White Lotus : Season Three

 

A Buddhist-like renunciation of the world is at the center of this season. Can Americans pull it off when immersed in a lush, palatial, tropical island sanctuary under the care of therapists and spiritual counselors? Are you kidding me?  Of course not. We are what we are.  The wellness resort is just more bling - a well appointed pit stop in the rat race.  Even the local Thai characters become, if anything, more worldly by the last episode ( as the peaceful Gaitok learns to use a pistol which he eventually uses to kill Rick and get promoted to chauffeur)

Rick, by the way, is the extreme example of an unredeemable lost soul.  His motivations remain a mystery until the fifth episode and his background is never told.  Was he a professional criminal? We’ll never know.  A last minute therapy session may have averted disaster - but this would not be his fate. I love to watch the charismatic, rubbery face of the actor, Walton Goggins - but he did fail to make this character very believable. It may have been an impossible task.

This is mostly the story of a spiritual crisis in the Ratliff family whose patriarch abruptly learns that he faces financial ruin over a brief episode of white collar crime for which he takes no responsibility. Contemplating suicide, he has an audience with the Abbot of the local Buddhist monastery- asking him what happens after we die. The venerable monk tells him that our lives are like drops of water thrown up momentarily like spray from the great ocean of being - into which we fall back when we die.  It’s a beautiful, peaceful image, and lacking evidence to the contrary, I prefer to believe it.  Zero moral content.  No merit-based reincarnation. No eternal ego.  And as some critics have pointed out, not especially Asian Buddhist. More appropriate for a spiritual retreat in the hills of California.  But this series is about Americans, by Americans and for Americans. So it’s quite appropriate.

All of which may be fascinating, but the series is really about narrative ambience as far as I’m concerned. The music, sets, costumes, flow of story, control of tension and release.  Mike White is a genius - and he’s still getting better.

****

BTW - we might note that one set of characters, the three amigas, has zero interest in spirituality at all. They’re just looking for fun and friendship.  The two career ladies get fucked by a handsome young Russian dude, and the third, a housewife, just wants to hang out with women who are unlike the ladies at church.

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• Leslie Bibb as Kate Bohr, a country club wife from Austin, Texas, one of three longtime friends reuniting on a girls' trip
• Carrie Coon as Laurie Duffy, a corporate lawyer and recent divorcée from New York City, one of three longtime friends reuniting on a girls' trip
• Walton Goggins as Rick Hatchett, a rugged and mysterious man with a chip on his shoulder, traveling with his young girlfriend Chelsea
• Sarah Catherine Hook as Piper Ratliff, a college senior studying religion and middle child of Timothy and Victoria
• Jason Isaacs as Timothy Ratliff, a financier in jeopardy from Durham, North Carolina, vacationing with his wife, Victoria, and kids Saxon, Piper, and Lochlan
• Lalisa Manobal as Thidapon "Mook" Sornsin, a health mentor for guests of the White Lotus
• Michelle Monaghan as Jaclyn Lemon, a successful television actress based in Hollywood, one of three longtime friends reuniting on a girls' trip
• Sam Nivola as Lochlan Ratliff, a shy high school senior and Timothy and Victoria's youngest child
• Lek Patravadi as Sritala Hollinger, one of the owners of the White Lotus, who pioneered its health program
• Parker Posey as Victoria Ratliff, Timothy's wife and mother to Saxon, Piper, and Lochlan
• Natasha Rothwell as Belinda Lindsey, a spa manager from the White Lotus in Hawaii, attending a work exchange. Rothwell reprises her role from the first season
• Patrick Schwarzenegger as Saxon Ratliff, Timothy and Victoria's oldest child, who works for his father's company
• Tayme Thapthimthong as Gaitok, a security guard at the White Lotus
• Aimee Lou Wood as Chelsea, a free spirit from Manchester traveling with Rick, her much older boyfriend
• Jon Gries as "Gary" / Greg Hunt,^[a] a man involved with Chloe and the widower of Tanya McQuoid. Gries reprises his role from the first and second seasons.
• Sam Rockwell as Frank,^[b] Rick's friend and former associate
• Scott Glenn as Jim Hollinger,^[c] Sritala's American husband who has recently suffered a stroke

Recurring

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• Nicholas Duvernay as Zion Lindsey, Belinda's college-aged son who is visiting her after finishing his business degree
• Arnas Fedaravicius as Valentin, a Russian health mentor for Jaclyn, Laurie, and Kate
• Christian Friedel as Fabian, the general manager of Thailand's The White Lotus
• Dom Hetrakul as Pornchai, the wellness expert at the White Lotus who is assigned to train Belinda
• Charlotte Le Bon as Chloe, an ex-model French-Canadian expat who is Greg's current partner
• Morgana O'Reilly as Pam, a health mentor for the Ratliffs
• Shalini Peiris as Amrita, a meditation teacher and spiritual counselor at the White Lotus
• Julian Kostov as Aleksei, Valentin's friend
• Yuri Kolokolnikov as Vlad, Valentin's friend
• Suthichai Yoon as Luang Por Teera, the head of the local Buddhist monastery
• Yothin Udomsanti as Pee Lek, head of security at the White Lotus, Gaitok's supervisor

White Lotus season one

 

“An all-star cast head to a resort and unleash their worst, most privileged impulses” .. Rotten Tomatoes

…. But actually it’s the paid staff who make all the trouble.  Isn’t it Armando, the resort manager, who pilfers the pharmaceuticals, sexually abuses the lower paid employees,  double books a suite as well as a boat ride, and ultimately poops in a guest’s suit case?  Isn’t it Kai, the native fire dancer, who beats up two guests and steals  their jewelry? Isn’t it Paula, the subsidized college student, who enables and provokes Kai to his misdeed?

Tanya, the heiress,  is the only character who is seriously rich.  She over dramatizes  her unhappiness, but what rules has she broken?  She tells her therapist that she may bankroll a private practice.  She replaces  that offer with an envelope stuffed with cash - but that is hardly a misdeed.  She actually didn’t owe her a damn thing.

A fascinating woke ideology often drives conversation at the Mossberger family dinner table - and the adults resist it. When Paula boldly queries “what do you stand for”?, they are silent. But don’t their lives as parents and professionals ( not elaborated in this story) provide an answer in deeds rather than words?

Actually - this  fable, charming and beautifully created as it is, comes from a very conservative (patriarchal) place:

Poor Mr. Mossberger and his swollen testicles - redeems his masculinity by physically attacking the non-white native who is assaulting his wife.  That native is apprehended and presumably punished severely, but that all happens off stage.  His destiny is evidently  not worth knowing.

The wealthy heiress, turns away from therapy to find relief from her misery in the arms of a vigorous man who just wants  to “ have some fun”  At one point, she tells him repeatedly to leave, and he boyishly pouts “no … I want to fuck you” And so he does - with her unspoken consent.

The Mossberger son asserts  his manhood by abandoning school and running off with a .crew of strapping young lads who are circumnavigating Polynesia. 

The Mossberger daughter shows true love and comfort for her poor half-white friend who had betrayed the generosity of her family and denounced their bond of friendship. 

Rachel, the recent bride, who had second thoughts about becoming the trophy wife of a man/boy finally, meekly, accepts that as her future.

Armando, the resentful  gay resort manager who cannot control any of his urges for sex, drugs, or revenge,  ultimately does something really disgusting and is immediately violently killed by his nemesis, the rich boy heterosexual.

Feminism, socialism, anti- colonialism, gay identity, and racial justice have all been crushed and all ends up right with the world.  Wokism lies in ruins.

*******

 This reactionary agenda has been hidden in plain sight  by the arts of stagecraft.  It is not a one dimensional melodrama.  That is quite a tribute to Mike White, the auteur and the  actors, musicians, and other skilled staff he assembled and coached.  Like a silk thread pulled  from a cocoon, the narrative carefully unfolds, as the eye, ear, and mind are held tight from one moment to the next. It’s the magic of a mimetic art.

But it’s also hidden because both viewers  and reviewers don’t want to see it.  They don’t want to admit that underneath the respect for social justice they’re supposed to have, their gut feelings remain patriarchal and xenophobic.  That’s why Republicans keep winning elections, despite their egregious faults.

( it reminds me of another show that also turns a theme  of patriarchal dominance into a thing of  wonder and beauty: Mozart’s Magic Flute)

The role of Belinda, the magical negro, plays no small part in the diversion.  This multi talented black woman is the only adult shown doing an important job with competence and compassion. This would be a very different story without Natasha Rothwell being so convincing.

******

Posted on Reddit:

Concerning the final scene with Rachel and Shane

 Rachel is reconciled to Shane in less than five minutes of screen time after Shane has hunted down and killed an intruder into their bedroom just as Nicole restarts sex with Mark shortly after Mark has tackled the man who broke into their's. By a certain kind of old school thinking, both of these intruders are "others". Armond is homosexual and Kai is a person of color. See any symmetry there? Upscale white men are rewarded with sex after fighting off men who are not. Rachel consents to be a trophy wife because - well - Shane finally deserves a trophy. I'm certainly not advocating this kind of patriarchal, sexist, homophobic, racist thinking - and I doubt Mike White would either. But it's in the structure of the story he wrote — and there are other examples in Season One as well