White Lotus creator Mike White revealed why he removed a pivotal sex scene from the Season 3 finale.
Why did Mike White cut a sex scene in The White Lotus Season 3 finale?
In the third season’s finale, White had planned to include a sex scene between Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Zion (Nicholas Duvernay). In The White Lotus Official Season 3 Podcast, White explained why it was important for Piper to lose her virginity.
“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,” White said. “So she’s like, you know, there’s a whole scene where she’s like, ‘It’s true. Saxon’s right about this one thing. I need to get this over with.’ And after she leaves the monastery, she’s just, like, ‘I need to have sex.’ And she’s scoping the restaurant in the end.”
After having sex with Zion, Piper was going to interact with Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) on the boat. “You look different” is what Saxon would have said while reading a book, signaling a character shift.
“At the end, when they’re on the boat. She’s just thinking about how she got nicely fucked or whatever,” White explained. “And he’s reading his self-help book, and it’s this kind of reversal.”
Ultimately, White had to cut the scene due to time constraints. Additionally, White explained why the sex scene also felt out of place, considering Piper’s father, Timothy (Jason Isaacs), was contemplating a murder-suicide.
“It was one of these things where it was like, it’s already an hour and a half. It would have added 10 minutes to the thing,” White said. “And it had a little bit of a rom-com vibe in the middle of trying to kill the family with the pong pong fruits. It just felt like I was trying to do too much narratively.”
All episodes of The White Lotus Season 3 are now streaming on Max.
