How Jennifer Coolidge Learned Her Fate For The White Lotus Season 2

This post contains spoilers for season 2 of "The White Lotus."

After seven episodes of constant fan theories and speculation, the season 2 finale finally revealed the identity of the dead body that was discovered in the season's cold open: Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), the troubled, self-centered rich woman whose relationship with her new husband Greg (Jon Gries) turns out to be a total disaster. Piece by piece, we learn that Greg has hired a bunch of evil rich gays to get Tanya isolated on a boat and kill her, allowing Greg to claim all of her money. 

For a moment, however, it seems like Tanya will make it out of the situation alive. She shoots down her captives and then tries to jump from the ship onto an escape boat. Instead, she slips, hits her head hard, and drowns. In the end, poor Tanya died the same way she lived — clumsily. It's a darkly comedic note to end her character arc and an unfortunate reminder from the series that just because a character gets to return for another season, that doesn't mean they're any safer than the rest. 

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Coolidge talked about the early phone call she had with showrunner Mike White, where she found out about her character's fate. "He said, 'I just want to let you know something about season 2.' He said, 'We found these great locations in Sicily, and you're going to love it here ... oh and also, you die.'"

"I was like, 'I what?!'" Coolidge continued. "He didn't tell me how I was going to die, but he told me I was definitely going to bite the dust. I was very disappointed, but not everyone can live!"

That's true: death comes for us all, even the ultra-wealthy. The assumption that the richest characters were the safest was exactly what made so many of our early predictions over the dead body so off-base. After all, one of the central themes of season 1 of "The White Lotus" was how consequences for the rich are often far milder than they are for the rest of us. This was made clear by how the victim in the end was a working-class man, and how the rich guy who killed him (mostly by accident, admittedly) suffered basically zero consequences. 

Season 2, however, was a little less focused on class and a lot more focused on sex and desire. Although it seemed in the beginning that the most likely victims would be Mia or Lucia, or maybe Tanya's assistant Portia, as the episodes went on it became clear that this time around being rich won't save anyone. If anything, it's what put Tanya in so much danger in the first place.

While an argument can be made that Tanya deserved her fate for her two seasons of mostly selfish behavior, one can't help but feel bad for her in those final moments. As Coolidge herself put it: "Tanya was so close to having a victory. And, an unlikely victory for someone like her, that she would have been able to manage a gun and save herself. She's such a sad character, wouldn't it have been cool if she survived?"