Bad times at The White Lotus

Spoilers through episode 305, cw for suicidal ideation

We are now halfway through The White Lotus season three, how is it going? Not great, Bob! The subtitle for The White Lotus might as well “everything is beautiful, and no one is happy”, which feels especially true this season. In past seasons, at least some of the characters start out having a normal vacation, and things go downhill from there. This season, it feels like everyone showed up miserable, and we’re just spiraling through their various neuroses and bad decisions, watching situations get worse. This season more than ever it feels like the White Lotus resorts are just hell’s waiting room.

Timothy is contemplating suicide to escape the financial ruin and public humiliation—and potential legal proceedings—awaiting him back home. Timothy has not told his family what is happening outside their cellphone-free vacation, so his family is acting like it’s situational normal, but he knows it’s all f-cked up. Of course, the gun he stole from the guard gatehouse must be retrieved by Gaitok, so he goes on a little mission to get the gun back—Timothy doesn’t even know suicide (by gun) isn’t an option for him anymore. 

Timothy is spiraling, and Victoria unintentionally adds to it by constantly talking about what a good man he is and also that she’d probably just check the f-ck out rather than face living in reduced circumstances. Your husband is in crisis and you’re adding to it, Victoria! Also, Piper isn’t really working on a theology thesis, she’s actually in Thailand to check out the meditation center of a nearby temple and apply to live there for a year. And the Ratliff brothers are off partying with Chelsea and Chloe, with Saxon dishing out some truly unhinged life advice to Lochy. (Most people just want to be used? Most people just want to pay their bills, you absolute psychopath.) And then they kiss! Look, we WILL talk more about the Ratliff brothers’ demented lack of boundaries, but right now, let’s just put a pin in it because there is so much other drama, the kissing brothers is like, #6 on the list.

A lot of partying is happening, actually, since it’s a “full moon party” on the island, as Jaclyn, Laurie, and Kate hang out with Valentin and his Russian friends. Everything about this group of “girlfriends” makes me sad. They claim to be old friends, but it’s pretty clear they don’t actually like each other, and they’re bound by a terrible dark secret they share, like accidentally killing someone the night of senior prom. Genuinely, I cannot figure out why these women insist on spending time together when they clearly don’t like each other. Is it that Jaclyn’s success in Hollywood drives her to cling to people who knew her before she was famous? What are these women getting out of these relationships besides judgment and toxicity? 

But there are two huge moments in episode five, one of which is a plot hinge for the whole season. First, Rick goes to Bangkok to confront Jim, the wealthy husband of the White Lotus’s owner, Sritala. Rick believes Jim killed his father, and thus ruined Rick’s life. In Bangkok, Rick meets up with an unnamed old friend, played by Sam Rockwell. While reconnecting, we learn that his friend is ten months sober and has converted to Buddhism. Rockwell delivers a hell of a monologue, detailing a descent into overindulgence and sexual exploration, and I feel like a lot of people might get hung up on details like his friend confronting his desire to be a woman, cross-dressing, and having sex with men.

But Rockwell’s monologue is a critical piece of this season’s theme of spirituality. He had a different experience than Piper, who is dissatisfied by her upper-class upbringing, but the friend is speaking to a similar discontent and lack of fulfillment. He literally says he tried to fill his discontent with sex, to “f-ck his way to the answer”. When it didn’t work, he turned to religion, and he is now sober and celibate and trying to “find the answer” in a different framework. Piper is on a parallel path, also seeking answers and turning to religion to provide those answers. They’re coming at the same problem—the hollowness of modern western life—from different angles. 

The plot hinge moment is Belinda telling Fabian about Gary-Greg, Tanya’s death, and Gary-Greg’s potential role in it. We learn through Belinda’s google searching that Gary-Greg is wanted back in Sicily for questioning regarding Tanya’s suspicious death. Gary-Greg is asking his own questions about Belinda, who previously recognized him from Maui, and Fabian treats this like a wealthy guest perhaps taking a romantic interest in Belinda, but Belinda is CLEARLY scared out of her mind by Gary-Greg, and she wants to call the authorities. Fabian tells her to “focus on her work” and “not to gossip” about guests.

Reader, when I say I wanted to reach through the screen and STRANGLE FABIAN, I am not exaggerating. We here are seasoned gossips, so we know what Belinda is doing is NOT gossiping, she is expressing a legitimate concern not only for her own safety, but that a guest might be an actual murderer. Fabian dismisses her concerns as gossip because he is 1) a c-nt, and 2) a bootlicker. Fabian is more concerned with comfort and kissing up to the guests than considering that a guest might be literally dangerous. 

The clue to Fabian’s utter garbageness came in the previous episode, when he condescended to Gaitok, telling Gaitok, a grown man, his job is more than just “waving at cars”. Bitch, Gaitok knows, but what do you expect him to do? It’s the whole reason he’s learning to use a gun! Because he was not properly prepared to confront armed robbers! The optics of the white European boss talking down to the brown local about how to do his job were deliberate, it’s the whole power structure of the White Lotus resorts, which bring rich white people to “exotic” locales where local brown people are forced to work for subsistence wages—if even that—on land that should rightfully belong to their people. Tourism can be good for economies, but it can also unbalance economies, especially when tourism contributes to massive disparities in wealth, like we see in Hawaii and Thailand, especially. 

In the past, the resort managers of the White Lotus have been aligned with the service staff. I don’t think for one second Armond or Valentina saw themselves on the strong end of the power structure of the resort. But Fabian seems to think he’s closer to Sritala than he is to Gaitok, when really, he is closer to Gaitok. It’s like that saying, you’re closer to an unhoused person than a billionaire. But Fabian doesn’t see himself aligned with the staff, he sees himself aligned with Sritala and the guests. That is why he doesn’t want to hear what Belinda is saying, because it would mean going against a rich guest, and maybe even embarrassing Sritala in the process. Fabian is clearly going to do what he can to maintain the power structure of the resort. 

So, no, nothing is going well at the White Lotus, except Belinda and Pornchai are having a cute little rom-com subplot amidst the growing horrors. I am rooting for those two crazy kids, but I swear to ALL the gods old and NEW, if Belinda is harmed as a result of Fabian’s chicken-livered refusal to deal with Gary-Greg I AM going to SCREAM. If, however, Fabian ends up being The Body, I think I’m fine with that. I have never hated a White Lotus character more. Saxon is a nightmare, but look at his family, look at the society that built him. He never stood a chance. Fabian, however, belittles people he views as being beneath him, and he would rather let a murderer get away with it, even if it means endangering Belinda or others at the resort, rather than discomfort a rich person. FABIAN SUCKS.

Here are Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell, and Patrick Schwarzenegger in New York last week.