Could This Fruit Hold the Key to The White Lotus S3 Murder Mystery
Once again, we find ourselves on a paradisiacal hotel with a bunch of rich and entitled screw-ups for company. We're only one episode into The White Lotus season three, but the worst of them seems to be Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), the eldest boy in the incredibly creepy Ratliff family, who acts like he’s been dragged to a local leisure centre where hair and plasters clog the drains of the communal showers, rather than a 5-star, luxury wellness resort on the gorgeous Thai island of Koh Samui.
As is customary for a stay in The White Lotus, one person, either a staff member or a guest, always ends up dead. Either a murder, or death by misadventure (No, Tanya McQuoid, you sadly don’t “got this”). The first episode of season three once again presented us with another dead body, face-down in the shallow waters of the resort.
And while we’re all immediately hoping it’s Saxon who’s met an untimely end – or perhaps another character who had a shock return – it could be anyone. That's why we’re all gathered here again: to find out who it is, and of course, whodunnit.
But there’s one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene early on in episode one that might hold the key to this season’s death, and the unusual item that possibly could lead to the killing.
Saxon is complaining again, whining about not having his phone for a few days to Pam, a long-suffering staff member. “What am I supposed to do here all week without my phone, eat a bunch of fruit?”, he says, picking up a green fruit from the ground.
“Well, we do have a lot of amazing fruit here,” replies Pam. “But I wouldn’t eat that. That’s the fruit of the mighty pong pong tree and the seeds of the fruit are toxic”. Kill you toxic, he asks? “Yeah, it could actually, it’s very poisonous,” and there’s a lingering shot on Saxon with the fruit, before moving on with the story.
The pong pong tree is actually a tree in real life, known as the Cerbera odollam, and its green fruit, called othalanga, really do contain seeds so toxic that they can make your heart stop. There have been many deaths from these seeds in the fruit, especially in India, where the trees are common – one report stated almost one person a week died from ingesting the seeds, and back in the 19th century they were used to “prove” witch trials in Madagascar.
But the pong pong tree is also known colloquially as ‘the suicide tree’ – according to the The Washington Post: “Researchers believe that more people have taken their own life using othalanga than any other plant in the world.” Some recent cases have been covered in international news, so has White Lotus creator Mike White taken inspiration from this?
Could the dead body seen at the beginning of the series be someone who has taken their own life? Or has the fruit been used as a murder weapon, slipped into an innocent fruit smoothie?
Or maybe it's just a red herring.
Either way, pong pong tree has been mentioned for a specific reason and it’s notable that green fruit shares similar qualities with Saxon and the parents of the Ratliff family: while they may look good on the outside, something toxic and dangerous lies within. The other guests – or family members? – would do best to just stick to pad thai around the pool.
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