If The White Lotus were a real luxury resort chain, it would most certainly be under fire seeing as a murder has taken place as its establishments in three different countries over just a few years. Jokes aside, the third season of the riveting HBO series has concluded its run, wrapping up the story of another group of wealthy elitists enjoying time away from home and relaxation in the sun. This time, they traveled to Thailand to visit The White Lotus spa and resort to seemingly unwind with cocktails, sights, open waters, massages, and fun.
In the first episode, Belinda’s (Natasha Rothwell) son Zion (Nicholas Duvernay) heard gunshots then saw a body floating face down in the water. How and what happened wasn’t revealed until the final moments of the eight-episode season.
How does season 3 of The White Lotus stack up against the others? Here’s our spoiler-free general recap and review.
The White Lotus Season 3 Spoiler-Free Recap
The White Lotus shifts to Thailand for season three where several groups of swanky guests arrive to enjoy the week of relaxation in the sun. But there’s a darkness with each set of guests, as well as the staff.
The Ratliffs are a wealthy family headed up by financier Timothy (Jason Isaacs) who gets devastating news just as they arrive. The family’s life will be forever changed, but he isn’t ready to fill them in just yet. Rick (Walton Goggins) and his girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) are on the same boat over to the island. While she’s excited to take it all in, he is preoccupied with another reason he has decided to travel there.
Jaclyn (Michelle Monoghan) is a famous actor and TV personality who has paid to bring along her two old girlfriends Kate (Leslie Bibb) and Laurie (Carrie Coon). But it quickly becomes apparent that there’s cattiness and unspoken resentment among these girls.
At the resort, there’s Mook (Lalisa Manobal), the sweet employee who has captured the heart of security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong). But she not-so-subtley hints that he is too soft for her, not ambitious enough to strike her interest romantically. Meanwhile, he questions whether he is cut out for being a security guard in the first place, especially when several things go wrong under his watch.
The resort is run by Sritala (Lek Patravadi) and her husband Jim (Scott Glenn), with whom Rick has taken a specific interest.
Valentin (Arnas Federavicius) is the handsome, chiseled wellness counsellor with questionable friends. He is chosen by Sritala to tend to the three ladies, mainly because she’s starstruck by Jaclyn, whose work she admires and relates to having been an actor and singer once herself.
Most notably, there’s Belinda one of two returning characters from season one, who has arrived from Hawaii on a work exchange program. There’s also Greg (Jon Gries) from seasons one and two. He isn’t staying on the resort but has a mansion just outside and often visits for dinner and other events. Now going by the name Gary, Belinda recognizes him as the man who was dating Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) when she was staying at the resort. Belinda later discovers that Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) wound up dead in Italy and the police are looking for him.
Needless to say, just about anyone could be the killer or the victim, and it all plays out in the final episode.
The White Lotus Spoiler-Free Review
The previous two seasons of The White Lotus featured some racy scenes and this one kicks things up a notch with more male (and female) nudity and one particularly disturbing scene that involves two brothers and bad decisions. There’s the same level of mystery surrounding what happened and the dark secrets that the guests, and staff, holds. It’s nice to see the return of both Brenda and Greg to tie the stories together in some way: Gries plays the unsettling and villainous Greg/Gary with such ease, many forget that one of his notable previous roles was that of the goofy Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite.
In some ways, The White Lotus is becoming stale, showcasing the same types of guests played by different actors in similar scenarios. There’s always a family, a group of ladies or friends, an arrogant and entitled young man, and a meek young man or woman who seemingly doesn’t belong. Yet somehow, this tremendous cast manages to bring their own flavour to the roles and draw you in such that it doesn’t even matter. Perhaps the truth is that people like this do exist. They do visits resorts like The White Lotus. And they do harbor secrets and trauma that they’re trying to escape from, masking under their extreme wealth, power, and excess.
Paradoxically, the theme of spirituality rings through the entire season, with each person dealing with their own existential crisis. While every guest has unique life experiences, they all share one thing in common: a pain that, as the monk Luang Por Teera (Suthichai Yoon) tells Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and later Timothy, you can’t run away from.
In some ways, every person is in their own personal prison. With Rick, it’s a lack of his own sense of self. He believes that losing his mother at a young age and having his father taken from him left him unable to build an identity. With Tim, his wife Victoria (Parker Posey), and their three kids Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Piper, and Lochlan (San Nivola), it’s a struggle to understand who they are beyond their monetary wealth. Chelsea knows who she is, arguably the most spiritually aware of all of them. But she has become fixated on cutting through Rick’s walls and finding meaning in her relationship she refuses to give up on. Even Rick’s friend Frank (Sam Rockwell) delivers the most memorable monologue of the season as he talks about his journey of self-reflection, recalling jarring details about his exploration of his own sexuality, the origins of his obsession with sexual encounters, and understanding of his deeper self.
Some journeys are less profound but just as meaningful, like Laurie’s (Carrie Coon) resentment of her friends and their seemingly picture-perfect lives and Gaitok’s (Tayme Thapthimthong) struggles with what his job needs and him to do and who he needs to be to perform it well and his Buddhist teachings that frown upon violence of any kind.
The underlying sentiment is that every single person is wearing a mask of who they believe they should be, trapped in an identity that isn’t really them. They might be on vacation, but they’re also unwittingly on a journey to self-enlightenment. Each person needs to let go in some sense before they can move on, and many of them do. Some, however, to tragic, Shakesperean results.
Symbolism of death and reawakening is prevalent throughout as several characters come close to the end once they face their fears head on. There’s something deeply reflective with every character’s journey once you dig deeper beneath the surface. In the end, many of the characters found what they were looking for, even if it wasn’t in the way they imagined they might, or even knew they were looking for.
What to Expect for Season 4
Even though the season ends with several tragic deaths, each one brings a sense of closure catharsis that the victims may likely have never truly found in life. But it also leaves so many questions unanswered about other guests.
Some storylines beyond the deaths are wrapped up with neat little bows, several others leave viewers hanging. Surely, there will be a guest or two who reappears in the next season. The White Lotus has officially been renewed for a fourth season, but there’s no confirmation yet as to the filming location.
What we do know is that we can expect an equally exotic locale for the next The White Lotus resort, along with a new cast of troubled, wealthy individuals looking escape the daily grind only to wind up in a devastating situation for at least one of them.
The White Lotus season 3 proves that the series and its concept is still as strong as ever. Can Mike White pull out another win for season four? We’ll have to wait and see. But expect another stellar cast, another murder (or two), a fabulous cultural backdrop, and a new theme with an entirely new philosophy to wrap your head around.