The White Lotus season 3 trailer teases betrayals and more detestable characters

Since it debuted in 2021, The White Lotus has become one of the most scathing comedy-dramas on TV, an unrelenting, pernicious takedown of entitled white people vacation culture from Mike White, filmmaker and Survivor season 37 runner-up. The trailer for the highly anticipated third season is here, teasing a February release date, the return of Natasha Rothwell, and more entitled white people ruining a beautiful place God did not make for them.

Reflective of the show’s success and high quality, the cast for season three is INSANE. Natasha Rothwell returns as spa manager Belinda—I wonder if she knows what happened to Tanya McQuoid?—and she is joined by Walton Goggins, Parker Posey, Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb, Lisa, Jason Isaacs, Scott Glenn(!!!), and Patrick Schwarzenegger. Walton Goggins’ character appears to be in a May-December relationship; Posey, Coon, Bibb, and Monaghan seem to playing women on a girls’ trip; Lisa works at the resort; and there is a group called the “Ratliff family” that includes Isaacs and Schwarzenegger. Families always have a terrible time at the White Lotus.

Whether or not White sticks to his convention of killing characters each season is unknown, but the trailer is playing with our expectation, teasing betrayals, rogue sleeping pills, venomous snakes, a gun, and ambulances. White excels at creating detestable characters, but so far, the people who have died are not the ones who most deserve it. Armond and Tanya had their problems and were unlikeable in their own ways but compared to anyone in the Patton or Mossbacher families, or the Sullivans in Italy, Armond and Tanya were mostly harmless. The White Lotus is about exploitation and how tourism creates economies that sacrifice local quality of life for tourist experiences, though, and in such structures, power is insulation from consequence. White has a poisonous pen, but he’s a realist, too. As much as we want awful, spoiled tourists to get their comeuppance, they rarely do.

Speaking of, what do you think the White Lotus’s Tripadvisor reviews are like? It’s got to be a real “Cape Fear Serpentarium” situation where there are a lot of five-star reviews, but some guests just can’t get past the murder that happened while they were there. “1 star – manager was murdered during stay”; “4 stars – beautiful location, amazing food, minus 1 star for the quintuple homicide that happened off the beach”. Someday I hope Mike White includes in-world reviews of White Lotus resorts, because this hotel chain is CURSED.