The White Lotus season 3 continues to be a maze

Warning: spoilers ahead. 

Season three of Mike White’s The White Lotus premiered on Feb. 16, with a new episode streaming every Sunday at 9 p.m. To say the plot line is anything short of the chaos of the two preview seasons would be a lethal understatement. Taking place in a new beachside and exotic location – Thailand – the opening scene foreshadows the eventual deaths, or in this case, shooting crime, at the hotel. 

The viewer is then left to hyper-analyze what, exactly, would make one of our uncomfortably complex, out-of-touch and satirical characters go off the handle enough that they would open fire at a hotel as tranquil as The White Lotus Thailand. And when I say tranquil, I mean a place filled with spas, wellness retreats, yoga classes and meditation therapy. The entire concept of this branch of the hotel chain is a consensual, no-technology wellness retreat with what’s rumored to be one of the most high-quality spas in the world. 

We see a familiar character, Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), join the Thailand staff to learn the practices of their sacred spa. Then, in typical White Lotus form, we meet an array of families, couples, and friends that can only be described as… impossible to describe. 

The Ratcliff family is made up of Timothy Ratcliff (Jason Isaacs), his wife Victoria (Parker Posey) and their three kids: Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Piper (Sarah Catharine Hook) and Lochlan (Sam Nivola). The southern family brings the complexity of sibling and parent-child relationships to Thailand, coined by a stressed businessman dad, a lorazepam-popping mother, a protein-shake nepo baby son, a daughter who rejects every value her family has and an awkward identity-searching youngest son. Parker Posey’s Victoria seems to be filling in for the satirical relief Jennifer Coolidge brought to seasons one and two with her character Tanya McQuoid. 

Non-watchers likely recognize Parker Posey’s The White Lotus character from her viral interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers. In it, she performed her character’s hilarious, overly dramatic southern accent, annunciating “Piper no,” “Buddhism” and “Tsunami.” 

Then, there’s a group of old friends from high school reuniting for the vacation of a lifetime: Jaclyn, a TV star, played by Michelle Monaghan, and her two so-called “best friends” Kate (Leslie Bibb) and Laurie (Carrie Coon). The friend group’s dynamic makes you question your friendships, asking yourself do my friends talk this much shit? The three juggle growing apart, jealousy, political stances and fakeness ad they intermingle with a jaw-droppingly attractive member of the hotel staff, Valentin, and his Russian friend group. 

Courtesy of Stefano Delia | HBO

Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey play a married couple from the south in season 3 of ‘The White Lotus.’

Then, of course, there’s the struggling couple, Rick (Walton Goggins) and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood). They are the classic emotionally distressed and unable-to-communicate man matched with a whimsical, well-intentioned and loving girlfriend. Chelsea, a hopeless romantic, befriends Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), who also finds herself in an angsty relationship with a character we already know: Greg? Gary? We don’t really know his real name. All we know is he was married to our beloved, deceased Tanya and it’s smelling fishy. 

Director Mike White, as always, allows us to form attachments to members of the hotel staff. It feels quite different from prior seasons, like how we got to know the Maui location’s hotel manager, Armond (Murray Bartlett). Instead, we root for the security guard, Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), and his growing crush on another employee, Mook (BLACKPINK’s Lisa).

Now with six episodes behind us and two more remaining, viewers are left to wonder, worry and hypothesize who inevitably lets off a gun at their tranquil vacation. It could be Timothy Ratcliff – whose mental stability is declining as the season progresses due to his inevitable arrest upon landing back in the U.S. – but that feels too obvious because he already had a stolen session with the security guard’s handgun. Or it could be his eldest son Saxon, who is having very complex and nauseating feelings about his little brother. It could be Rick, who is already struggling with anger issues and has a clear obsession with going to Bangkok to meet the man who killed his father (jeez, these people’s trauma is insane). Or, it could be out of left field, and be a character you haven’t met. You never really know. I just don’t think it’s Mook. We all love Mook. 

So, what’s the consensus? I’m utterly obsessed with the pure confusion of it. But somehow, I find that there always seems to be someone in the room who either doesn’t like it (likely because they just don’t get it), or who has seen the first and second episodes of season one and couldn’t get into it.

I mean, I can’t blame them – there are so many characters introduced in the pilot of each of the now three seasons, all equally snotty and stuck up as they are hilarious and complex. And it’s easy to get lost in the weeds of the creepy wooing music, the cultural immersion in each of the three White Lotus hotel locations, and the beautiful yet eerie colors and shots of every scene. 

But if you get past the complex buildup and truly look into the meaning of the show, you’ll realize what Mike White is really trying to say about society. Tourists are so damn snotty, and every hotel guest might have a deep, hidden secret or trauma even if not visible externally. 

And to be frank: this show feels like being in one of those mazes we used to wait all year to get lost in as a kid. And I would willingly walk into the perplexity every single time.