Rick And Chelsea Are Not The Toxic Couple The Internet Wants You To Believe

It’s been a few days since the divisive finale of The White Lotus aired, and enough time has passed that I can come out and call bull on the claim that Rick and Chelesea are the most toxic couple on the show. 

Mike White’s satire about rich people being the absolute worst in beautiful locations (Thailand this season) always ends with a tragedy. This time, it’s the star-crossed lovers Rick (Walton Goggins) and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood).

The pairing had been the hot topic of conversation amid a season that had a gay-incest storyline, a slimy millionaire’s multiple suicide fake-outs, Blackpink’s Lisa, murderous Gary’s return and a trio of best friends out of which one was an insecure Hollywood actress, one was a burnt out New Yorker, and one was a Texan Trump supporter. Rick, with his mysterious and gruff demeanour and receded hairline, and Chelsea, with her boundless optimism and wide-eyed sincerity, managed to eke their way up to becoming one of the show's most interesting aspects. The fact that they ~SPOILER~ died at the show's end was the perfect conclusion to their ill-fated love story.

At the end of the final episode of The White Lotus’ third season, Rick’s past trauma catches up to him, and he fatally shoots the hotel’s owner, Jim Hollinger. It triggers a shootout between Rick and Jim’s bodyguards and, sadly, Chelsea is caught in the crossfire. When Rick tries to carry her to safety (although it is too late), he is shot in the back multiple times by Gaitok. Rick and Chelsea fall into the water and fulfill their fate of staying together forever.

On the surface, Rick and Chelesea’s relationship was the textbook definition of problematic. There’s the glaring age gap between the two, which, initially, hinted at a potential power imbalance, but as the show went on, it became clear that it was not the case (not entirely, at least). Rick would always seem put upon and annoyed whenever Chelsea spoke about their relationship (which was a lot), and he never really showed that he cared for her. It became evident that Rick is battling demons of his own, and the last thing he needed was a cheerful sidekick hell bent on showering him with love and affection. Chelsea, on the other hand, was sadly afflicted with the ‘I can fix him’ syndrome, choosing to view Rick’s gruff silence and anti-social behaviour as something that she can fix with her Aries energy and enthusiasm.

Many who have spoken against claiming that Rick and Chelsea’s relationship is anything but toxic feel the aforementioned points are enough to warrant their entry into the ‘Problematic Fictional Relationship’ club. 

Popular culture around the world has romanticised dark, tormented love. Men who make it seem like you’d need to crack complex codes in order to love them as they deserve to and free them from their demons have been littered across mediums like classic books, romantic movies and TV shows. This is why, despite Big treating Carrie horribly over all those years, we still sighed with joy when Big goes to her in Paris to tell her that she was, in fact, The One (Sex and the City). Or Jess’ repeatedly horrible treatment of Rory, does nothing to dampen the popularity of Team Jess in the shipping wars on Gilmore Girls. Over the years, there have been many examples of onscreen couples that would have been better off without each other, like Ross and Rachel (from Friends), Ted and Robin (How I Met Your Mother), Bella and Edward (Twilight), Joker and Harley Quinn (DC Universe) or Christian Grey and Ana Steele (Fifty Shades Of Grey). But is it fair to add Rick and Chelsea from The White Lotus to the list? Maybe not.

It’s true that Rick and Chelsea are not the definition of a healthy relationship, but they weren’t exactly wrong for each other. Throughout the season, Rick goes through an arc regarding his relationship with Chelsea. It’s clear that he doesn’t want her there, but it’s revealed that that’s because the trip to Thailand is not just a relaxing getaway for him. He is on a mission to hunt down his father’s killer, and the presence of a bright and happy Chelsea is not ideal. He does, however, slowly start to warm up to her relentless clinginess. He even gives in to her requests of booking a therapy session with the hotel’s in-house spiritual coach, Amrita. He even accompanies her to Gary and Chloe’s boat party upon her request, going by her assurance that he’d have much in common with Rick since they’re both old and bald (well, Gary was bald and Rick was on his way to be bald).

While this, by all means, is not enough to absolve Rick of his rude and selfish behaviour on the trip, you need to understand that Chelsea is not the blameless victim here as many would like to believe. 

Despite many signs and many people warning her, she continued to ignore the many red flags Rick was constantly waving at her. Her deluded understanding of Rick’s apathy towards her feelings about being confronted with death, not once but twice, should have been a warning sign, but she persevered on.

The actress, herself, backs this up. In an interview with Variety, Aimee Lou Wood says, “People are so mean about Rick, and as they should be. It’s not nice watching someone be mean to a ray of sunshine, but she is nuts. She’s just as nuts as he is. His God is his own pain, and she’s made her God him. Both of them are crazy. I love them so much, but they are crazy, and they die because they’re crazy. They don’t die because it’s a love story. They die because they’re crazy.”

Chelsea loves Rick, and he loves her back. They are oddly committed to each other, choosing to stay loyal amid epiphanic moments and drug-fuelled orgies. It’s Chelsea’s words and unflinching acceptance of his past that allows him to (temporarily) come to terms with what happened with his father and Jim Hollinger and come back to Koh Samui to reunite with her. Their beach hug is one of the most romantic moments onscreen in recent history, and you can argue with a wall. It even moved Saxon (one half of the incest duo), leading him to the path of enlightenment.

When Rick returns to Chelsea, she tells him that she was never worried about him not coming back to her, pronouncing that their relationship is based on amor fati (a love of fate). “It means you have to embrace your fate, good or bad. Whatever will be, will be,” she says to him. “And at this point, we’re linked, so if a bad thing happens to you, it happens to me.” This is something she believes with unwavering conviction. So her not leaving Rick alone during the shootout in a bid to protect him from himself is a choice she made. 

One of the major reasons why many people have been up in arms about labelling their relationship as romantic is that it plays into the trope of a damaged man being fixed by a bright and bubbly woman. In our society, it’s always considered a woman’s responsibility to shoulder the burden of emotional labour and ‘fixing’ men. The rise of the problematic ‘mankeeping’ trend is testament to this.

Even Mike White tried to shift the needle of the blame to the spiritual coach for not being available for Rick to vent before he went on a shooting spree. In the case of Rick and Chelsea, however, this doesn’t fully apply. They’re both responsible (maybe not in equal amounts) for what happens to them throughout their Thailand trip.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Why Is The World Obsessed With Joanne And Noah From ‘Nobody Wants This’?

Is their relationship aspirational? Not at all. But both Rick and Chelsea are twisted in their own ways and make an oddly perfect (almost sweet) pair. 

“I think it’s even post-toxic,” says Aimee Lou Wood. “It almost goes full circle to being very pure, because I don’t think there’s malice in it. I think for something to be a toxic relationship, there’s got to be some kind of control. There’s a power dynamic. There’s a this, there’s a that—and there is in Rick and Chelsea. But there’s also not, because they’re both as willful. It’s almost like it’s so nuts, that it can’t even be judged by other people. It can’t even be judged by those standards anymore, because it’s so beyond that. He’s getting what he wants, which is revenge, and she’s getting what she wants, which is him, right? They both get what they want, but both of them want really destructive things. But I would say it’s self-destruction. I don’t think Rick is trying to destroy Chelsea, and I don’t think Chelsea is trying to destroy Rick. I think they are both trying to destroy themselves.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to listening to the autotune remix of Parker Posey’s ‘Tsunami, Buddhism. Piper, nooooo’ on repeat. Thank you.