How ‘White Lotus’ Season 3 Finale Connects Belinda And Tanya

What happened between Tanya and Belinda in Season 1?

Belinda is introduced in Season 1 as a spa manager at the White Lotus hotel in Maui.

Over the course of the season, her character forms a bond with Tanya, an unstable heiress, by offering not only spa treatments but a level of emotional support that extends well beyond the role of a typical esthetician.

Tanya takes a liking to Belinda, extending the offer to fund Belinda’s dream of starting her own spa. 

But when Tanya connects with Greg (Jon Gries), an unexpected romantic interest whom she eventually goes on to marry, she focuses more on her new relationship than Belinda.

Though Belinda goes the extra mile for Tanya, going so far as to offer emotional support as she grieves her mother’s death, Tanya reneges on her promise to invest in the business.

The season ends with Belinda waving at the boat carrying Tanya away from the resort, looking bereft.

What happened between Belinda and Pornchai in Season 3?

Belinda finds herself in Thailand in Season 3 of “The White Lotus” as a participant in a months-long wellness exchange program. She’s meant to learn the practices at the spa in the Thailand resort to bring them back to Maui, and teach her own techniques to the estheticians local to the Koh Samui resort. 

Belinda and Pornchai — who works at the Koh Samui resort spa — quickly fall for each other. Amid their flirtation, they float the idea of opening a spa together.Yet she, too, backpedals on this commitment, just as Tanya once did to her, when she comes into money.

Here’s how. In Season 2, Greg plotted to have Tanya murdered so he could inherit her fortune. When Belinda sees Greg in Thailand going by the name Gary, she does some Googling, and puts the pieces together. Greg offers her money in exchange for her silence. Belinda’s son Zion negotiates the sum up from $100,000 to $5 million.

Belinda, now flush, chooses to leave Thailand early. To creator White, this is something “happy” that comes out of Tanya’s betrayal — even if it comes at the cost of Pornchai’s dreams.

“It’s easy to be virtuous and have certain kinds of ideals when you have no money and don’t have to really put your money where your mouth is. It’s one thing to be, ‘oh yeah, I’m gonna do this spa for women,’ whatever her sort of fantasy was — but she needs someone to bankroll it,” he said on “The White Lotus Official Podcast.”

“And then you’ve got the money, and it’s like, ‘Can I just be rich for like five minutes?’ I just feel like that’s very honest. ‘You know what, just let me enjoy this for a second,’” he said.

He’s hopeful about what she’ll do next. “Maybe she will go and do something meaningful. And I think people do — I’m not that cynical,” he said. 

“That (choice to have her leave Pornchai behind) was actually an anchoring idea, that she would go and have this kind of Stella-gets-her-groove-back kind of thing with somebody there and is maybe fantasizing about maybe starting a business with this person, and then this windfall comes and it’s like, ‘I’m outta here. Sorry.’”

Do Belinda and Tanya say the same thing? Not quite, star Rothwell says

From their sentiment down to their vernacular, Tanya and Belinda share a similar message when they leave the White Lotus.

When she’s breaking the news to Belinda, Tanya starts by saying how well things are going with Greg.

“Anyway, we’re going to be leaving early, and I — I really just wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss you. Belinda, you’re an amazing person. You are,” she says.

Then she explains how the business idea won’t fit into her personal evolution.

“About the business. I really need to think about it. I mean, you’re so talented and I so want to do this for you, but I’m realizing I’m getting back into this pattern again where I latch on to somebody and then I use my money to control them and see, right now, the last thing I need in my life is another transactional relationship. You know, it’s just — it’s not healthy for me, you know?”

Belinda starts sobbing — but years later, shares a similar sentiment to Pornchai upon her departure. 

“Pornchai, I’ve really loved getting to know you. But, some things have changed for me, and I’m going to be leaving Thailand tomorrow,” she says.

“What about the business?” Pornchai asks in the Season 3 finale.

“Maybe! But, circumstances have changed for me, and I just can’t commit to anything right now,” Belinda answers. 

Pornchai is upset, and Belinda knows why. Tanya would have changed Belinda’s life by giving her agency in her workplace. But Belinda is not Tanya, Rothwell said. She told The White Lotus Official Podcast there’s a difference in how Belinda goes about the conversation.

“I think there’s more grief on Belinda’s part than perhaps Tanya’s part,” she says. “Tanya’s about to go get d—. So she’s like, ‘Bye girl. I gotta go.’ Belinda’s a little bit more heartbroken — and she doesn’t say no. She’s just like, ‘Right now, I have to get my bearings …’ And I do think that maybe she’d circle back,” she said.

“I think if they look at it closely, you’ll see she’s departing with kindness. She reiterates multiple times … some things have changed and she just needs to wrap her head around those things, because her life just got really big,” she said.

Rothwell also told Variety that Belinda never led Pornchai on as much as Tanya led Belinda on.

“If people rewatch this season, she never agrees to go into business with Pornchai; she’s just considering it. Which I think is a subtle but massive difference from Season 1, where you have Tanya being like, ‘Yes, let’s do it. Give me the papers. Show me your business plan.’She doesn’t lead him on. Pornchai was definitely more into Belinda and the idea than Belinda was,” she said.

What does it all mean?

It’s a bittersweet full circle moment. In Season 1, Tanya leaves the door open with Belinda. “I’m going to call you,” she says. This, perhaps, is Tanya’s roundabout way of making good on the promise. The $5 million Belinda now has was once Tanya’s, after all.

Belinda’s newfound freedom underlines another theme the “White Lotus” is interested in: The gap between the haves and the have-nots, and hotel staff and employees. Belinda, who was so long in the “staff” category, gets to experience how it feels to have money, and becomes cold in the process.

There are other telling parallels between Belinda and Tanya. Both women gravitated toward what they did not originally have. Tanya had money, but leaves the hotel to chase love with Greg; Belinda had the potential for love with Pornchai, but leaves the hotel to truly experience what it’s like to have money.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without Greg, the most self-serving character of them all. He chooses to be with Tanya in Season 1, and to give Belinda her hush money in Season 3. This twisted, self-interested character — protecting his health in Season 1, wealth in Season 2 and freedom in Season 3.

The final shots collapse the parallel between Belinda and Tanya. Tanya died on a boat in Season 2; the show ends with Belinda on a boat. It’s almost like Belinda is picking up right where Tanya left off.