Is The Poisonous Fruit From The White Lotus Season 3 Real?

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Jason Isaacs as Timothy Ratliff grabbing a piece of poisonous fruit on The White Lotus

HBO

The following contains spoilers for the season 3 finale of “The White Lotus.”

Not everything was predictable on the somewhat-frustrating third season of “The White Lotus,” but from the first time the eternally-stressed Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) discovers the powerful poison at the center of the fruit growing on the trees in his White Lotus villa, it’s clear he’s considering its potential later use. The unassuming greenish fruit grows on a beautiful tree that develops lovely blooms, but at the center of said fruit are seeds that contain a deadly poison — in fact, Ratliff is told, local residents call the fruit “suicide fruit.” So when he decides that his family would be better off dead than endure losing all of their wealth because of his embroilment in a scandal and he can’t find his stolen gun, it’s no real surprise that he heads straight to the tree and gets himself the starter ingredients to the perfect poisoned piña coladas.

He ends up blending the poisonous seeds and trying to hide the taste with rum, but ends up chickening out at the last moment and pouring them down the drain after his wife Victoria (Parker Posey), son Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), and daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) have only taken little sips. Ironically, he tried to save his youngest child, Lochlan (Sam Nivola) from their terrible fate, but Lochlan ends up reusing the same blender and is the only one truly poisoned, nearly dying on the pool deck. It all makes for very exciting television, but begs to ask the question: is the deadly pong-pong fruit real?

The deadly fruit from The White Lotus is very real indeed

Jason Isaacs as Timothy Ratliffe making murder coladas

HBO

Called the “pong-pong tree” in Southeast Asia, the tree’s scientific name is Cerbera odollam, and in Kerala, India, they call it “othalanga,” which translates to “suicide tree.” The plant has a similar toxin to that of foxgloves and causes heart failure; a single kernel is enough to stop an adult person’s heart. Other symptoms of poisoning by this plant include nausea, vomiting, headache, coma, and problems with blood clotting, so it’s really not to be trifled with. Unfortunately, some researchers believe it’s the most commonly used plant in death by suicide worldwide, and it was used in Madagascar throughout the 19th century to attempt to test whether a person was guilty of witchcraft.

Timothy Ratliff is a deeply conflicted man who plans on killing most of his family in a murder-suicide because he believes they cannot survive a life without privilege, but in the end, only Lochy ends up poisoned by the deadly fruit. There is no known antidote, and treatment is mostly about managing symptoms and trying to regulate the heartbeat, which means survival can be sketchy. In Lochlan’s case, however, he probably only ingested a small amount of the poison and due to his young, healthy heart, he was able to get through it. Would he have been alright to just get on the boat as if nothing had happened? Probably not, and in the real world, the Ratliffs would have needed to get him to a hospital for an EKG and other cardiac tests, but that doesn’t exactly work for a finale, does it? Here’s hoping that the whole spoiled Ratliff family gets some medical and mental health treatment once they get home because they’re all gonna need it.

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