Similar to its first season, the big mystery in season 2 of HBO's The White Lotus was the identities of the dead bodies first seen in the season premiere. Ultimately, the season 2 finale of The White Lotus left fans heartbroken after it was revealed that returning season 1 cast member Tanya was the dead body floating in the ocean in the first episode of the season. During a post-finale chat with TVLine, White Lotus creator and director Mike White explained why he'd chosen to kill off Jennifer Coolidge's character in the second season.
During the season 2 finale, Coolidge's Tanya discovers a connection between her estranged husband, Greg, and her new friend Quentin. After realizing that Quentin isn't who he seems, Tanya steals his black bag and discovers that he's carrying masking tape, bags, a rope, and a gun. Unsurprisingly she freaks out and ends up shooting and killing Quentin and Niccoló. Afterward, Tanya tries to leave the yacht by jumping below to a speedboat, but instead, she accidentally hits her head on the edge of the boat and falls into the water, where she ends up drowning.
Though viewers were shocked by the character's death, White reminded TVLine that back in the first season of White Lotus, Tanya had stated that she had done pretty much everything imaginable, but "death is the last immersive experience I haven't tried." White added, "but maybe that's the journey for her: a journey to death. Not that I really wanted to kill Tanya, because I love her as a character and obviously love Jennifer, but I just felt like we're going to Italy, [and] she's such a diva, a larger-than-life female archetype. It just felt like we could devise our own operatic conclusion to Tanya's life and her story."
Mike White Didn’t Want to Have Another Character Kill Tanya
Still, White didn't want Tanya's death to be another character's doing. "It felt like she needed to give her best fight back, and that she, in a way, had some kind of victory over whoever was conspiring to get rid of her. So it just made me laugh to think she would take out this whole cabal of killers and that, after she's successfully done that, she just dies this derp-y death. It just felt like that's so Tanya."
HBO has already renewed the series for a third season, so what's next for The White Lotus? Well, according to White, while the first two seasons focused on money and sex, season 3 will be "a kind of satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at White Lotus." Even so, White didn't reveal where the next season will take place.