The White Lotus season 3 kicked off with a literal bang, after shots rang out and a body was seen floating in a pond. As the season nears its conclusion, Life & Style looks at fans’ theories and predictions about who died.
Fans Hope Greg Dies in ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3
“I was thinking Greg is definitely dying,” one fan wrote on a Reddit board as fellow viewers put forth their guesses about the dead body on March 23, 2025. Another agreed, “God, I hope it’s Greg. F–k that wife-murdering piece of s–t!”
Fan already know Greg (played by John Gries) is definitely a bad guy. He’s presumed to be behind the murder plot of his heiress wife Tanya McQuoid in season 2. Greg was introduced in season 3 under the name of Gary, a very wealthy man living with his much-younger girlfriend in Thailand.
When asked what he did for a living by similarly shady Walton Goggins‘ Rick Hatchett, he mysteriously responded, “this and that.” Greg has been shown to have a massive mansion, mega yacht and more trappings of someone with a massive about of money.
Gary/Greg was working for the Bureau of Land Management when he met and fell for Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) in The White Lotus season 1. His character was featured in the opening episodes of season 2 before departing the White Lotus Italy amid his miserable marriage to Tayna. She then was befriended by a group of expats who later tried to kill her, only to die while escaping their yacht.
White Lotus Maui massage therapist Belinda Lindsey (played by Natasha Rothwell) recognized Greg, who claimed to be Gary. She later did an online search and found out that Tanya had died, and Greg had disappeared while wanted for questioning. It’s assumed he inherited his late wife’s fortune upon her death.
Greg’s body being the one floating in the opening scene of the season would also be a nice Easter egg from creator and writer Mike White. Tanya’s yet-to-be-identified body was found by Meghann Fahy’s Daphne Babcock in the opening scene of season 2 floating in the Mediterranean Sea. It would be a nice touch for Greg to meet his end in the same way as the dead body floating in the opening episode of season 3.
Fans Hope Chelsea Doesn’t Die in ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3
Rick’s girlfriend, Chelsea, already had two near brushes with death during the season. She was in the hotel’s boutique and threatened with a gun when it was robbed in a smash-and-grab. In a subsequent episode, Chelsea — played by Aimee Lou Wood — survived after being bitten by a cobra that Rick freed from its cage at a snake farm while high on powerful marijuana.
“I think it’ll be Chelsea,” one fan predicted of the dead body on Reddit, while another person pointed out, “We need a sad moment in the show and Chelsea it’s the only one that it’s likeable. The others are OK but their deaths won’t hurt.”
On X, one user wrote after episode 6, “The White Lotus season 3 death just might end up being Chelsea. Could she get in the way of a bullet intended for soulmate Rick (perhaps at the hands of the hotel’s owner)? She’s had two brushes with death (robbery and snake bite) and hinted bad things come in sets of three.”
Saxon Ratliff Is in the Running for the Dead Body
Patrick Schwarzenegger‘s Saxon Ratliff came to the horrific discovery in episode 6 that he ended up in a threesome with his younger brother, Sam Nivola‘s Lochlan Ratliff, while they were high on drugs.
Saxon woke up naked in bed with his brother on Greg’s yacht with a fuzzy memory that he was masturbating while watching Lochlan and Charlotte Le Bon‘s Chloe having sex next to him. That alone made him vomit. However, Chloe later informed Saxon that they had a threesome and that he was “jerked off” by his little brother, which left him traumatized for the remainder of the episode.
“Chelsea calling him ‘soulless’ was the giveaway,” one fan wrote on Reddit about why it could be Saxon who dies. Another noted that while it was Lochlan who had sex with Chloe, she led her boyfriend, Gary, to believe it was Saxon.
Gary made Chloe invite Saxon and Lochlan to a small dinner party at his house that night for what seemed like nefarious reasons after finding out his girlfriend slept with one of them.
How Was the Body Discovered in ‘The White Lotus’ Premiere?
The opening scene of the season was a flash-forward to what happened at the end of the season, with the events on the eight episodes leading up to it yet to unfold.
Belinda’s son Zion was shown having a session with the White Lotus Thailand’s wellness therapist when a series of gunshots rang out and people were heard screaming. The character, played by Nicholas Duvernay, was seen running out to find his mom, as guests were seen running for their lives.
Zion tried to hide in a pond and make his way across to where his mom might be when a body floated up to him. The identity was not shown, other than the character was wearing dark clothing and face down.
The scene was reminiscent of the start of The White Lotus season 2’s premiere scene, when Daphne Babcock went into the sea for a final swim in Italy when she came upon a dead body floating in the water. In the season 2 finale, it was revealed to be that of Tanya.
‘The White Lotus’ Creator Mike White Said All of Season 3’s Characters Are ‘Dead’
“I do feel like the other seasons were a rehearsal for this one. There’s stuff that I’ve never directed before,” Mike told Time during a set visit in 2024, in a piece the outlet published in January 2025.
He added that season 3 was going to be “grander, more epic – and much, much darker.” As for the characters, “They’re all in some kind of hurt, Like, they’re all dead, but they don’t know it.”
