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This interview includes spoilers for the season finale of \u201cThe White Lotus.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n A man with a name like Rick Hatchett was unlikely to die in his bed.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t. In the Season 3 finale<\/a> of \u201cThe White Lotus,\u201d Rick, played by Walton Goggins<\/a>, gunned down Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), whom Rick had long believed to be his father\u2019s killer. (A posthumous twist: He was actually Rick\u2019s father.) Then Rick was shot, in the back, by the gentle but ambitious security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong). Most tragic: Rick\u2019s sunshiny girlfriend, Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), was mortally wounded in the crossfire. With her dying in his arms, Rick fell into the hotel\u2019s lily pond. In that moment, Goggins believes, Rick finds peace.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it was being released from pain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On the morning after the finale, Goggins, a celebrated character actor<\/a> currently also starring in \u201cThe Righteous Gemstones\u201d<\/a> and \u201cFallout,\u201d<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Did you feel that this ending was inevitable? Was Rick always meant to die?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I do believe that. I didn\u2019t 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\u2019t have ended any other way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the previous episode, he stopped himself from killing Jim. In the finale, he can\u2019t resist. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n His life has been defined by this single event [Jim\u2019s 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\u2019s made and for not moving past it. Being face-to-face with his tormentor allowed him to express this deep feeling \u2014 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\u2019t, I was in tears about that and overjoyed for this revelation and this moment of peace.<\/p>\n