Warning: Spoilers ahead for Dear White People season 3 finale, “Chapter X.”
Netflix’s Dear White People started as a not-so-simple show about race relations on a mostly lily white Ivy League campus and a deplorable blackface party. But over the last three seasons, Dear White People has exploded into a weighty comedy about those tough issues… that is also chasing the specter of a secret society. The kind of secret society that is so powerful, it can silence a senator’s daughter, like Muffy Tuttle (Caitlin Carver).
It’s that secret society, DWP’s fictional Order of X, that keeps season 3 from ending with a full and resounding conclusion. Sam White (Logan Browning) may have settled on a revelatory junior thesis. Lionel Higgins (DeRon Horton) may have figured out his relationship with Michael (Wade F. Wilson) of Li’l Brown Eyes fame. Prodigal professor Moses Brown (Blair Underwood) is outed as the sexual predator he is for assaulting Muffy. Everything seems as settled as possible in the roiling world of Winchester University as season 3 finale “Chapter X” wraps.
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But then Troy Fairbanks (Brandon Bell) shows up to Sam and Lionel’s Armstrong-Parker House hang session to announce, “We need to talk.” The topic at hand? The gold Order of X button Troy places in front of Sam and Lionel before a fade to black. It's Troy's single piece of tangible proof the Order of X exists. In a season-ender made of resolutions, it’s that button that hints at what a possible Dear White People season 4 could be about: bringing down the Order.
At the end of DWP season 2, Sam and Lionel wind up at the induction point of the Order of X. They believe this is the moment they’ll join the illustrious Black secret society based out of Winchester (and, possibly, the other Ivy League schools). Instead, as Dr. Ruskin/The Narrator reveals in the 2019 premiere, the Order is dead — he needs them to revive it for a new generation. “More depends on this than you know,” Ruskin says.
But, after being disillusioned in a variety of ways over season 2, Sam and Lionel desert Dr. Ruskin. They can't handle another disappointment. So, Sam and Lionel spend most of the 2019 season avoiding the mounting proof the Order is pulling the strings on campus. That means trying to overlook Moses' Order of X cufflinks or the fact Dr. Ruskin popped up in the middle of Lionel’s library stacks hookup to hand him a book.
Sam and Lionel’s carefully constructed Order of X blinders come falling down when Troy’s dad Walter Fairbanks (Obba Babatundé) spots a picture of Ruskin in Lionel’s room at the midpoint of the finale (Moses is also in the photo). This how we learn the mysterious Order of X member’s name in the first place. Sam and Lionel spend the rest of the episode chasing Ruskin down to get to the bottom of the Order mystery. The professor explains he and Moses joined the Order during grad school at Winchester. Ruskin suggests Moses also harassed or assaulted an impressionable student during his first time at Winchester. Sam realizes the Order swept that incident under the rug.
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“A powerful faction within the Order, one obsessed with gaining and protecting status and wealth [did],” Ruskin explains. “It has infected the entire organization … I apologize for all the subterfuge, but when the Order sees a threat coming, it neutralizes it.”
This corrosion explains why Ruskin so desperately wanted Sam and Lionel to join the Order in the premiere — he needs new blood that is on his side.
Ruskin’s story is confirmed by another finale conversation. It’s the one between Troy and his dad and it takes place around the same time Sam and Lionel visit Ruskin. Troy tells his dad he plans to take Moses down by publishing his new humor magazine Fried Chicanery, and Walter responds like his son is planning his own funeral. First, Walter flashes back to the day he brought his son to meet the Order back in season 1 (and Troy turned them down). Now, with Troy working to destroy a member of the Order, Walter says, “It’s important that you understand what the Order is really capable of.” The suggestion is complete destruction.
Between these two conversations, three major players at Winchester are aware of the threat of the Order. Troy has met a few of them. Sam and Lionel have seen their faces in the Order class photos in Ruskin’s home. And everyone knows they’re the ones silencing Muffy about the night Moses assaulted her. As Ruskin suggests, it’s likely the Order threatened Molly’s academic future or some secret her powerful mother is hiding. They committed such a sin just to protect their members, no matter how dangerous they may be.
But, the ending of “Chapter X” — showing us Troy, Sam, and Lionel finally coming together — suggests the secret society's unmitigated power is about to come to an end. Troy, now fully activated as a truth-obsessed humorist, has questions and proof something is very wrong. Sam and Lionel are finally out of their post-disillusionment haze. If anyone can take down the Order, it’s this trio.
Now it’s up to Netflix to give Dear White People a fourth season so we can see them try.