Put down that piña colada if you haven’t watched all of season 3 of “The White Lotus,” including the season finale “Amor Fati.” Spoilers lie ahead.
During a podcast about the season 3 finale of “The White Lotus” — Mike White’s globe-trotting drama that may or may not still be a proper anthology series — creator, showrunner, and sole writer White addressed critiques of the Thailand-set season. Some fans and critics thought that, compared to the hit HBO show’s two previous (and award-winning) seasons, season 3 moved a little slowly. So what did White say in response to complaints about the season’s pacing? “The pacing and the vibe … it definitely gets under their skin,” White said on the official “White Lotus” podcast. He continued:
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“There was complaining about how there’s no plot. I find that part weird. It never did … part of me is just like, ‘Bro, this is the vibe.’ I’m world-building. If you don’t want to go to bed with me, then get out of my bed. I’m edging you! Enjoy the edging. If you don’t want to be edged, then get out of my bed. Do you know what I mean? Don’t be a bossy bottom. Get the f–k out of my bed. Don’t come home with me. Don’t get naked in my bed. Get the f–k out of my bed. Obviously something is going to happen.”
That is … a new and interesting way to address criticism of your work! Let’s unpack what happened at the end of the season and try to figure out if White is right or if his critics have a point.
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What happens at the end of season 3 of The White Lotus?
The whole deal with “The White Lotus” is that rich people travel to exotic locales and behave terribly, and at the end, someone dies. In season 3, three someones die (apropos!) — specifically, disgruntled revenge-seeker Rick Hatchett (Walton Goggins), his nemesis and secret father “Big Jim” Hollinger (Scott Glenn), and his beloved younger girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), who gets hit in the crossfire. How does it get to that point, though?
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Rick’s whole impetus for going to Thailand — and its fictional White Lotus outpost — is to confront Jim, who owns the hotel and who, according to Rick, killed his father. (Of course, he’s really his father! Oldest twist in the book!) Elsewhere in the resort, longtime friends Jaclyn Lemon (Michelle Monaghan), Laurie Duffy (Carrie Coon), and Kate Bohr (Leslie Bibb) attempt to overcome their vast differences and, in the end, sort of do after a heartfelt admission from Laurie. The Ratliff family is almost wiped out entirely by its patriarch Timothy (Jason Isaacs), whose financial crimes back home drive him to make poisoned piña coladas for his wife Victoria (Parker Posey) and older kids Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), initially sparing his youngest Lochlan (Sam Nivola) before an unaware Lochlan makes a smoothie using the dregs of the poisoned fruit.
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Clearly, plenty is going on in season 3 of “The White Lotus” — I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Lochlan and Saxon hook up!!! Still, though, I’ll admit that the pacing is, at some points, just a little bit slow.
Was the pacing of The White Lotus season 3 really that slow?
To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t say that season 3 of “The White Lotus” was paced perfectly, nor do I think the finale was necessarily all that satisfying. Rick’s dad reveal was literally a throwaway line from Big Jim’s wife — and Rick dies shortly afterward anyway. Chelsea’s death was heavily foreshadowed, but it still didn’t feel completely earned. Laurie’s aforementioned heartfelt monologue comes after she shares a pretty dreadful week with her two girlfriends, both of whom are perfectly happy to mock her and her life behind her back. Timothy Ratliff is absolutely going to prison, and his family will lose everything when they return to the United States (although, if Mike White is interested, that whole thing could lead directly into a “Schitt’s Creek” sort of thing).
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With that said, every season of “The White Lotus” has been a character study first and foremost; the heightened, borderline soap-opera style trappings always come second, and even though people always want to know “who died” on each season, that’s ultimately not the most important aspect of the show. Plus, White is really good at making fun and engrossing television; even a less-than-perfect season of “The White Lotus” is still better than a lot of other TV shows out there. It also probably speaks to a disturbing decline in media literacy that audiences seem to demand all action, all the time from a show like “The White Lotus,” which is pretty plain and even sometimes obvious about its intentions and themes each season despite viewers digging around for apparent clues and Easter eggs after each episode. Is White’s response still weird? Sure! In any case, the fourth season has already been confirmed by HBO, so naysayers can tune in again whenever it airs if they want to see White’s next vision.
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“The White Lotus” is streaming on Max now.
