A fresh ensemble, a new location, and a new take on an earworm theme song – The White Lotus is back. Dominic Corry previews the new season of television’s buzziest series.
Although the Hawaii-set first season of The White Lotus, a single-location show conceived as a means of accommodating COVID restrictions, certainly made an impact, it wasn’t really until the Sicily-set second season that the show really became a phenomenon.
The combination of creator/writer/director Mike White’s insightful and salacious storytelling, the superlatively beautiful locations, an even more beautiful cast, meaty roles for both under-exploited established actors and newly-emerging talents alike and a general sense of glossy decadence resulted in one of the few modern shows that it really felt like *everybody* was watching.
And now we live in a world where pundits (and tourism boards) are eagerly speculating about possible settings for future seasons. Not bad for a “limited series” (the show’s Emmy category) that never promised more than its initial six episodes.
More than two years after the calcifying second season, a third, set in Thailand, has arrived, and it reveals White’s knack for creating relentlessly captivating characters to be stronger than ever. As it does his tendency for revelatory casting.
One of the best things about season two was seeing Aubrey Plaza get a wide platform upon which to show the world just how amazing she is. She was already a successful actor by any metric, but talents like this can get lost in the heavily-diffused contemporary media environment, and it was extremely gratifying to see her play a character worthy of her nuanced presence in such a massively successful show.
From my perspective, a similar scenario exists in season three with the character played by the great Parker Posey. She plays Victoria Ratliff, wife to Timothy (Jason Isaacs), and mother to twenty-something Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), college-aged Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and 18-year-old Lochlan (Sam Nivola).
The Ratliffs initially evoke the well-to-do Mossbacher family from season one (headed by Steve Zahn and Connie Britton), but soon prove to have some very different dynamics in play. All led by a hilariously withering performance from Posey, a beloved and celebrated actor who nevertheless should be much more well-known.
Parker Posey has been playing White Lotus characters her entire career. She was born for this milieu. Her ability to express withering disdain is unmatched in Hollywood, and this particular skill is at the heart of an interaction that constitutes my favourite seen in the entire series. You’ll know it when you see it. Thank you, Mike White, for giving this queen her due.
Isaacs is in casually great form also, and while both have been working plenty lately, Hook and Nivola (incidentally the son of actors Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola, neither of whom would be out of place in this show) feel like they’re on the cusp of something their presence here also.
But the real revelation of season three appears to be Schwarzenegger (yep, he’s Arnold’s son), who has been showing up in movies and TV shows for a few years now, but makes a significant impact here playing a crass finance bro. I never gave this nepo baby credit before, but he’s undeniably fascinating playing a truly awful character who probably cites Patrick Bateman as a hero.
Some of this is attributable to being able to discern hints of my beloved Arnold within the younger Schwarzenegger’s toothy grin, but Patrick deserves attention for how he has stepped up here.
Less of a surprise, but just as much fun, is the awesomely passive-aggressive dynamic affected by Michelle Monaghan (coming off a freewheelin’ turn in Bad Monkey), Leslie Bibb (Juror #2) and Carrie Coon (The Gilded Age) as three lifelong “friends” holidaying together following the latter’s divorce.
Although outwardly congenial with each other, the simmering tensions underneath their relationships present themselves head in increasingly unsubtle ways throughout the season.
Then there’s the mysterious Rick, played by Walton Goggins, possibly my favourite working actor, fresh from an Emmy nomination for Fallout, and his much younger girlfriend Chelsea, played by an English actress named Aimee Lou Wood, whom some may know from Sex Education, and who may be the most cartoon-looking human being I’ve ever seen. In a good way.
Like Sydney Sweeney in season one, Wood seems like she has a massive future ahead of her. As I keep saying, Mike White is always doing something interesting with his casting.
Also present is Natasha Rothwell’s Belinda, who we last saw in season one being let down by the since deceased (in season two) Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), now in Thailand to experience the White Lotus wellness treatments.
As we saw in season two, perhaps slightly more than we did in season one, attention is paid to local characters via the hotel staff, and the most prominent White Lotus team members here are gate guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) and his friend/crush Mook, played by South Korean Lalisa Manoban, better known as a “Lisa” from hugely popular girl band Blackpink. In a show filled to the brim with impossibly beautiful people, these two might be the prettiest amongst them.
And it was nice to see German actor Christian Friedel as the deferential hotel manager. I 100% did not recognise him from his chilling turn in The Zone of Interest.
And then of course, there is the hotly anticipated Aotearoa contingent, local ledge Morgana O’Reilly (Housebound, Friends Like Her), who plays Pam, a White Lotus staffer assigned to tend to the wellness needs of the Ratliff family.
Although she’s not in the opening credits, O’Reilly/Pam is a relatively consistent presence in the series, with O’Reilly bringing some welcome and grounding Kiwi charm to the excess all around her.
There’s a tiny hint of side-eye in O’Reilly’s performance that accurately represents an Antipodean perspective on the deeply indulgent activities of the guests of the White Lotus.
It’s a perfect and appropriate entry point into White’s latest collection of fascinatingly awful rich people.
