aired on 6 April, Wood’s character Chelsea catches a stray bullet during a shootout and dies in the arms of her partner, Rick, played by Walton Goggins. He then carries her across a bridge before he is shot in the back and falls leaving the pair submerged in water, side by side.
In a new interview with GQ Hype, Wood said that her character was the “sacrificial lamb” who pays the price for worshipping romantic love.
Wood continued: “[Chelsea’s] the most hopeful character on the show and that’s why she has to die, but obviously on a human level it is really fricking sad.”
Wood added that the show’s creator Mike White was questioning whether he had made the right choice to kill off the character.
“He doubted it a lot,” Wood said. “He came up to me a few times and said, ‘Are people going to hate me too much? I don’t know if this is too far.’”
Speaking about the final scene in which Chelsea and Rick float in water, Wood explained: “We had to fall down together and you see us rising up, all of that took a long time,” she says. “I kept flipping and we’d have to cut and start again. We were in there the whole day. I had to hold my breath for a bloody long time.”
Fans have been sharing their disappointment with the ending, with one fan writing on X/Twitter: “Of course, they kill off the only likeable character in the show and she was the one.”
Another person added: “So freaking unnecessary to kill Chelsea! She became one of my favourite characters along with Laurie & Belinda! Good season but the finale was entertaining but frustrating.”
An outraged viewer wrote: “CHELSEA MY SWEET ANGEL! ! ! ! F*** YOU MIKE WHITE! ! ! ! ! HOW DARE YOU? ! !”
Speaking about her casting in the series, Wood added that White “fought” for her to have a role in the series, but she felt as though HBO didn’t want her.
“Someone told me how much Mike had fought for me. They said ‘it had to be you, no matter what HBO said.’”
“It was honestly from the nicest place, but my little head goes: ‘HBO didn’t want me. And I know why HBO didn’t want me, it’s because I'm ugly. Mike had to say ‘Please let me have the ugly girl!’” she said. “That was the thing that was in my head.”
The third season aired to mixed reviews, with The Independent’s Adam White giving the episode three stars, calling it a “violent end to a bad season”.
“It remains unclear whether the show’s sole writer and director Mike White intended for this season to be quite so narratively repetitive, with his players cycling through the same conversations for episodes on end. Perhaps that was the (agonising) point?”
White added: “No one in their right mind wants to see the wonderful Aimee Lou Wood, with her giant, hopeful eyes and toothy radiance, bleeding to death with a bullet hole in her chest".
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