It gets worse: In the exchange of gunfire after the assassination, Chelsea was shot and killed.

Gaitok and Mook

After realizing last week that Valentin and his pals Aleksei and Vlad had most likely robbed the White Lotus’s luxury goods store, Gaitok faced a choice. Should he tell his bosses, Fabian and Pee Lek, and let them handle it? Or should he try to advance his career — and win Mook’s heart — by confronting the Russians himself?

In the end, Gaitok chose neither path. He talked with Valentin, who begged him not to expose him or his pals; if they were deported back to Russia, he said, they would almost certainly be killed there. Weighing his conscience as a Buddhist, Gaitok decided that if his actions were to lead to someone’s death, he must avoid those actions.

And yet … In the episode’s climactic sequence, as Rick was fleeing the crime scene with Chelsea in his arms, Gaitok shot him in the back and killed him, urged on by Sritala. He was rewarded in the end with the plum bodyguard job he always wanted — and with Mook’s admiration — but only after betraying his principles.

Belinda and Zion

When last we left Belinda, her son, Zion, was all but demanding that she take a payoff from the sleazy Greg (known in Thailand as “Gary”) and ignore that the man may have been responsible for the death of her almost business partner, Tanya. Zion joined his mom at Greg’s house for a renegotiation, asking for $5 million instead of $100,000. Greg agreed to the settlement, and Belinda ditched her plans to open a spa with her Thai lover, Pornchai — thus becoming just like Tanya in Season 1, who ditched Belinda when her fortunes changed.

The events everyone will be talking about

On the whole, the event for which Season 3 of “The White Lotus” will most likely be remembered was when Saxon and Lochlan got uncomfortably intimate during a threesome. Frank’s monologue about exploring the extremes of his sexuality was also a scene for the “White Lotus” Hall of Fame.

And from the finale? It is hard to top a poisoned protein shake, especially given that it looked for the longest time as if Lochlan were going to die. That is not necessarily a happy ending for him or the Ratliffs, except that they do get to keep living — which, according to the monk whom Piper admires, is what we all should want.

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