The White Lotus Season 3: Walton Goggins’ eerie parallel with his character Rick

The White Lotus isn’t just a glossy show about rich people vacationing in exotic locations. It’s way more layered. There is mystery and myth. There are some psychological twists thrown in, too.

The show is visually stunning, but at times can be discomforting as well. There are sharp characters with clever foreshadowing that make you rewatch certain scenes. Also, a social satire at times, The White Lotus makes the viewer laugh and squirm at the same time.

The White Lotus Season 1 took us on a visual tour to the sun-soaked shores of Hawaii. Season 2 swept us into the dreamy and seductive aura of Italy. And Season 3 planted us in the spiritual heart of Thailand. The White Lotus Season 3 introduces us to a new set of guests. There's the ultra-wealthy Ratliff family, the trio of longtime friends Laurie, Kate, and Jaclyn, and the couple Rick and Chelsea.

They arrive in Thailand for different reasons. The Ratliff daughter claims she’s here for a research project on Buddhism, but her attempt to stay in a monastery crumbles pretty quickly. It’s clear that she is, in fact, not the minimalist she claims to be. The three women are looking for cocktails and fun. Rick and Chelsea pretend to vacation for leisure, but Rick has the most emotionally loaded purpose of them all.

Let's dig into it.

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The White Lotus Season 3: Rick’s path to the truth

Rick is not exactly radiating warmth when we first meet him in The White Lotus Season 3. He is visibly annoyed and emotionally distant. Everyone else seems ready to sip cocktails and bask in the Thai sun. But Rick lights a cigarette despite being told not to. He doesn’t care about pleasantries or rules. He’s restless and gives off the energy of a man dragged on a vacation he never wanted to be a part of. He looks like the typical uninterested boyfriend who's there only because his partner insisted.

But Chelsea, in a stark contrast, is warm and genuinely concerned about Rick’s mental state. She tries to reach out and to get him to open up but he keeps pushing her away. There are small moments here and there that hint Rick isn't heartless. He may just be deeply troubled by something.

We get to know the reason only when he finally opens up to Chelsea in The White Lotus Season 3. He reveals the real reason behind their trip to Thailand. It wasn’t her idea after all. It was Rick who was adamant about this destination. And now we know why.

Rick confesses that he never knew his father. All he ever had was the story his mother told him on her deathbed. She told him that his father was murdered in Thailand. She even told him who the killer was. That was what ignited something in Rick. He did not come for vacation but for vengeance.

The White Lotus property they are staying in is owned by the very man Rick believes killed his father. The man’s wife frequents the resort, and one morning, Rick overhears her talking to one of the three women guests. She mentions that her husband has just returned from the hospital and is now back home in Bangkok. That’s all Rick needs. He heads to Bangkok the next day and meets with an old friend who brings him a gun. They make up a fake story about being filmmakers looking to meet the man's wife.

But nothing goes to plan when Rick finally confronts him. The man is old and frail. Rick sees no point in violence and returns to the resort. He is now visibly changed. He’s lighter and almost at peace.

But peace is short-lived in The White Lotus. The man and his wife arrive at the resort just as Rick starts to reclaim joy with Chelsea. The man recognizes Rick instantly and subtly threatens him in public. Rick panics. A shootout follows. Rick shoots the man.

And then comes the most devastating twist of all. The man’s wife reveals that the person Rick just killed was, in fact, his real father. His mother had lied all along.

Chelsea is caught in the mess and gets shot. Rick is distraught. He is cradling her, and moments later, he is shot as well. The couple falls into the water, dead. Two lives were cut short in a heartbreaking end. But their final moments were spent together just like they promised.

Rick’s journey in The White Lotus Season 3 is a haunting exploration of grief and identity. And Walton Goggins didn’t just act this part. He lived a version of it.

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The White Lotus: How Walton Goggins' real-life incident helped him bring his character alive

Walton Goggins understood Rick in The White Lotus Season 3 down to his bones. His emotional volatility and the buried grief made the character very real. Because it was real (in a way).

Goggins had shared in an interview with Vulture that he had gone to Thailand once, just like Rick, all lost, and to find peace. He said:

"I went to Thailand 18 years ago after a trauma in my life, looking for peace, looking for some resolution that was not so dissimilar from what Rick was looking for. The circumstances were dramatically different. I was a year into a relationship with my now-wife, and I was as lost as Rick is lost. I had nothing for my partner. I understood, intimately, Rick’s frame of mind. I read it on the page and I thought, The universe brought this to me for a reason, because I understand him, and I love him, and I love people like him. I don’t think he’s alone in the world."

Goggins felt like the universe had handed him something deeply personal when he read Rick’s character on the script. He knew that state of mind. He knew what it meant to show up in the world, numb and spiraling. So what we saw on screen wasn’t acting. Goggins was retracing emotional steps he had already lived through, and it was evident.

Goggins also spoke about spirituality in another conversation with Interview Magazine. Spirituality is one of the themes that runs through The White Lotus Season 3. He said:

"What has brought me an extraordinary amount of peace in my life is when I finally fell in love with myself. Genuinely, I think that is the path of all spirituality. You can say it’s about finding god, but when you find your god you’re still going to have to face yourself. And either you’re going to cross that Rubicon or you’re not, but that in and of itself is a theology. The moment where I finally loved myself in a way that I could actually forgive myself and forgive the people in my life that may have caused me trauma and have that currency going forward to forgive and have compassion and empathy for other people—that is, I think, spirituality in a nutshell."

So when Vulture asked if this self-love philosophy carried into his portrayal of Rick in The White Lotus Season 3, he confirmed it did.

"Most of us start off not having the tools to love ourselves... Some people are never able to transcend in that way... I had reached a moment in my journey predicated on the series of events in my own life at this time. I searched for three years and didn’t have an option to go forward as the person I was before this moment in my own life. It was like, This is it. Just forgive yourself. Forgive your circumstances. Forgive the people that f*cking were doing their best, and just be okay with it. You don’t have to be anything other than what you are, and you’re enough, man. If you can love you, then you can love anybody. Those were lessons I learned 15 years before this experience, and they were hard-won. Reading the scripts, I felt like this guy will realize it too late."

And that’s what made The White Lotus Season 3 so heartbreaking. Because behind Rick’s breakdown was a truth Goggins had already lived.

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