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      in Television

      Walton Goggins Knows ‘The White Lotus’ Had to End This Way

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      “I realized that there was really no other conclusion,” the actor said in an interview on Monday about the season finale.This interview includes spoilers for the season finale of “The White Lotus.”A man with a name like Rick Hatchett was unlikely to die in his bed.He didn’t. In the Season 3 finale of “The White Lotus,” Rick, played by Walton Goggins, gunned down Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), whom Rick had long believed to be his father’s killer. (A posthumous twist: He was actually Rick’s father.) Then Rick was shot, in the back, by the gentle but ambitious security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong). Most tragic: Rick’s sunshiny girlfriend, Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), was mortally wounded in the crossfire. With her dying in his arms, Rick fell into the hotel’s lily pond. In that moment, Goggins believes, Rick finds peace.“For me, it was being released from pain,” he said.On the morning after the finale, Goggins, a celebrated character actor currently also starring in “The Righteous Gemstones” and “Fallout,” discussed fate, love and why the story would have turned out differently if he and Rick could have somehow had a few beers together. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Did you feel that this ending was inevitable? Was Rick always meant to die?Yeah, I do believe that. I didn’t see it coming when I read the scripts. But after I read them and absorbed them, I realized that there was really no other conclusion. It couldn’t have ended any other way.In the previous episode, he stopped himself from killing Jim. In the finale, he can’t resist. Why?His life has been defined by this single event [Jim’s murder of his father, which turns out to be a false story his mother told]. He has allowed this event to become his life story. Who is he without this villain in his life? Because without it, he would have to take responsibility for the decisions that he’s made and for not moving past it. Being face-to-face with his tormentor allowed him to express this deep feeling — all he needed in that moment was for this person to bear witness to his pain. That surprised Rick as much as anyone else. Reading it the first time, I thought that he was going to pull the trigger. When he didn’t, I was in tears about that and overjoyed for this revelation and this moment of peace.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      ‘The White Lotus’: Jason Isaacs on His Character’s Fate in the Finale

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      “Storytelling is magic,” Jason Isaacs said. “It’s sleight of hand, it’s delivering a surprise ending that people don’t see coming.”Isaacs, 61, best known for playing villains in “The Patriot,” “Peter Pan” and the Harry Potter films, was speaking via video call a few days before “The White Lotus” Season 3 finale. A keen amateur magician, he had already performed a couple of onscreen card tricks. His work on “The White Lotus” is also a kind of conjuration.He plays Tim Ratliff, a Durham, North Carolina financier. Tim’s blood runs blue, as do the letters on his Duke T-shirt. (Duke is reportedly upset at the association.) Confronted with past malfeasance and facing the loss of all he has inherited and worked for, Tim spends his Thai vacation overdosing on his wife’s benzos and contemplating murder-suicide. That he can make Tim engaging even in the sweaty maelstrom of an entirely internal crisis speaks to his actorly gifts.“I don’t know what acting is, and I don’t know how I do it,” Jason Isaacs said. “It’s an animal instinct.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesNot least among them is a way with misdirection. (Spoilers start now.) In Sunday’s season finale, Tim sets out to poison his family with a fatal batch of piña coladas only to change his mind a sip or two in. (Even his youngest son, Lochlan, played by Sam Nivola, who later took a dose via a protein shake, was spared.) Though Tim had spent the whole of the season running from his fate, he ultimately accepted it and trusted that his family would accept it, too. So that’s a nice surprise.Isaacs, of course, knew this from the start. “I read all the scripts,” he said. But watching the finale with his castmates on Sunday, he felt strangely moved. “We were all of us holding each other’s hands and watching and crying our eyes out in a rather embarrassing way,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Debi Young, a Makeup Artist the Stars Swear By

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      Debi Young is a behind-the-scenes presence who has become a trusted voice to many A-list stars.Debi Young nodded in her maternal way, validating Jamie Hector’s concerns. Hector was nothing like Marlo Stanfield, the sociopathic shot caller he depicted in “The Wire” nearly a generation ago. But the latest script had called for Stanfield and a woman to be intimate in a car. Hector, then 28, mentored young actors and fretted about promoting promiscuity.He voiced his problem to Young, officially the show’s makeup artist and unofficially its moral compass.“There will come a day when you can say what you want to do and what you don’t want to do,” Young told Hector. She knew the sex scene was important for the character and that Hector needed to trust the writers. “Right now? You’re trying to bring people along with you,” she added.Then, the woman cast and crew referred to variously as Big Sister, Den Mother, Divine Mother or Mama Debi topped her advice with instructions that dropped Hector’s jaw: “So, you go into that scene and you just bang the hell out of her.”Hector, now 49, laughed at the recollection. “What she has to say is always on time, always important and always sincere and coming from a righteous place,” he said.Young is a youthful 71 whose most common credit is department head of makeup. She is a mainstay of HBO with credits on “Watchmen,” “Treme,” “True Detective” and “Mare of Easttown.” She has received four Emmy nominations. But it’s her deft advice, bendable ear and ability to cultivate trust that has made her a go-to for a constellation of Oscar-winning stars, many of whom are appreciative of seeing a Black woman in a position of authority.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 Finale Recap: Bloodshed and Sacrifice

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      Some characters got happy endings, while some decidedly did not. But there were enough twists to keep viewers guessing until the end.The conversations around this “White Lotus” season have been fascinating to follow. Is the pace too slow? Is Mike White shortchanging his Thai characters? Does all the incest stuff go too far? Most important: Has White run out of things to say about fabulously wealthy, terminally dissatisfied white people?Before the season started, I made the decision to watch all six of the episodes HBO provided to critics over a two-day stretch, and by the time I got to the end of Episode 6, this season was really clicking for me. I found all the talk about whether people can ever really leave their worst selves and bad choices behind to be incredibly moving, lending a deeper, more haunting meaning to all of this show’s usual kinky sex and barely contained violence.Then Episode 7 was kind of a bust. It had too many anti-climactic moments and too many blunt conversations. It was the first new episode I had watched in over a month, and it made me wonder: Had I been too forgiving of the season’s lapses? Was I seduced by the binge?For better and for worse, Episode 8 brings all the climaxes Episode 7 dodged. During this 90-minute finale (a lengthy one, but never a dull one), nearly every major character faces a choice about who he or she really wants to be. Several of them make terrible decisions, and some of them are rewarded handsomely for it — so long as you consider money and security a reward.Let’s start with Belinda, our connection to Season 1 of “The White Lotus” — and Season 2, via Tanya and Greg. When we met Belinda in Hawaii, she was being coaxed into starting her own spa business with Tanya. Then Tanya fell for Greg and crushed the dreams that Belinda was just beginning to believe were possible. Something similar happens in the Season 3 finale as Belinda and her son, Zion, pressure Greg into giving them $5 million. Belinda immediately ditches her own plan to open a spa with her Thai lover, Pornchai.It is hard to begrudge Belinda a financial windfall, especially given that she barely knew Tanya. But the way it plays out does not put her in the best light. During the negotiations, Belinda looks very upset with Zion’s casual dismissals of Greg’s shady past, and she seems especially bothered when he quotes a Langston Hughes poem to prove a point. But it turns out this was all a bargaining tactic. The money is what matters to her.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      ‘Your Friends and Neighbors,’ Plus 9 Things to Watch on TV this Week

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      The AppleTV+ show starring Jon Hamm premieres. ‘Black Mirror’ returns for an eighth season.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that air or stream this week, April 7-13. Details and times are subject to change.Some troubling … fiction?“The Handsmaid’s Tale” started as a onscreen retelling of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel by the same name, but over multiple seasons, it has expanded the story line beyond the book’s plot. Now, the show is coming back for its sixth and final season, with Elizabeth Moss still at the helm as June. The showrunners noted that even as this series wraps up, its finale will end on a cliffhanger that will later pick up in a screen adaptation of the 2019 novel “The Testaments,” Atwood’s own sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale.” That series is forthcoming. Streaming Tuesday on Hulu.There are two things that can be guaranteed when watching “Black Mirror”: It will provide deeply unsettling scenarios that seem not too far from reality, and there will be a slew of familiar celebrity faces. For Season 7 of the show, Netflix is dropping all six episodes at once, and cast announcements have included Tracee Ellis Ross, Paul Giamatti, Emma Corrin and many others. One episode, titled “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” seems to be a follow-up to the Season 4 episode “USS Callister,” with Jesse Plemons and Cristin Milioti. Streaming Thursday on Netflix.From left: Shabana Azeez, Noah Wyle and Supriya Ganesh in “The Pitt.”Warrick Page/MaxThough there is no shortage of medical shows currently airing, “The Pitt,” a series that goes hour-by-hour in a Pittsburgh emergency room, has captured the particular interest of doctors and nurses who experience these scenarios day after day. In The New York Times, Reggie Ugwu reported that medical professionals were impressed by the accuracy of not only the intricate procedures shown but also the chaotic environment portrayed. After 15 episodes, the show is wrapping up its first season, but don’t fret: It has already been renewed for a second. Streaming Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Max.Chit chatting and pitching baseballs.The N.F.L. has “Hard Knocks,” F1 racing as “Drive to Survive” and now a certain M.L.B. team is getting its own reality show — “The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox.” The eight-part documentary series follows the team throughout their 2024 season while also showcasing the personal stories of the players. Streaming on Tuesday on Netflix.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Denis Arndt, Who Was a First-Time Tony Nominee at 77, Dies at 86

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      After more than 40 years as a stage and television actor, he broke through in “Heisenberg” as a butcher who has a romance with a much younger woman.Denis Arndt, a former helicopter pilot whose acting career reached its zenith when he made his Broadway debut at age 77 in the comedy “Heisenberg” and earned a Tony Award nomination, died on March 25 at his home in Ashland, Ore. He was 86.His wife, Magee Downey, confirmed the death. She said the specific cause was not known. Mr. Arndt built his reputation as a stage actor at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the 1970s and ’80s. He later became a familiar face on television series like “L.A. Law” and “Picket Fences” and played one of the detectives who interrogate Sharon Stone in a famous erotically charged scene in “Basic Instinct” (1992).He first appeared in “Heisenberg,” a two-character play by Simon Stephens, which the Manhattan Theater Club produced at City Center’s Studio at Stage II in 2015. The play transferred to the Samuel J. Friedman Theater on Broadway the next year.Mr. Arndt played Alex, a reserved, 75-year-old Irish-born butcher, who is in a London train station when he is unexpectedly kissed on the neck by Georgie (Mary-Louise Parker), a loud, impulsive and mysterious 42-year-old American. Her boldness ignites a romance.Ben Brantley, reviewing “Heisenberg” in The New York Times, called Mr. Arndt and Ms. Parker “the sexiest couple on a New York stage now.” Mr. Arndt, he wrote, “makes what has to be the most unlikely and irresistible Broadway debut of the year. He lends roiling, at first barely detectable energy to the seeming passivity of a man who, on occasion, finds himself crying for reasons he cannot (nor wants to) explain. But this ostensibly confirmed celibate oozes a gentle, undeniable sensuality.”Mr. Arndt with Mary-Louise Parker in “Heisenberg.” Ben Brantley of The New York Times called them “the sexiest couple on a New York stage now.”Richard Termine for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jay North, Child Star Who Played ‘Dennis the Menace,’ Dies at 73

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      Mr. North was best known for playing the towheaded Dennis Mitchell on the television series, which ran on CBS from 1959 to 1963.Jay North, who played the well-meaning, trouble-causing protagonist of the popular CBS sitcom “Dennis the Menace” from 1959 to 1963, died on Sunday at his home in Lake Butler, Fla. He was 73.His death was confirmed by Laurie Jacobson, a friend of Mr. North’s for 30 years. The cause was colorectal cancer, Ms. Jacobson said.Mr. North played the towheaded Dennis Mitchell, who roamed his neighborhood, usually clad in a striped shirt and overalls, with his friends, and often exasperated his neighbor, a retiree named George Wilson, who was played by Joseph Kearns. Herbert Anderson played Dennis’s father, and Gloria Henry played his mother.Dennis winds up causing lots of trouble, usually by accident.In one episode, a truck knocks over a street sign, and Dennis and a friend stand it up — incorrectly. Workmen then dig a gigantic hole, meant to be a pool for a different address, in Mr. Wilson’s front yard.The show, which was adapted from a comic strip by Hank Ketcham, presented an idyllic, innocent vision of suburban America as the 1950s gave way to the tumultuous ’60s.But things were not easy for Mr. North behind the scenes.Many years after “Dennis the Menace” ended, Mr. North said that his acting success came at the cost of a happy childhood.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      John Peck, Underground Cartoonist Known as The Mad Peck, Dies at 82

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      Among many other accomplishments, he illustrated a scholarly work on the history of comic books and wrote record reviews in four-panel comic-strip form.John Peck, a cultural omnivore known as The Mad Peck whose dryly humorous style as an underground cartoonist, artist, critic, disc jockey and record collector was accompanied by an ornate eccentricity, died on March 15 in Providence, R.I. He was 82.The cause of his death, in a hospital, was a ruptured aneurysm in his aorta, said his sisters, Marie Peck and Lois Barber.Mr. Peck was not as well known or acclaimed as underground cartoonists like Robert Crumb or Art Spiegelman. That was perhaps in part because his interests were so broad, Gary Kenton, who edited him at Fusion and Creem magazines from the late 1960s into the ’70s, said in an interview.“To me, he would be a Top 10 cartoonist, a Top 10 D.J., a Top 10 rock critic,” Mr. Kenton said.Mr. Peck illustrated one of the first scholarly works on the importance of comic books. And he was perhaps the first cartoonist to write record reviews in four-panel comic-strip form.He also wrote an academic paper in 1983 with the literary commentator Michael Macrone about the evolution of television; its title, “How J.R. Got Out of the Air Force and What the Derricks Mean,” playfully referenced phallic symbolism in the oil-soaked prime-time soap opera “Dallas.” Mr. Peck once called it his “crowning achievement.”His comic-strip music critiques appeared in Fusion, Creem, Rolling Stone and other music publications, and in The Village Voice. He worked in a retro style repurposed from the 1940s and ’50s and wrote with sardonic humor (“Is There Life After Meatloaf?”), while offering trustworthy criticism.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More