The White Lotus: Same Spirits, New Forms
February 16, 2025 7:14 PM - Season 3, Episode 1 - Subscribe
As a new round of guests arrives at the White Lotus Thailand, Belinda settles in, Chelsea deals with a moody Rick, the Ratliffs go separate ways, and Kate, Laurie, and Jaclyn kick off a girls' trip.
The reviews below are for the first six episodes of season three which were provided to journalists. They are pretty vague but you might want to skip them if you want to watch the season completely unspoiled.
"Every inch of The White Lotus’s Thailand resort induces a mix of envious longing and burbling queasiness. There’s the pool, glimmering and pristine, and the endless cocktails and piles of fresh fruit at breakfast. There are monkeys in the trees above the opulent guest bungalows. Hot stone massages, private yoga, every possible amenity, and also rude, self-absorbed, and entitled rich people in every lounge chair, chasing status and self-improvement, conscious of every flaw but their own."—from Kathryn VanArendonk's review of season 3 for Vulture.
"While Coolidge gave The White Lotus much of its broad comedy, the rest of the ensemble cast could attempt more subtlety. This time around, though, the incandescently charming Belinda lends the show the opposite energy. She’s a familiar face, completely grounded in nuance and reality, while many of the new figures Mike White has drawn into his dark comedy of manners and murder lean into broad stereotype."—from Meghan O'Keefe's review of season 3 for Decider
The reviews below are for the first six episodes of season three which were provided to journalists. They are pretty vague but you might want to skip them if you want to watch the season completely unspoiled.
"Every inch of The White Lotus’s Thailand resort induces a mix of envious longing and burbling queasiness. There’s the pool, glimmering and pristine, and the endless cocktails and piles of fresh fruit at breakfast. There are monkeys in the trees above the opulent guest bungalows. Hot stone massages, private yoga, every possible amenity, and also rude, self-absorbed, and entitled rich people in every lounge chair, chasing status and self-improvement, conscious of every flaw but their own."—from Kathryn VanArendonk's review of season 3 for Vulture.
"While Coolidge gave The White Lotus much of its broad comedy, the rest of the ensemble cast could attempt more subtlety. This time around, though, the incandescently charming Belinda lends the show the opposite energy. She’s a familiar face, completely grounded in nuance and reality, while many of the new figures Mike White has drawn into his dark comedy of manners and murder lean into broad stereotype."—from Meghan O'Keefe's review of season 3 for Decider
Just found out that Lalisa Monabal, who plays the effervescent Mook, is Lisa from BlackPink. Holy crap she's talented. She speaks fluent Korean too.
posted by ishmael at 9:54 AM on February 17 [1 favorite]
posted by ishmael at 9:54 AM on February 17 [1 favorite]
Not excited about those southern accents or how not-transported I feel when the rich family talks about their college rivalry.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:56 AM on February 17 [1 favorite]
posted by bluedaisy at 9:56 AM on February 17 [1 favorite]
Parker Posey is actually from the south, right? Is her accent off?
posted by ishmael at 11:17 AM on February 17
posted by ishmael at 11:17 AM on February 17
Wikipedia says born in MD and 11 years in LA afterward.
It's got a little ham in it but is pretty believable to me - I have definitely heard similar grande dame accents like that in my life. I would have guessed Charleston, which makes sense given the Duke/Chapel Hill comments.
posted by jquinby at 11:27 AM on February 17 [1 favorite]
It's got a little ham in it but is pretty believable to me - I have definitely heard similar grande dame accents like that in my life. I would have guessed Charleston, which makes sense given the Duke/Chapel Hill comments.
posted by jquinby at 11:27 AM on February 17 [1 favorite]
Louisiana is different from North Carolina when it comes to accents, and even she calls it exaggerated, I now see via some googling.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:17 PM on February 17 [1 favorite]
posted by bluedaisy at 12:17 PM on February 17 [1 favorite]
I have a Texan friend with a very distinctive accent even after 20 years in California. On the edge of comical, but she is a true sweetheart and kind person so it doesn’t grate.
Enjoying the show so far as we meet our characters. However not enjoying the CREEP of an older brother even though there will surely be comeuppance. Not soon enough. Ugh ugh ugh. Random note: I wish they would show the food.
posted by gryphonlover at 11:43 PM on February 17 [3 favorites]
Enjoying the show so far as we meet our characters. However not enjoying the CREEP of an older brother even though there will surely be comeuppance. Not soon enough. Ugh ugh ugh. Random note: I wish they would show the food.
posted by gryphonlover at 11:43 PM on February 17 [3 favorites]
Maybe the thing about Posey's accent is that she's supposed to be on drugs too, probably benzos, and she's drawling for that reason. It does seem stereotyped though, like that whole benighted Southern family with possible incest going on. This show definitely rings changes on a few plot elements from season to season, such as siblings having to share rooms and the youngest kid being the outsider/audience point of view.
posted by BibiRose at 6:17 AM on February 18 [1 favorite]
posted by BibiRose at 6:17 AM on February 18 [1 favorite]
The thing I like about White Lotus is that it is so White Lotus. Nothing else is White Lotus. Vaguely reminiscent of early Coen brothers movies, but 100% its own thing. The tension of one-percenters and the people that serve them is always so palpable and well done. Characters that are instantly easy to hate (lookin at you Saxon, you monster), characters that you can't quite put a finger on, and characters that maaaaybe are okay to like? I also think there's excellent cinematography on display here.
So yeah, I'm on board.
posted by mcstayinskool at 6:40 AM on February 18 [4 favorites]
So yeah, I'm on board.
posted by mcstayinskool at 6:40 AM on February 18 [4 favorites]
Random thoughts...
Yes! Why do the uber-wealthy teen/adult children have to share rooms??? Remember the kid who had to sleep in the bathroom in Season 1?
Is the book the daughter is reading from real?
Greg!
posted by nanook at 6:42 AM on February 18 [2 favorites]
Yes! Why do the uber-wealthy teen/adult children have to share rooms??? Remember the kid who had to sleep in the bathroom in Season 1?
Is the book the daughter is reading from real?
Greg!
posted by nanook at 6:42 AM on February 18 [2 favorites]
For folks who aren't up on their college rivalries: they are definitely playing on stereotypes in the Duke-UNC rivalry, which is THE rivalry in North Carolina, with college basketball as the center of it all (unlike college football or pro sports rivalries in other places). The dad and older brother, Saxon (!), are show as arrogant, entitled jerks, which is certainly the stereotype of Duke students held by Tar Heels, which is to say, UNC students. The "family/house divided" ridiculousness thing is actually a real thing, with folks driving around NC with bumper stickers with half UNC half Duke or half UNC half NC State.
The two Duke men fighting the two UNC women for the sweet, hapless college senior is ... something that actually plays out in North Carolina households, including ones that aren't super rich. So, this whole family is the embodiment of the rivalry in a super weird way. It's perhaps supposed to be satirical except it's pretty realistic, even as the characters are ridiculous.
They are also seemingly playing on notions of backwards Southern-ness, with addled Parker Posey talking about UNC-Duke as if people in Thailand would know or care about such a thing.
(I also note that Saxon is played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, so he's a Shriver-Kennedy-Schwarzenegger, which is as close as you can get to American royalty.)
Anyway, I kinda hate it. I wish they had made up a rivalry so I wasn't sitting there critiquing their portrayal of it. But Parker Posey is a delight as always.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:14 AM on February 18 [4 favorites]
The two Duke men fighting the two UNC women for the sweet, hapless college senior is ... something that actually plays out in North Carolina households, including ones that aren't super rich. So, this whole family is the embodiment of the rivalry in a super weird way. It's perhaps supposed to be satirical except it's pretty realistic, even as the characters are ridiculous.
They are also seemingly playing on notions of backwards Southern-ness, with addled Parker Posey talking about UNC-Duke as if people in Thailand would know or care about such a thing.
(I also note that Saxon is played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, so he's a Shriver-Kennedy-Schwarzenegger, which is as close as you can get to American royalty.)
Anyway, I kinda hate it. I wish they had made up a rivalry so I wasn't sitting there critiquing their portrayal of it. But Parker Posey is a delight as always.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:14 AM on February 18 [4 favorites]
My and my wife's criticism (we're both Duke grads but I was raised properly, in a UNC household) is that no one from the triangle (in an interview, Jason Isaacs said he wanted to emulate a Durham accent) is actually going to Duke.
posted by Maecenas at 12:50 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]
posted by Maecenas at 12:50 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]
It's easier (and more fitting) to just hate the entire ACC.
posted by jquinby at 12:50 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]
posted by jquinby at 12:50 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]
I did not know that was supposed to be Durham?! Thanks for that. And I agree about who is going to Duke.
posted by bluedaisy at 2:28 PM on February 18
posted by bluedaisy at 2:28 PM on February 18
The thing I like about White Lotus is that it is so White Lotus. Nothing else is White Lotus. Vaguely reminiscent of early Coen brothers movies, but 100% its own thing. The tension of one-percenters and the people that serve them is always so palpable and well done. Characters that are instantly easy to hate (lookin at you Saxon, you monster), characters that you can't quite put a finger on, and characters that maaaaybe are okay to like? I also think there's excellent cinematography on display here.
I went through the same process, based off the opening gun shots, thinking, "Who will I not mind seeing killed in this show, who will I be upset about being killed in this show, and who will I really not care one way or another. "
Belinda is at the top of the list of people I don't want hurt for obvious reasons. The fact that her son is willing to charge toward gunfire for her just makes this even worse. If I had known she was going to be in this season, I'd forgotten, so it was a nice surprise.
Jason Isaac's accent was distracting because it felt like it wanted to go one way half the time and then went another way. Posey's accent sounded like a North Carolina accent, tbh, and other than being a bit more loud and exaggerated, I didn't mind too much. Having grown up in ACC country, the whole Duke/UNC thing was not a surprise in the least, and the Duke graduates definitely fit the mold of the stereotype. It feels like we haven't had a reference to the youngest son needing to be sure to join the right fraternity and that'd be about it.
Saxon is the worse in every conceivable manner. It's like they took the "bro" business major stereotype and purified it into the essence that is Saxon. I wondered if Lochlan's gaze at his brother going into the bathroom wasn't intended to indicate that he's closeted or something, as well as his decision not to answer what type of porn he likes to watch.
The build up in tension with Laurie watching her two friends was painful, and it was awkward and painful to watch her wail all of a sudden after she got back to her room. She definitely has come across as the lesser of the three equals and it's not clear if this is her own lack of self confidence or how her friends have treated her. Her anguish over the two also made me wonder if she was jealous of Kate having Jaclyn's attention or what.
Overall, the episode kind of dragged as we spent too much time setting up the different characters and getting to dislike, if not, hate a good number of them. I paused to see how much time I had left in the episode (I still had 23 minutes) and was not excited that I had 23 more minutes to enjoy. Hopefully we get more things happening and so on.
posted by Atreides at 7:01 AM on February 19
I went through the same process, based off the opening gun shots, thinking, "Who will I not mind seeing killed in this show, who will I be upset about being killed in this show, and who will I really not care one way or another. "
Belinda is at the top of the list of people I don't want hurt for obvious reasons. The fact that her son is willing to charge toward gunfire for her just makes this even worse. If I had known she was going to be in this season, I'd forgotten, so it was a nice surprise.
Jason Isaac's accent was distracting because it felt like it wanted to go one way half the time and then went another way. Posey's accent sounded like a North Carolina accent, tbh, and other than being a bit more loud and exaggerated, I didn't mind too much. Having grown up in ACC country, the whole Duke/UNC thing was not a surprise in the least, and the Duke graduates definitely fit the mold of the stereotype. It feels like we haven't had a reference to the youngest son needing to be sure to join the right fraternity and that'd be about it.
Saxon is the worse in every conceivable manner. It's like they took the "bro" business major stereotype and purified it into the essence that is Saxon. I wondered if Lochlan's gaze at his brother going into the bathroom wasn't intended to indicate that he's closeted or something, as well as his decision not to answer what type of porn he likes to watch.
The build up in tension with Laurie watching her two friends was painful, and it was awkward and painful to watch her wail all of a sudden after she got back to her room. She definitely has come across as the lesser of the three equals and it's not clear if this is her own lack of self confidence or how her friends have treated her. Her anguish over the two also made me wonder if she was jealous of Kate having Jaclyn's attention or what.
Overall, the episode kind of dragged as we spent too much time setting up the different characters and getting to dislike, if not, hate a good number of them. I paused to see how much time I had left in the episode (I still had 23 minutes) and was not excited that I had 23 more minutes to enjoy. Hopefully we get more things happening and so on.
posted by Atreides at 7:01 AM on February 19
Having attended university with Parker Posey I can attest that she used to have a southern accent! Neither my memory nor my ear for accents are sharp enough to discern how different her accent here was from her natural born one.
posted by ejs at 11:43 AM on February 19 [3 favorites]
posted by ejs at 11:43 AM on February 19 [3 favorites]
Parker Posey can do the accent. Parker Posey would rather do what she’s doing.
Hopefully what she’s doing includes a recreation of this monologue from a cut scene in Waiting for Guffman.
You can’t tell me Mike White didn’t watch that with a notepad, rapidly scratching down notes: Rich lady! Killing a man! Incestuous teens!
posted by bcwinters at 2:13 PM on February 19 [1 favorite]
Hopefully what she’s doing includes a recreation of this monologue from a cut scene in Waiting for Guffman.
You can’t tell me Mike White didn’t watch that with a notepad, rapidly scratching down notes: Rich lady! Killing a man! Incestuous teens!
posted by bcwinters at 2:13 PM on February 19 [1 favorite]
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posted by jquinby at 8:17 PM on February 16 [3 favorites]