SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the Season 3 premiere of HBO‘s The White Lotus.
The guests at The White Lotus have unpacked their bags and are starting to get over their jetlag, some with the help of wine and pharmaceuticals, but the mood is starting to get darker.
Each season of the HBO drama has created breakout moments from Armand and Shane’s meltdowns in season one to Tanya being chased by murderous gay men in season two.
The discourse around season three seems to be focusing in on the strangely incestuous relationship within the Ratliff family siblings; Patrick Schwarzenegger’s Saxon, Sam Nivola’s Lochlan and Sarah Catherine Hook’s Piper.
Episode two won’t do much to dampen down this storyline with Lochlan revealing to Piper that Saxon has been discussing her sex life. “Saxon says you’ve never had sex,” Lochlan says sitting in a sea hammock. “How would he know that? He doesn’t know what I do. Also, why would he even say that?,” she replies. “It’s weird because you’re so hot,” adds the youngest before she closes down the conversation and swims back to shore. “He shouldn’t be talking about me like that. Freak,” she says.
The White Lotus (HBO)
Incest aside, the biggest drama in Ko Samui this week revolves around a robbery at the hotel.
Aimee Lou Wood’s Chelsea is shopping with her new friend Chloe, played by Charlotte Le Bon, as a masked intruder with a gun storms the hotel store and threatens her and an employee, before smashing a glass cabinet and stealing jewelry including a snake choker.
“The one time something exciting happens around here, I miss the whole thing,” says Chloe.
“Trust me, you’re lucky, I almost died. But we got the room comped, that was cool,” responds Chelsea.
Wood’s Chelsea is one of the more interesting characters at the resort; a free-spirit, traveling with her on-edge older boyfriend Rick, played by Walton Goggins, a rugged man with a chip on his shoulder.
Wood tells Deadline this line sums up Chelsea. “While the robbery was happening, Chelsea thought this might make Rick look after her. She sees these scary things but he might hold [her] because she went through something and got the room comped. Her mission is so clear in life, and it’s Rick. That is so fun to play, because it does make her quite fearless,” she adds.
Sex Education star Wood calls Chelsea a “true romantic”. “I love that about her. I don’t judge that part of her at all, I actually adore it. She’s a little bit unhinged,” she says.
Goggins’ Rick likens her to a “fucking machine gun”. “Rick’s always got such lovely things to say about Chelsea, but she is.”
She comps Chelsea’s “boundless energy” to that of creator Mike White.
“Lots of people would think that Mike was quite cynical because of his acerbic, sharp takedowns of people. But he’s actually incredibly cheeky, playful, optimistic and hopeful. I felt like I was also expressing that part of him through Chelsea, which felt really lovely to be able to do that. It felt great that he’s allowed that part of him into the show, because there are a lot of egos. That’s what’s so great about the show, it’s about ego and greed and all these parts of the shadowy side of humanity. Whereas I feel like Chelsea is not plagued by that ego or that greed,” she adds.
Chelsea’s Achilles heel, however, is Rick, who is seemingly on his own journey, potentially in Bangkok, to find the husband of owner Sritala Hollinger (played by Lek Patravadi).
“She’s an optimistic, hopeful romantic, but she has a very strong death drive and is very interested in the shadowy side of life. She’s always kind of dancing on the edge of light and darkness. She’s not that afraid of darkness. You’re kind of thinking maybe she should be a little bit more afraid of it but she almost wants it. I love her for that,” she says.
After her robbery terror, Rick does hold her, admittedly before telling her he’s traveling to Bangkok. “He does have a tenderness for her. You see their bond, even though it’s really dysfunctional and odd. He’s so consumed by his past and he’s so afraid of letting the good in that he blocks her. But you also see those little moments like when he runs to her after the robbery and gives her that hug. He cares. She is precious to him, but he just can’t express it. It’s so tragic,” she adds.
Snakes play an important role in Chelsea’s White Lotus experience. “I always think of that song The Snake by Al Wilson. You knew I was a snake before you took me in,” she says.
The White Lotus (HBO)
Elsewhere in Special Treatments, Leslie Bibb’s Kate, Michelle Monaghan’s Jacyln and Carrie Coon’s Laurie kick off the episode gossiping about each other. Kate is particularly worried about Laurie raising her children in New York (“They’re all sucking each other off at 8 years old”) and her drinking. Later, Kate and Laurie close out the episode talking about Jacyln (“I think she’s lonely”).
Kate also has a connection with one of the other main groups at the resort, the Ratliffs, led by Jason Isaac’s troubled financier Timothy, and his wife Victoria, played by a very southern sounding Parker Posey. Victoria has very little interest in bonding with Bibb’s Kate even after she reminds her they spent a weekend together in Austin at a baby shower.
“Actresses are all basically prostitutes… if they’re lucky,” Posey’s Victoria says about Monaghan’s Jacyln.
Isaac’s Timothy remains stressed and stuck to his phone. In fact, he finally gets holds of his old friend Kenneth “Kenny” Nguyen, who has seemingly been orchestrating a financial scam with Timothy and the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post have found out.
Kenny, it turns out, is everything everywhere all at once and is voiced by an Oscar-winning actor (who may have starred in some of the biggest movies of the 1980s).
Timothy’s son Saxon remains a bit odd. After clearly getting an erection during a massage, he later complains that it didn’t come with a “happy ending”. He adds, “You know what they say. Having sex in Thailand is like eating a box of chocolates: you never know which one’s going to have nuts.”
He is, as Wood’s Chelsea says to her new friend Chloe, a former model who is now dating Greg (otherwise known as Gary), a “douche from a family of wankers”.
It’s clear that Chloe is only dating Greg/Gary for his money as the pair dine with Chelsea and Rick. “You’re gonna have loads in common with him, you’re both old. He’s bald and you’re going bald,” Chelsea says to her older man.
It’s also revealed that Rick had a pretty traumatic childhood (which may, of course be the reason he’s really in Thailand). His mother was a drug addict who left when he was ten and his father was murdered before he was born. “Real fun shit to talk about, right?,” Rick says during a meditation session.
Elsewhere, Gaitok, played by Tayme Thapthimthong, is still flirting with Lalisa Manobal’s Mook, who makes sure to tell his that he was “very brave” after he was attacked in the aftermath of the robbery.
As ever, alongside the snakes, there are monkeys are, and the episode ends with Timothy Ratliff pondering his legal troubles. But it’s his daughter who best sums up where they are staying.
“[The White Lotus] is like a Disneyland for rich, bohemians from Malibu and their Lululemon yoga pants,” says Hook’s Piper Ratliff.
