Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | News | April 8, 2025
The season three finale is about the only thing that has been able to cut through the calamitous, neverending news cycle we’re living in. Everyone had their opinions — it was pointless, it was the best season ever, Aimee Lou Wood is the breakout star, Walton Goggins is a national treasure — and regardless of how folks felt, it was a hit. The 90-minute finale clocked in with the best ratings ever for White Lotus.
But it could have been much longer. There were, for instance, a few more moments between Rick and Chelsea (characters played by Goggins and Lou Wood) that were left on the cutting room floor. But perhaps the most bizarre sequence to be cut was a sex scene between two characters who hadn’t otherwise interacted: Piper and Belinda’s son, Zion, played by Sarah Catherine Hook and Nicholas Duvernay, respectively.
In the original script, after Piper spent the night in the Buddhist monastery, the two were supposed to have sex, according to Mike White in the official White Lotus podcast.
“The part that was cut, which is very disappointing, is that she decides to lose her virginity in the script in the last episode, and she actually has sex with Zion, which is Belinda’s son … There’s a whole scene where she’s like, ‘It’s true … I need to get this over with.’”
The scene, however, was cut for time. It would’ve added another 10 minutes to the finale and introduced an uneven “romantic rom-com vibe” to the episode’s overall tone. “I was trying to do too much narratively,” Mike White said.
It also would’ve made zero sense, but it may have overshadowed all the other complaints folks had about the finale. One thing that no one is complaining about: Carrie Coon’s perfect speech.
