How did Lochlan survive the poisoned shake in The White Lotus Season 3? Explored in detail

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for The White Lotus Season 3 finale. Reader discretion is advised.

After the two most shocking deaths in HBO's The White Lotus Season 3, Ratliff's poisonous piña colada party was clearly one of the most intense sequences of the finale.

In The White Lotus Season 3 finale, Timothy Ratliff decided to play God for his family and made poisonous piña coladas for them to drink on their last day (pun intended).

The poisonous pong-pong tree finally made a reappearance in the finale, with Timothy smashing its fruit open, taking out its seeds, and grinding them to form a poisonous concoction for his family.

Young Lochlan is conveniently left out of this party of four, as he is still not of age to drink the alcoholic beverage. But in reality, since Lochlan earlier revealed that he would be able to survive even without a lavish lifestyle, Timothy spares him (and instead chooses to kill his entire family in front of him).

While Lochlan later accidentally gulps the poison, blended in his protein shake, he survives, likely because the poison left in the blender was not enough to kill a person and he also immediately vomited in the pool, which might have removed the poison from his system.

But his near-death experience did change Timothy's views on his family and helped Lochlan see 'God', as he later reveals to his father.

More on Lochlan's near-death experience in The White Lotus Season 3 finale in our story.

---

How did Lochlan drink (and eventually survive) the poisonous shake in The White Lotus Season 3 finale?

After Timothy abandoned his mission to commit family suicide, he left the blender jar uncleaned and went to bed. Unaware that the blender still contains the poisonous remains of the pong-pong seeds, Lochlan makes his protein shake without washing the blender, thus ingesting the poison.

He takes the shake outside to drink, but the poison starts working, and he feels uneasy. He drops the glass to the ground, but by this time, he has already gulped almost all of the shake.

While it looks like Lochlan will also join the many characters who meet their tragic end in The White Lotus Season 3, he survives. But how? He did gulp half of the poisonous protein shake.

While the show does not delve into the how, it is likely that the blender did not have enough poison to kill Lochlan but just made him sick. In addition, after he drops to the ground, he also vomits in the nearby pool, which again hints that he actually vomited the poison out of his system and thus survived. But the experience did take a toll on his body, and he passed out until Timothy saw him.

---

Exploring Lochlan's near-death experience in The White Lotus Season 3 finale

While Lochlan does not die in The White Lotus Season 3 finale, even after drinking the poisoned shake, his near-death experience likely had a profound impact on Timothy, his father. While it was absolute carelessness on Timothy's part to leave the blender with traces of the poison in the first place, the moments he had while he thought Lochlan was dead changed his view on the whole situation.

While he spent the entirety of Season 3 trying to hide the truth from his family, he warns them about the impending storm at home, saying:

''Things are about to change. We'll get through it as a family,''

He understands the importance of family, and probably for the first time in Season 3, he looks content that he still has them.

As for Lochlan, as many fans are speculating that the young Ratliff finally 'figured his sh*t out,' Sam Nivola does not think that it profoundly changed his character (via Variety):

''Some people are changed by their experience at this hotel and all the fucked up shit that happens. And some people just aren’t. And that’s like life. People change, but people also stay the same, depending on who you are and what their circumstances are."

He added:

''I don’t think he’s made any. There’s a moment when he comes back to life and he says, “I think I just saw God.” And you think oh maybe he found the answer. But I don’t think he did. He’s going through the phases of trying to figure out what his thing is and he still doesn’t know.''

Also Read: "The coconut milk is off": The White Lotus Season 3 finale scene is hilarious to the point of being meme-worthy

---

For the latest scoops on your favorite TV shows and movies, follow SoapCentral.