Checking Into The White Lotus Season 4: Everything We Know

Meanwhile, the show’s creator has also teased at least one change in the upcoming storyline: murders won’t take place with a beach backdrop.

“For the fourth season, I want to get a little bit out of the crashing waves of rocks vernacular,” Mike explained, referring to the deaths in water, during an “After the Episode” segment following the April finale. “But there’s always more room for more murders at the White Lotus hotels.”

As for past White Lotus guests who may check back in? While Jennifer Coolidge won an Emmy in 2022 for her performance as Tanya in the series, and emphasized to Forbes last February she was “envious as hell” of the season three cast, she knows for certain she’ll never get her room key back.

“It’s not like I haven’t wished or whatever, but it isn’t happening,” the Legally Blonde alum, whose character met her untimely end in season two, added to the outlet. “It doesn’t matter—they don’t need me.”

Jennifer also told E! News that same month that the return of her character’s boyfriend Greg (played by John Gries) left her hoping for his demise.

“Greg doesn’t deserve anything good,” she explained. “I hope he gets what he deserves, which is something really brutal.”

But unfortunately for Jennifer—and Tanya—Greg walked away unscathed last season, with Tanya’s former confidant Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) accepting $5 million to stay quiet about his past wrongdoings.

And when it comes to fans getting to see what Greg and Belinda are up to now, Jon, the only cast member to appear in all three seasons, said there’s “no trying to predict” whether anyone will be back for the upcoming season.

“I never presumed I’d be in season two,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in April. “Same for season three. Everything [Mike White] does has an element of surprise to it. Yes, I would love to come back. But does the book on Greg seem like it’s complete? I can’t tell you.”

For what those behind The White Lotus can tell you about season four, keep reading…

HBO officially renewed The White Lotus for a fourth season in January 2025, weeks before the third season premiered and after series creator Mike White pitched ideas for another go-round of moneyed murder and mayhem.

"Mike, obviously—if he wants to move forward and do the four seasons—he will do the fourth season," HBO CEO Casey Bloys told reporters in November.

Production on season four will likely kick off in 2026, according to Variety.

HBO confirmed in December that the series was headed to France, with multiple outlets confirming in January that the show's primary location would be the Château de la Messardière in Saint-Tropez, 19th-century palace that has since been converted into a luxury hotel.

Ahead of the confirmation, series alum Parker Posey had hinted to E! News that the White Lotus guests had their eyes set on the French locale.

White and fellow producers had been dropping hints, too.

"We're going on some locations scouting in the next couple of weeks, so we'll know soon," executive vice president of HBO Programming Francesca Orsi told Deadline in February. "I can’t really say where we’re going to land but chances are somewhere in Europe."

There are "some countries on the map that we talked about," Orsi added, "but nothing to report on until they actually go locations scouting."

White said in an interview for HBO that ran after the April 6 season three finale that he was looking to "get a little bit out of the 'crashing waves against rocks' vernacular" for next season.

"But," he added, "there's always room for more murders at the White Lotus hotels."

White also mentioned Australia as a dream destination while he was in Sydney at the Vivid Festival in June 2023.

“It would be so fun," he said. "Obviously, there’s a huge wealth of talent here and the beauty is inarguable, so it feels like it checks all the boxes."

The Hunger Games alum Alexander Ludwig and Aly & AJ singer AJ Michalk officially joined the cast, HBO confirmed in December 2025. And it's possible their characters may have some musical talents, since both stars have released their own albums before.

Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, the Emmy-winning composer behind the White Lotus title themes, will not be back for season four, citing creative disagreements with White dating back to the show's first season.

"It's kind of weird right now because I announced to the team a few months ago that I was not coming back, that I was leaving," Tapia de Veer told the New York Times in an interview published April 2. "I didn’t tell Mike for various reasons; I wanted to tell him just at the end for the shock and whatever." (White did find out before season's end, he said.)

As for the instantly catchy theme music he wrote for season one (that also opened season two), "You see it afterward, and it’s a success," Tapia de Veer said, "but to get there is quite the struggle" because White "didn't want the theme."

And no one told him to retool the opener for season three, he said, but he did—much to fans' loud consternation.

"When that came out, I had TMZ calling me, even people from England and from France, because they wanted some kind of statement about the theme," Tapia de Veer said. "People are furious about the change of the theme, and I thought that was interesting. I texted the producer and I told him that it would be great to, at some point, give them the longer version with the ooh-loo-loo-loos, because people will explode if they realize that it was going there anyway. He thought it was a good idea. But then Mike cut that—he wasn’t happy about that."

The composer added, "I mean, at that point, we already had our last fight forever, I think. So he was just saying no to anything."

On The Howard Stern Show April 8, White called it a "b--ch" move" for Tapia de Veer to air his grievances like that.

"I honestly don't know what happened," White said, "except now I'm reading his interviews because he decides to do some PR campaign about him leaving the show. I just don't think he respected me."

They "never really even fought," the producer continued. "He says we feuded...It was basically me giving him notes."

Their collaboration "did work" during the first two seasons, White said, because they shared ideas. By season three, Tapia de Veer "didn't want to go through the process with me, he didn't want to get notes from me, he didn't want to go to sessions."

And, White added, "He's definitely making a big deal out of just a creative difference."

White was pleasantly shocked that Jon Gries, who played Tanya's mysterious suitor Greg in season one and her calculating husband in season two, agreed to come back to play nefarious widower Gary in season three. But Gries said Gary's (a.k.a. Greg's) ship has sailed, as far as he knows.

However, that's what he thought last time.

"I don’t think [I'm coming back], but I don’t know so," he told The Hollywood Reporter after season three ended with Gary's secret safe for now. "All I can say is, every time I leave, I assume it’s over."

And yet despite the appeal of having all new guests at each resort—"I can burn down the house at the end of every season," White told The New Yorker, "and start building again”—the show has proved that, if you aren't dead...

"There’s no trying to predict anything Mike White does," Gries admitted to THR. "I never presumed I’d be in season two. Same for season three. Everything he does has an element of surprise to it. Yes, I would love to come back. But does the book on Greg seem like it’s complete? I can’t tell you."

Short of a White Lotus prequel or multiverse situation, there's really no vehicle for Jennifer Coolidge's Tanya to return except in a flashback or dream sequence. But the hope has remained ever since her unfortunate tumble from a yacht in the season two finale that revealed her to be the premiere's mystery body after being the only returning character from season one.

White has admitted to missing Coolidge's presence, but hasn't questioned his decision to kill off the well-intentioned but gullible and obscenely wealthy Tanya.

"He sort of sticks to his guns," Coolidge said of White on E! News in January 2023 after the season two finale. "He's an amazing friend, but I think he made his decision. He wanted a big, dramatic, Italian, you know, operatic ending for White Lotus 2, and he wanted to sacrifice Tanya."

Confirming she definitely wouldn't be showing up in Thailand for season three, she told The New Yorker, "I don't think Tanya's ever coming back, so I have to live with it."

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