Inside a 'White Lotus' Theory That Points to How and Why Someone Dies by the End of Season 3
Multiple actors in 'The White Lotus' Season 3 were in 'The Staircase.'
Published Feb. 26 2025, 11:29 a.m. ET
Every season of The White Lotus presents a mystery to solve about who dies, and that's the case for Season 3 too. While the general storylines among the ensemble cast of characters doesn't leave much room for theorizing, there are ideas that fans develop, and one fan's White Lotus theory involving The Staircase, the true crime miniseries, has some meat to it.
Viewers know that someone is found floating face down in the water by the end of the week-long vacation in the third season of the HBO and Max show. The theory points to who dies in Season 3 and why they are the obvious choice for the vacationer that doesn't go home the same way they arrived in Thailand.
There is a 'White Lotus' theory about the miniseries 'The Staircase.'
A user on TikTok by the name of @lexopedia0, or Lex, shared her theory about who dies in The White Lotus Season 3 and why it is connected to The Staircase. The latter is the true story of Michael Peterson, a novelist who was accused of killing his wife after she was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in their home. The Staircase is a miniseries from MAX, where The White Lotus is also streamed, and there are some serious similarities according to Lex.
In the true crime story surrounding Peterson, one of his and his late wife's friends, Elizabeth Ratliff, also died from a fall down a staircase. Ratliff was from a prominent Durham, N.C. family of the same name. In The White Lotus, the affluent Ratliff family is also from Durham, which the TikTok user points out. But it gets far deeper from there, and according to the video she posted, one of the members of the Ratliff family dies in The White Lotus.
"The monkeys are going to kill Parker Posey," Lex shared in one of her videos about The White Lotus and its link to The Staircase. Posey plays Victoria Ratliff. Then, she explains why. "In the show, the dad has money issues. In real life, Mike Peterson had money issues. In the show, the mom is on prescription drugs. In real life, Kathleen Peterson was on prescription drugs."
She also adds that, in The Staircase, there is a theory about owls inadvertently causing Kathleen Peterson's fall. Since monkeys are such a big part of The White Lotus's third season, the TikTok user says in her video that the monkeys will be responsible for Victoria's death. If this is true, then the gunshots heard at the top of the season premiere as a flash forward might have nothing to do with who dies.
The 'White Lotus' deaths are never what they seem.
Each season of The White Lotus has viewers trying to figure out which angry character kills another in a fit or passion or rage. But, Lex points on in her theories about the Ratliffs and Season 3, that's never how it happens. Instead, someone is killed in a silly or accidental way. So the gunshots that viewers believed to be the source of the Season 3 death probably aren't.
Going by the deaths of characters in the first two seasons, it does make sense for monkeys to be the reason someone dies in the third season. And if it's Victoria, one of the more outlandish characters, then that also falls into the formula.
Watch The White Lotus on Sundays at 9 p.m. EST on HBO and MAX.