Patrick Schwarzenegger Says the Original 'White Lotus' Finale Was 2.5 Hours of Chaos We'll Never See

According to Patrick Schwarzenegger, the original cut of the finale to "The White Lotus" was two and a half hours. The 31-year-old actor, who had his breakout role as Saxon Radliff on the HBO megahit, told Variety that director/writer Mike White "shot two and a half hours for the finale and boiled it down to 90 minutes. That's already a stretch for HBO to give."

Some have written that Saxon gets the short shrift in the finale, starting with only having the briefest of conversations with his brother Lochlan (Sam Nivola) about the infamous handjob he gave him while having a three-way with Charlotte LeBon. But Schwarzenegger felt differently.

"The power dynamics between brothers completely changed after Episode 6. Lochlan is really trying to say he's caught in the middle of everyone in the family, constantly trying to please them. In this case, quite literally. Mike White does such an amazing job writing, and the theme of the season is that you enter the White Lotus as one person and you leave as another," Schwarzenegger told Variety.

"The scene with me and Sam in the finale is kind of a period at the end of a sentence. There's some kind of closure, even though Saxon can't confront what happened between them. He can't look his brother in the eye. He begs to have them live in denial forever. It's a sweet but odd moment – Lochlan telling his brother that he knows he just wants to get off."

While Schwarzenegger and other cast members, as well as the public at large, had questions about the Radliffs, White avoided any answers. For instance, did White reveal what the sexual orientations of the brothers were? "No. One of my audition scenes was the scene by the pool, when the when the two girls are interrogating me, saying they didn't force me to kiss my brother. I'm like, 'Yeah, you did.' And then they say, 'Well, we didn't make him jerk you off.' At the time, I didn't know if that was them messing with me, or if it had actually happened until I booked the role. We didn't have, necessarily, conversations before that, but on the day we shot it we wanted to make sure everyone was comfortable. Particularly Charlotte [Le Bon], because we were all in bed together."

Nor did White elaborate to the cast about the final scene on the boat when Saxon, his mom, brother, and sister retrieve their phones and learn of Timothy's (Jason Isaacs) financial crimes, kept hidden from them while at The White Lotus. "There's so much I wish I knew! I just watched the finale. I wonder if Saxon knew that Chelsea died. And when we power our phones on, is that when we know everything about our dad? Mike likes ambiguity. He wants people to have these conversations... It was always scripted how it aired. Mike did say he wanted it to be me who looks to my dad after my phone comes on – because they work together and there are more consequences for Saxon."

Did he think the Ratliffs would survive the loss of their wealth and community standing? "I don't know that the entire family will ever recover from the shock. I told Mike, they should put out an April Fool's story that there will be a Ratliff spinoff, like a fake reality show about that. It would be so funny."

On the final episodes, Saxon was getting closer to Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), if only to bed her; instead she nixed that idea by giving him books for him to develop his spiritual awareness. In the finale, she is caught in the crossfire between security guards and her boyfriend, Rick (Walter Goggins) and is killed. "Over the last two episodes, he starts to form a more meaningful relationship with Chelsea. She opens him up by giving him books, and he's exposed to the fact that she believes Rick is her soulmate. She's really in love, and Saxon doesn't understand that. He's always laughing or scoffing at that those things, but he watches her actually run off into the sunset and jump into Rick's arms. They have this moment, forehead to forehead, and he thinks, 'Wow. Maybe this is what I want.'"

And he added, "What I loved about Saxon is that he came in with this bravado about money and sex. He enters the most confident, and leaves the most confused. It's also what makes that confrontation with his brother so powerful; they literally change roles. Saxon has a full-on internal crisis."

That resonated with viewers, at least those Schwarzenneger had spoken to. "The first four episodes, I had people coming up to me nonstop telling me how much they hated my character. That I was playing such a great douche bag, and all these different things. But that past four weeks, I've had people come up saying, 'I feel so much for your character. He's going through so much. I can't believe I'm rooting for Saxon.' It's been so cool to see how much the audience has invested."