‚The White Lotus‘ showrunner Mike White explains why Tanya dies in Season 2 and how Jennifer Coolidge’s Season 1 performance inspired her death.
HBO‘s The White Lotus Season 2 ended with a shocking and tragic surprise. After following the adventures of Jennifer Coolidge‘s Tanya McQuoid-Hunt for two seasons, White Lotus showrunner Mike White was killing his muse off. Tanya and Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) are able to briefly connect long enough for the duo to figure out that Quentin (Tom Hollander) has been hired by “Cowboy” Greg (Jon Gries) to murder Tanya for her riches. In a triumphant turn, Tanya is somehow able to outwit Quentin, hitman Niccoló (Stefano Gianino), and their friends, murdering most of them with the mobster’s own gun. However, when she’s left alone on Quentin’s yacht, Tanya chooses the riskiest way off and perishes in her fall.
We learn by the end of The White Lotus Season 2 that Tanya was the body that Daphne (Meghann Fahy) discovered while swimming in Episode 1 and that the other dead “guests” were Quentin and his massacred buddies on the yacht. Everyone else not only survives The White Lotus Season 2, but also…thrives? Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan (Will Sharpe) reconnect, Portia asks a jilted Albie (Adam DiMarco) for his number, and local girls Lucia (Simona Tabasco) and Mia (Beatrice Grannò) get everything they wanted.
So why did The White Lotus‘s creator, writer, director, and showrunner Mike White decide to kill off the one character we’ve been following since the beginning? According to White, he decided to kill Tanya after being inspired by one of her last Season 1 scenes.
