Jennifer Coolidge quickly became a fan favorite in The White Lotus Season 1 playing Tanya McQuoid, an eccentric and messy billionaire with poor taste in men.
But Season 3 takes the show in a different direction with a new setting and an entirely new cast of messy characters. The White Lotus Season 3 cast includes Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey playing an American couple traveling to Thailand with their three kids (Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sarah Catherine Hook, Sam Nivola) while their privileged life together might be crumbling away back in America; Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb star as a trio of friends who must come to terms with their complicated feelings for each other on a girls trip; while Walton Goggins and Amie Lou Wood star as a unique couple whose personalities couldn’t be more at odds.
It’s understandable why White Lotus fans would be disappointed to see Coolidge hasn’t made an appearance in the recent Season 3 premiere after her memorable performance in Season 2, but will Coolidge be coming back?
Here’s what we know so far about Tanya’s fate on The White Lotus.
Did Tanya die in White Lotus?
Tanya did, in fact, die in The White Lotus Season 2. RIP! Each season begins with a mysterious death that slowly unravels as the self-absorbed vacationers enjoy their time on the island, not knowing that something sinister is in store. And unfortunately for Tanya fans, it was her turn in Season 2.
Season 2 saw Tanya and her anxious assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) getting involved with a group of men who enjoyed Tanya’s eccentricity. When Quentin (Tom Hollander) invites the pair to join them on a brief trip away from the White Lotus resort, Tanya becomes increasingly suspicious of her new friends and suspects her husband Greg hired them to kill her, leading to her iconic line, “These gays are trying to murder me!”
Tanya’s paranoia drives her to kill everyone on the boat, including Quentin. Our favorite billionaire goes out with a bang: she dies after she slips and falls off the boat, hitting her head on the way down.
Why did they kill off Tanya in White Lotus?
Series creator and writer Mike White explained why he killed Tanya off in Season 2 in an episode of HBO’s official White Lotus aftershow, “Unpacking,” where he pointed out Tanya once admitted on the show that after trying “every kind of treatment over the years. Death is the last immersive experience I haven’t tried.” He explained that he saw death as part of her journey on The White Lotus.
“I just think her dying at the hands of someone else felt too tragic. It felt like she needed to give her best fight back, and that she, in a way, had some kind of victory over whoever was conspiring to get rid of her,” White said. “So it just made me laugh to think like, she would like, take out all of these cabal of killers, and that after she successfully does that, then she just dies this derpy death.”
“And I just felt like, that’s just so Tanya,” he added with a laugh.
Is Greg in White Lotus Season 3?
Greg lived to see another sunny day. Tanya’s widower, played by Jon Gries, made a surprise appearance in the Season 3 premiere. Greg is only offhandedly mentioned by his much younger girlfriend (Charlotte Le Bon) when she connects with Wood’s character at a bar while chatting about their grumpy partners.
Though Greg almost certainly inherited Tanya’s wealth, considering he’s vacationing at the glitzy White Lotus again with a glamorous young woman on his arm, he looks worse for wear. Could Tanya’s death be weighing on his conscience?
The Season 2 villain was surely the last original White Lotus characters fans expected to see in Season 3, but this could mean Tanya fans will finally get some closure.
Who else from The White Lotus original cast will return in Season 3?
For now, it looks like Natasha Rothwell is the only other original member of the cast who reprised her role this season. Rothwell’s Belinda, who works as a spa manager at The White Lotus in Hawaii, is at the Thailand location to be trained in Thai-inspired relaxation techniques.
Belinda has her own storied past with Tanya, so it will be interesting to see her cross paths with Greg. Will she make him fess up to his crimes? We’ll have to see.
New episodes of The White Lotus Season 3 premiere Sundays on HBO and Max.
