Here's Why The Stakes For The White Lotus Season 3 Finale Feel Higher Than Ever

This post contains spoilers for "The White Lotus" season 3.

In one week, someone at the White Lotus' scenic and tranquil Thailand location is going to die. Judging by this season's focus on shady American tourists and career criminals, several people might not make it out alive. This is, of course, the modus operandi of Mike White's not-quite-anthology series about tourism, wealth, whiteness, and selfishness. Tourists — many of them white, rich, and unbearable — come to an idyllic resort for a week, and at the end of the week, one of them dies. It's dark, funny, and absurdist. So why does it feel so much more stressful this time around?

Episode 7 of the show's super-compelling third season is about as slow a burn as "The White Lotus" has ever presented. While most episodes of the series cover one day in the life of the resort's vacationers and staff, "Killer Instincts" takes place largely at night, during a short span of time in which the tension between each group of characters ratchets up. Laurie (Carrie Coon) sleeps with one of the hotel robbers, Rick (Walton Goggins) gives the man whom he believes killed his father (the great Scott Glenn) a shove, and Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) makes a strange proposition to Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger). Other plots, meanwhile, mostly tread water: Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) remains faithful to Rick, Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) continues to worry about her safety now that she's in Greg's (Jon Gries) crosshairs, and papa Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) once again considers family annihilation. 

Despite this episode's relative lack of action, it still exudes a nerve-wracking sense of tension. Why? Because this season of "The White Lotus" has more likeable characters than ever, and we're not ready to see them die.

To talk about which "White Lotus" characters "deserve" to die is to play by the rulebook of the satirical show. In the first two seasons, the most overtly awful or violent people – Jake Lacy's Shane, Quentin and Jack (Tom Hollander and Leo Woodall), and Greg himself – don't see any justice, while people who are more messy than traditionally evil end up six feet under. As /Film's BJ Colangelo put it when Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) fell off a boat and drowned in season 2, "Tanya is a nightmare person, but it's her naïveté and unintentional hilarity that made her such a beloved character." She was likely redeemable — as was Armond, season 1's hot mess express played by Murray Bartlett, whose main crimes were acts of pettiness and indulgence — but this isn't a show that cares about redemption.

Murray and Tanya were flawed but not overtly villainous characters, as are most of the people who populate the White Lotus guest book. In the first two seasons, some of the most likeable characters – from sex worker besties Lucia (Simona Tabasco) and Mia (Beatrice Grannò) to soul-searching teen Quinn (Fred Hechinger) – are still portrayed as morally flexible schemers or un-self-aware rich kids. No one is spotless in this world, and the various subtle ways in which White nails the foibles, blind spots, and moral failings of his characters are what make the show so great. When it comes time to wrap up each season, though, "The White Lotus" has always limited its schadenfreude to small but delicious portions that still leave viewers feeling a little bit hungry.

"The White Lotus" season 3, unlike its predecessors, also has several characters who pretty much have no faults at all. Wood's Chelsea, the perpetually sweet and free-spirited girlfriend to Walton Goggins' Rick, is one noticeably transgression-free guest, but so are Belinda and her son Zion (Nicholas Duvernay). Season 1 raised some eyebrows by consciously minimizing the roles of the local characters as the season went on, but season 3 doesn't have that problem: Dom Hetrakul's Pornchai is a soft-spoken and sexy love interest for Belinda, and Tayme Thapthimthong's Gaitok, the hotel's security guard, has committed no crime besides being a big old softie. Lalisa Manobal's Mook is a bit unreadable (she could easily be in on the robbery plot), but so far, she's been nothing but nice.

Even several of the season's more shaded characters — from sad sack Rick to bitter, fed-up Laurie to spirituality-seeking Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) — are tougher to categorize as "bad people" than a large swath of former "White Lotus" ensemble members. "Seeking" might be the operative word here; while past White Lotus locations were known for their peacefulness and sunshine, Westerners often undertake pilgrimages to Buddhist countries in hopes of finding some inner fulfillment, peace, or self-understanding. A handful of these people, flawed, exploitative, and culturally insensitive as they are, are actively choosing to look for a way to make their lives simpler and more full of love. That sense of seeking (and, importantly, seemingly earnest listening), in contrast to the willful ignorance of so many past White Lotus vacationers, makes it just a little bit tougher to gleefully take bets on who will die in the finale.

Someone will die, though, and it probably won't be whoever most deserves it. The idea of karma, spiritual cause and effect, has come up a few times this season, but White has never seemed particularly eager to incorporate the practice of karma into "The White Lotus." Stupid, violent things happen, the show seems to say, and everyone sees themselves as the hero of their own story. More often than not, White seems to posit, people don't get what they deserve. If they did, the finale would end with Belinda killing Greg, but it's just as likely that Timothy will kill his family, Rick will be killed for hurting Jim Hollinger, or Gaitok will misfire while attempting to prove his courage. Who knows, though? "The White Lotus" already surprised us once this season by introducing so many characters worth rooting for: it might surprise us again by letting a few of them live.

New episodes of "The White Lotus" air at 9pm EST on HBO and Max each Sunday.