In Defense of The White Lotus, Season 3

Get the monkey off your back

via HBO

In the penultimate episode of The White Lotus’s third season, Chelsea (played by Aimee Lou Wood) sits with Saxon (played by Patrick Schwarzenegger) on Chelsea’s hotel bed. Behind them is a tapestry that viewers will recognize from the show’s title card. The music playing in the background is the White Lotus theme that we are all familiar with.

“The more important thing,” Chelsea says, “is to take everything very slow.” I pointed at the TV, Leo-style, as I heard this.

That’s the idea behind the whole season, isn’t it?

There have been a lot of complaints from viewers that “nothing is happening” this season. That it’s slow, that it’s not full of action, and that nothing is going to wrap up in the last episode. I could get down with those complaints around episodes 3 and 4, but once Jaclyn spent the night with Valentin and Saxon and Lochlan…well, you know…I couldn’t disagree more. This show has seen cobra bites, incest, affairs, robberies, and one of the best monologues I think we’ll ever see on TV. There is a lot happening, but because most of our characters have spent a lot of the episodes “walking up to stairs,” it feels less satisfying.

Well, that’s life. You can’t find satisfaction from a TV show, from a shooting, from drugs or sex or anything outside yourself. And that’s what I believe Mike White is trying to say in this show.

Walking Up the Stairs in The White Lotus

I once heard Esther Perel reference a French phrase: "The best part of an affair is walking up the stairs.” Essentially, that affair isn’t going to thrill you like you think it will. Mike White has been walking viewers up the stairs for most of the season, and although this might make him seem like some TV Edgelord, it all speaks to his thesis of the season: You can’t run away from yourself. No escape, no affair, no trip to Thailand is going to make your problems go away. In fact, most of these escapes will make you feel a heck of a lot worse, especially as we see in Episode 6 (“Denials”). Walking toward desire and indulgence is never going to take the “monkey off your back,” as Frank (played by the phenomenal Sam Rockwell) says. (That’s why there are all those shots of monkeys…) Only you can release the monkey off your back.

As the Buddha says,

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without."

Quite a few of the White Lotus characters are doing a bad job at this, but that’s why their journeys are so frustrating, possibly relatable, and refreshing to see on TV. Do you think you’re going to feel fully satisfied by this finale? If you do, I invite you to reference the quote above. I think I’m going to enjoy the finale, and I certainly have my predictions, but all we can do is wait and see.

White Lotus Season 3 Character Breakdown

Jaclyn, Kate, Laurie (Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon): “Namaste” loosely translates to, “The light in me acknowledges the light in you.” With these three, it’s more like, “the monkey on my back acknowledges the monkey on your back.” These gals have known each other for decades and are all completely right about each other. They know that the different ways they walk up the stairs, through a literal affair or converting to a religion with a pretty church or a night out with some arguably dangerous guys, will only lead their friends to trouble. But that’s what they do and who they’ve always been, right? I think these three make it out alive and that in five years, we’ll see them at a White Lotus in Greece or Cabo or Fiji making the same damn mistakes and arguing about the same damn things.

Rick and Chelsea: When Rick (Walton Goggins) points his gun at Jim (Scott Glenn), Rick realizes that the satisfaction he sought after was in himself all along. I am racking my brain for another example of this—when the hero seeks to avenge their father’s death and realizes, at the last moment, that the journey wasn’t worth it. I’m sure this example will come to me as soon as I hit “publish.” Maybe killing Jim was really the friends Rick made (or reconnected with) along the way. Frank’s monologue about Buddhism and identity and control truly got through to Rick. In his final scene of Episode 7, where Frank and the Thai women are indulging in drugs, Rick sits and bears his biggest (arguably first) true smile of the season. He has closed the door to his demons. Where Frank needed to “be the Asian girl” and get that loss of control out of his system, Rick needed to feel what it was like to fully be in control of your demons and face them. Well, he did it. And I’m very happy for him.

I do, however, worry for Chelsea. She’s that girl friend who only chases broken birds, spending way too much time, energy, and probably money nursing them back to health. Rick is healthy now. What’s going to happen to Chelsea? Is she needed anymore?

Gaitok and Mook: Mook (played by Lisa…and if you didn’t know she’s one of the world’s biggest pop stars right now) doesn’t seem to have much of a role in this season; she’s gorgeous, she works at the hotel, and she’s the apple of Gaitok’s (Tayme Thapthimthong) eye. But in brief moments, and in last week’s episode, a larger scene, she reveals herself to be the driving force behind (what I predict to be) the final shootout. Gaitok doesn’t embrace his role as security guard, protector, or potentially violent person, for himself. He does it for Mook. Mook’s the monkey on his back, currently. Seeking love and acceptance through violence and masculinity is the monkey on his back. I personally believe Gaitok is going to kill for Mook, too, running up the stairs to realize that on the other side is, likely, a Thai prison (or death). (Okay, I’m mixing up my metaphors, but you get it.)

Tim and Victoria: I would argue Gaitok and Mook’s story is a mirror image of Tim (Jason Issacs) and Victoria’s (Mother Icon Parker Posey) story. Victoria wanted an ambitious man. She wanted a man who was willing to go out and provide for his family by any means necessary. Tim did it, successfully, until it all came crashing down on him this week. His identity is tied to being able to provide for his family, and without that, who is he? An LBH? I think so. If he doesn’t find Gaitok’s gun again, I think he’s staying in Thailand.

The Disgusting Brothers: Talk about not being satisfied after an affair! The tension Mike White built between these two siblings had to burst at some point. I’ll refrain from the jokes I’ve seen on Instagram about Lochlan (Sam Nivola) giving Saxon a protein shake, but oops you can’t unread that now.

Saxon at least realizes that he’s tied his entire identity to his wealth and career, and his night with Lochlan seems to confirm that he has nothing to be proud of outside of these things. Will this realization result in his death a la Tim’s murder-suicide fantasy? I think it’s possible. The only other road for him seems to be becoming Chelsea’s next broken bird.

Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook): Listen honey, Victoria’s right. She knows her daughter and she knows that the drippy and drab accommodations of the Buddhist temple are taking Piper too far out of her comfort zone. If that isn’t enough for Piper to take first-class home with her family, her brother’s suggestion of joining the temple will. She wants to be the main character! She wants to be unique and different! She wants to get the “monkey” of her family’s values off her back, not carry that monkey with her as she picks at her rice bowl!

Fabian (Christian Friedel): It’s easy to forget Fabian’s “storyline” in the midst of everything else happening, but I believe that’s intentional. For Fabian, walking up the stairs is performing in front of The White Lotus. The tension he feels is clear every time he brings it up to the staff or the guests. He wants to perform. He wants to overcome his stage fright. And while he does perform, we barely see any part of the performance and do not linger on his reaction. As someone who hosts events and anticipates doing a lot of readings in the next year, I can relate to Fabian. One song is not worth the army of butterflies that we hatch in our stomachs leading up to every performance.

Greg, Chloe, Belinda, Zion (Jon Gries Charlotte Le Bon, Natasha Rothwell, Nicholas Duvernay): I personally haven’t thought much about these characters in terms of my silly little metaphors. These four are driving the plot, and their character studies are less important than their role in tying all three White Lotus seasons together. I’d be curious to know what monkeys you think are on their backs in the comments!

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash