Spoilers for the season 3 finale of The White Lotus ahead.

Aimee Lou Wood was adamant during filming that her character Chelsea had found her soulmate in Rick (Walton Goggins), even though some fans rooted for her to end up with Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) instead. Saxon listened to and was changed by Chelsea, whereas Rick’s fixation on his traumatic past doomed them both.

After wrapping the series, Wood has reevaluated whether Rick—or Saxon—was really a good match for Chelsea. The actress spoke to GQ after the finale about how loving Rick literally cost Chelsea her life. (She followed Rick when he began his shootout during the season finale and was killed by a stray bullet.)

Even show creator and writer Mike White questioned his decision to kill off Chelsea. “He doubted it a lot,” Wood said. “He came up to me a few times and said, ‘Are people going to hate me too much? I don’t know if this is too far.’ She’s the most hopeful character on the show and that’s why she has to die, but obviously on a human level it is really fricking sad.”

chelsea and rick in the finale
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When Wood looks at Chelsea and Rick’s relationship now, she sees its flaws. “I think it’s really confronting for some because there’s a lot of people that have been Chelsea, and it’s painful when you love someone and they’re not giving you anything back. It fucking hurts,” she said. “It’s only after you leave that relationship that you go ‘what the fuck was I doing for so long, how did I do that?’’

She isn’t sure the right match for Chelsea was either Rick or Saxon, actually. “Why does the choice have to be between two men?” she asked. “She could have chosen herself but she is a delulu romantic. That’s her thing to bear in this lifetime.”

She spoke to Bustle about what a potential romance between Saxon and Chelsea would’ve been like, and true to Chelsea, she brought the characters’ star signs into the equation. “Saxon and Chelsea would have been a connected relationship, not an addictive one,” she began. “She wants to be the seer, not the seen. Saxon going, ‘OK, yeah, I’ll read those books. I’ll do that.’ It’s too reciprocal, and she’s like, ‘No, you’re not for me. You’re a douche. You’re shallow.’ I think Saxon has so much hope and determination and wants to be better, and Rick actually wants to succumb to his worst bits, and Chelsea wants the Scorpio. She wants the darkness. She doesn’t want her Aries twin. [She and Saxon] would be firing along together, moving forward and getting things done.”

Wood added that she feels Saxon and Chelsea’s destinies may even be more linked than Chelsea and Rick’s. “[Saxon is] still reading the book on that last shot, so she’s living on in him,” she said. “He will be a better person. In a way, they’re more cosmically linked than Rick and Chelsea because they die. Saxon lives on with all of Chelsea’s best bits.”

Wood offered her interpretation of Saxon’s viral last look at Chelsea as she reunited with Rick in her GQ interview, saying, “[Saxon] is looking at something that he doesn’t have that he wants: the connection Chelsea has to Rick. He’s not going to have Chelsea, but he can have everything that Chelsea’s taught him.”

saxon's final look at chelsea
YouTube

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Wood expanded on that scene, comparing Saxon and Rick’s interest in Chelsea. When Saxon reveals he’s reading the book Chelsea gave him, “he’s looking at her, and he’s listening to her. He’s not saying she’s stupid, he’s not shutting her down, but then she sees Rick and she runs to him,” Wood said. Still, because of Chelsea’s “unhealed shit” and inability to look inside herself, she still chose Rick.

“She literally runs towards her fate,” Wood said. “So, that’s what she wants. And actually, it’s patronizing in a way to make it out like she doesn’t have any agency—that Rick is the one who’s caused all the problems. It’s like, they’re both colluding in this thing. Even Patrick saying, ‘Why did Saxon not take a bullet for Chelsea?’ He was so upset that Saxon doesn’t take a bullet. He was like, ‘Why didn’t Mike write it so that Saxon jumps in front, so Chelsea could live?’ It’s like everyone wants to save Chelsea. But she can only save herself.”

Wood said she believes Chelsea “does live on in Saxon though. He doesn’t get Chelsea, but he’s going to internalize everything that she taught him and he’s going to live with that. Like Mike says, the reading of the book at the end is very hopeful because it’s saying that he might use everything [he’s learned], and it’s very rare for a White Lotus character to actually change that much.”

Schwarzenegger spoke to Deadline about Chelsea and Saxon’s connection and shed light on how he approached that final exchange:

Well, that it was actually my first week filming…but it’s probably the most profound moment of my acting career, because as an actor, you try to look for the character arc over the eight episodes. You want to play something so that there is this full-circle moment. Mike’s not a big rehearsal guy. He doesn’t really spend a lot of time on table reads or rehearsals or any of that stuff. So the first take, I did it, and I did it as this really kind of sweet moment of coming up and playing really cute with Chelsea and saying that I read her books. Just like, this really sweet moment. Mike was like, “Dude, don’t do that. Don’t do that. Just be Saxon. Just talk about how you thought the sex stuff was kind of funny, and kind of brush it off and don’t pay attention to her, and then all I want to do is, I just want to have a camera sit here and look at your face as you watch her run and jump into to Rick’s arms. That’s all I care about. I just want that to be the moment.”

So we switched up the scene, and she ran off into Walton’s arms, and I just cocked my head over and and he just stayed on it for probably a very awkward length of time, 20 or 30 seconds, and then yelled cut. He just came over and did his classic whispering, “Perfect,” with his okay sign fingers, and yeah. It was just kind of this internalizing moment. He wants to have the audience left with: Will Saxon change? Then you have him with the book on the boat. That’s his full, full-circle moment. Although Chelsea’s gone, did Chelsea open up his eyes, and then did she have him potentially change? And if there was a few more episodes, or if there was a live camera back in Durham, how would we think Saxon changed? He’s just kind of longing for, I think, a real relationship. That’s something you see from him, constantly asking his dad for his approval and always looking to his brother to groom him. Then same with the girls. I think he’s finally having that moment where he’s like, “Maybe I want something that’s real.”

He also admitted he’s not even sure Saxon knew that Chelsea was killed: “How much of it do I know about what happens to Chelsea? What do I know about the shooting? [Mike] leaves it ambiguous with that.”