Ed's Thoughts on The White Lotus Season 3

It wasn't as good as Seasons 1 and 2 but offered enough to not hate it.

I don’t do a lot of writing about television, and that’s for a good reason, because I really don’t have much time to watch television, and I hate binge watching, partially because I rarely have the time and I actually like stretching out my viewing. Which brings me to Season 3 of Mike White’s The White Lotus, which was originally thought to be a mini-series, but then it got a second and now a third season.

(FYI, I’m writing this piece 30 Minute Experiment style, and if you don’t know what that is then you haven’t been reading my stuff during COVID when there were very few movies to write about. But also, I’ve been wanting to write about other things for a while but there’s always movie stuff to write, so I focus on that.)

If you haven’t watched it yet, I’ll save any serious spoilers until the very end but the general premise is that each season takes place in a different location and involves different characters, although there have been returning characters from past season with each new one, and that’s the case here.

As you probably are aware I’d hope, Season 3 takes place in Thailand, and it follows not only a number of the guests at the White Lotus but also some of the staff and others, showing how they interact and relate to each other. I expect if you’re reading this, you’ve already watched the season and maybe are interested in my thoughts, so I’ll keep this brief.

There are maybe four or five storylines running through the season, one involving the Ratliffs, a family of five led by Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey with three adult children, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sam Nivola, and Sarah Catherine Hook. It’s interesting that two of those three latter actors are 2nd gen actors with well-known parents.

Walton Goggins plays Rich Hatchett, who is at the White Lotus with his girlfriend Chelsea, played by Aimee Lou Wood.

Then there are three adult female friends reconnecting by going on connection together, played by Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb, and Carrie Coon. Nothing weird there, as adult female friends go on vacations together all the time.

Natasha Rothwell is one of the returning cast playing Belinda from the firs season, now working at a wellness spa at the Thailand White Lotus. She still has aspirations to find love and money, and that continues.

Another returning cast and the only one who has appeared on three seasons is Jon Gries as Greg/Gary, the husband of Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya from the first seasons. He’s now with the significantly younger Chloe, played by Charlotte Le Bon, who becomes close friends with Chelsea.

There are a lot of White Lotus staff who play key roles but my favorite story was probably that of security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) and greeter Mook, played by Lalisa Manobol aka global superstar Lisa of the K-Pop group Blackpink.

Lek Patravadi plays one of the White Lotus’ owners, a former actress Sritala Hollinger, while the great Scott Glenn plays her husband, who we don’t see often since he’s suffered a stroke.

All of these stories continue throughout the season with some of the characters and stories interacting with each other and some of them getting more interesting with certain episodes, though there not really being one character that is the focus ala Tanya from the first two seasons.

Being a big romantic, my favorite story was probably that of Gaitok and Mook, because it offered such a sweet innocence amongst all the drama and emotions, but there’s also is there a will-they-or-won’t-they aspect to it since Gaitok seems very sweet and innocent and maybe Mook prefers the bad boys. We never really see that last big crop up, and maybe it’s something I presumed since I’m aware of Lisa’s music and onstage persona there, which is so different. I think if there’s one thing many got out of the series is to see how great an actress she is. Don’t believe me? Check out one of the music videos from Lalisa’s recent album (which is one of my favorites this year):

I think another big discovery for the show is Aimee Lou Wood, who I probably have seen in something before this, but she also brings a certain level of sweetness and innocence to the proceedings, especially considering her pairing with Goggins’ Rick, who has quite a dark past that has brought him to Thailand in the first place.

The crazy thing is that this season offered some of screen time for some of my absolutely favorite actors, particularly Michelle Monaghan and Jason Isaacs, two of my all-time favorite actors in anything they do. I also really like Leslie Bibb and Parker Posey, so it was great to seeing them, too.

My biggest issue with Season 3 is not that it’s slow, but it’s just too long and stretched out, and there’s so much in there that didn’t need to be in there. This season is only one episode longer than the previous one, but that was already longer than Season 1, and eight episodes just seemed to be too much, especially when you end it all with an extra-long last episode. It clearly feels like Mike White had a lot of ideas for characters and situations but spent way too much time having them enjoy the scenery and far less time moving the story forward.

For instance, the storyline involving the three friends seemed to go nowhere after episodes of having them drooling over one particular spa employee, going out and enjoying Thailand and partying a little too hard. It leads to some minor squabbles but nothing hugely revelatory.

The family led by Isaacs and Posey also has a lot of internal drama, especially as Isaac’s patriarch Tim learns that his business and money is in jeopardy as he’s trying to enjoy a family vacation, in which they have to give up their phones as soon as they arrive. Each of their kids have journeys, but they’re mostly interlocked, as Patrick Scwarzenegger’s cocky Saxon seems to be a sex addict, always trying to hook up, while the other two kids… well, frankly they were pretty boring.

Belinda’s story definitely got more interesting as it went along, especially as she recognizes Jon Gries, to see where that goes. Rick’s story is also quite interesting, especially as he travels to Bankok and connects with a friend, played by Sam Rockwell, who has gone down a dark rabbit hole of that city’s seedier offerings. We eventually learn that Rick is there to confront the man who killed his father, who turns out to be Glenn’s character.

With all of that going on, you’d think the whole series would be impossible to wait on watching each episode, and normally, that would be my case due to other commitments, but I’ve tried my best to keep up on it to avoid spoilers, and that almost ended up being my downfall for the final episode. I do think it mostly paid off on things that went before, but it also disappointed me in other aspects. But to discuss that will require some spoilers, so….

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

One of the things that connected the previous seasons of the show was the White Lotus resort locations and the fact that there was a dead body involved and most of the season sets up that one of the characters will die but we won’t know who that is, and that really hurts the show overall, because it means that people are just watching the show wondering who will die, maybe hoping that some might die over others. The number of think pieces I saw about that before the final episode was pretty insane. And sadly, I didn’t get to watch the episode live on Sunday (I had other things to watch)… by Monday, as hard as I tried to avoid the spoilers, I saw a few things that made me think I knew who died and how they died. I ended up watching the final episode in installments, partially because it was longer than others but also cause I was busy, and having seemingly been spoiled, I didn’t feel there was a rush to watch what I thought I already knew.

Yes, I actually thought that Tim, who had proven suicidal, had accidentally killed his favorite son Lochlan using poison he meant for himself, but it ended up being even darker than that as Tim made drinks for his whole family in a blend that included poisonous fruit. Clearly, he felt there was no future for himself and no future for his family without him, so that seemed like the best solution.

What I presumed ended up not being exactly the case, and instead, the episode cumulated with the feud between Rick and Jim Hollinger, and that ended up in a gunfight that even Gaitok gets pulled into. And yes, a bunch of people die in that melée, some who probably deserved it and one who definitely did not.

I was a little bummed that the Gaitok/Mook storyline wasn’t really given a real conclusive ending, and even the story with the three female friends just kind of petered out. Ultimately, the Ratliffs and the Rick/Chelsea stories ended up being the most satisfying, so one wonders if maybe Mike White bit off a bit more then he could chew and maybe should make the next season shorter and more to the point.

For the most part, I felt like each episode had one or two things that people were talking about (the snakes, the threesome, etc) but that literally might be one thing in each hour-long episode, and a lot of things just happened with no real purpose or resolution, which makes The White Lotus the definition of a water cooler show that you talk about the next day with your coworkers (I work alone at home) and then never mention again. And that is NOT good television. There are shows that people quote or cite years and even decades later (Seinfeld comes to mind), but The White Lotus seems more for the TikTok and social media generation, something that’s immediate and that you want to talk about (and spoil, apparently) right away but who knows if anyone will be talking about it a year from now?

I almost feel like that happened with Squid Game, and I still haven’t even gotten through Season 2 yet, despite loving Season 1 so much. It’s just that excitement about being the first to see something as soon as possible and before everyone else that I just never have gotten or loved.

With that in mind, I think I’ll have to give The White Lotus Season 3 a 6 out of 10. I know for a fact I doubt I’ll watch it again, though I’m looking forward to seeing more of Lalisa and Aimee Lou Wood and Tayme Thapthimthong in other things, because I feel they were the true breakouts of this season.