What If The Poisonous Fruit On The White Lotus Season 3 Leads To An Ironic Legal Twist

Spoiler Alert: There are some light spoilers based on the preview for Sunday’s season finale of The White Lotus, which is available with a Max subscription.

The White Lotus creator and mastermind Mike White is keeping us all on our toes, as always, with Season 3 of the hit HBO show. Ahead of the Sunday night finale, fans are spinning all kinds of theories about who will turn up dead and who will be responsible. I’ve got a theory that would add an element of Greek Tragedy to the show, which seems like something White would be prone to do.

Will There Be Irony?

Mike White seems just like the kind of writer who would find inspiration in the classics, and as we all know, his attention to detail is becoming as legendary as his attention to, ahem, human anatomy. One classic technique in Greek plays is the use of irony. It’s been a staple of Western literature and drama ever since. Could Tim (Jason Isaacs) be the victim of the bitter taste of it in the finale? I think there’s an opportunity here.

In the preview at the end of last week’s episode, we see Tim asking a staff member about the poisonous fruit that grows on the property of The White Lotus. It’s referred to as “the suicide tree.” Well, well, well, we all know how desperate Tim has become in light of his looming legal troubles back home, and he’s been contemplating taking his own life by suicide for a couple of episodes now.

Later in the preview, we see his son Saxon’s blender whirring with some yellowish liquid in it. We’re led to believe that Tim might be mixing up a batch of suicide smoothies for his family and himself. While I don’t think we can trust the previews all that much, Tim going full Jim Jones does seem like a real possibility here.

So let’s say that does happen, and maybe they drink and maybe they don’t. Tim has been out of the loop for days now, with his phone locked up at the front desk. What if - and here’s the irony - all the evidence in his case is thrown out due to an illegal search.

The Fruit Of The Poisonous Tree

“The fruit of the poisonous tree” is a legal term that refers to the exclusion of evidence that stems from an illegal action by investigators. This might be due to the lack of a search warrant that leads to new information or some other legal oversight in the process of obtaining the evidence, which leads to it being dismissed. What if Tim does serve up the deadly drink to his family, but back home, his legal problems have resolved themselves and somehow his case has been thrown out because of inadmissible evidence? In that way, the poisonous tree strikes twice. What a twist that would be.

I’ve grown to like Tim and his dysfunctional family, and I really don’t want to see them become victims to his desperation. I’m really hoping he figures out another way out of all this, like staying in Thailand and becoming a Buddhist, but that doesn’t seem tragic enough for The White Lotus. No matter what happens, I can’t wait to see how this season wraps up, including finally learning who the shooter is from the opening scenes.