There are slow burns and then there are slow burns. The third season of The White Lotus is testing my patience. I’m typically pretty comfortable with slower shows. Severance and Andor are two of my favorites in recent years and both can easily be described as slow burns.
Of course, both those shows do a fantastic job at building tension as the season progressed. The first season of Severance was a kettle on a flame, hitting its boiling point around Episode 7, and then just boiling over for the final three episodes. Andor was a bit different, chopping its story up into several distinct chapters. Each chapter started off slow but culminated into incredibly satisfying payoffs.
The White Lotus, on the other hand, is giving us a third season that has yet to really pay any dividends at all, and there’s just one episode left. I do appreciate how unpredictable this show can be, but at a certain point the head-fakes start to become more frustrating than satisfying. We thought the Gossip Girls were in trouble when they went out earlier this season with the Russians. Nope, they were fine. We thought Timothy (Jason Isaacs) was going to do something bad with the gun he stole. Nope, Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) stole it back. We thought crap would hit the proverbial fan in Bangkok, but the most we can really say about that storyline is that Frank’s sobriety ship has sailed, and in a very big way.
In Bangkok, Rick (Walton Goggins) finally confronts the man he blames for his fathers death, Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn) but can’t shoot him. He can’t even hit him. So he knocks him down in his chair and then bolts from the premises with his buddy Frank (Sam Rockwell). They hit the town after to celebrate. Strip clubs, booze, hookers, blow, the whole nine yards.
Elsewhere, awkward hotel manager, Fabian (Christian Friedel) finally performs one of his songs, something we’ve been building up for several episodes, but the camera cuts away from him after two seconds to focus on yet another round of bickering with the Gossip Girls. The momentum of this storyline has really fizzled, and what started as juicy backstabbing has just sort of run its course.
None of these stories have culminated into anything particularly interesting despite the season nearing its final episode. Rick’s revenge plot has had one good moment so far: Frank’s sex-addiction monologue. The Gossip Girls ended up being pretty much exactly what we expected them to be, and I guess Laurie (Carrie Coon) hooking up with Aleksei (Julian Kostov) only for him to ask her for $10,000 is kind of funny and scary at the same time, but even there nothing really happens. She hops out a window and catches a cab while his girlfriend throws a fit.
What I’m feeling right now, and this could change if the finale really sticks the landing, is that the individual moments in this season are much better than the season as a whole. There are lots of great little moments scattered throughout. Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) making her little bemused expressions at Rick or Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger). Victoria (Parker Posey) saying something ridiculously priviliged and out-of-touch to her family. Seeing Greg (Jon Gries) for the first time. The opening gunshot scene.
But what they’re adding up to is a season that feels a lot weaker and less satisfying than either previous season. Season 1 had such great conflict by this point. Shane (Jake Lacy) and Armond’s beef over the honeymoon suite; Rachel’s (Alexandra Daddario) dawning realization that maybe she married the wrong man; Mark Mossbacher’s (Steve Zahn) ongoing existential crisis; every moment with Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge); the teen girls losing their backpack full of drugs. As Armond (Murray Bartlett) slowly crashed and burned, abandoning his sobriety in favor of booze, drugs and pool-boys, the show descended into madness. Everything felt connected. Every little narrative stream formed a tributary to the greater story.
Season 2 never quite reached the same heights as season 1 for me, simply because the hook wasn’t as strong. The chemistry between Shane and Armond is something this show hasn’t been able to replicate. But the conflict between the two couples, the three generations of Italian-Americans, and the Tanya-and-the-gays stuff was all still really compelling drama and dark comedy. The Italian staff and prostitutes also helped bind these other storylines together, as did Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) and Albie’s (Adam DiMarco) awkward courtship. Aubrey Plaza’s Harper and Theo James’s Cameron had a crackling chemistry in Season 2, also, which was the perfect setup for Will Sharpe’s Ethan and Meghann Fahy’s Daphne. And, of course, Tom Hollander’s Quentin provided us with just the right amount of charisma and menace. Not all of these stories connected, but there was more connective tissue throughout than we see in Season 3.
In the third season, Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) is the closest thing to a narrative nexus I can find. She befriends Chelsea and hooks up with both Saxon and Lachlan (Sam Nivola). She’s Greg’s girlfriend. But even here, the Gossip Girls remain almost entirely detached from any of the other storylines. Other than Kate (Leslie Bibb) and her painfully awkward conversation with Victoria, there has been effectively zero contact between Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), Kate, Laurie and anyone else other than Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius). It’s kind of weird to be 7 episodes into the season and realize that this is still the case.
Meanwhile, Timothy’s schtick has gotten old at this point. There’s something so juicy about the basket of lies he’s shouldering, about his entire life falling apart all around him thanks to fraud and embezzlement back home. Hiding all this from his family while on a fancy vacation is story gold. And yet for all its juiciness, the Ratliff subplot has borne very little fruit. Timothy has been spinning his wheels for most of the season at this point. He’s popping pills and drinking whiskey and having a full-blown meltdown that’s putting me to sleep. This must be the least interesting midlife crisis of all time. Compare Timothy’s spiraling to Armond’s. Sure, Timothy stole a gun and fantasized about killing his wife and son, but the gun is gone. So . . . what now? It’s just shot after shot of Jason Isaacs looking doped up and stressed out in a sea of bokeh blur.
There are funny moments scattered throughout the season, but it’s still a lot less funny than the first two. Overall, the tone is much more serious but also much more self-serious. It seems to be taking itself too seriously in a way the first two seasons didn’t. There are so many moments of hazy slow-motion, of dramatic music, the constant shallow depth-of-field camera work. It starts to feel oppressive. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the vibe. The mood. It’s unsettling, sure, but not more so than Season 2 with its creepy Sicilian masks and tales of murder. I think Season 2 did a better job at balancing this sense of dread with a sense of humor, and Season 1 did a better job making everyone feel like real people spiraling out and losing control. Season 3’s characters have begun to feel less like real people and more like caricatures at this point. Caricatures stuck in slow-motion.
It’s still good, don’t get me wrong. It’s just too uneventful (slow is a secondary problem; the lack of things happening that matter is much worse). A gun was stolen and nothing bad happened. The Gossip Girls went out with Russian jewelry thieves and nothing happened. Chelsea was bitten by a cobra and nothing happened. Saxon and Lachlan hooked up with Chloe and one another and Greg found out . . . and nothing happened except for a funny conversation about “cucking.” Rick found the man he’s spent a life looking for and nothing happened. If literally every single thing that matters happens in the final episode, I’m not sure that’s a great way to tell a story, especially one that you hope people will rewatch. Both the first and second season (but especially the first) are immensely rewatchable and I was eager to rewatch them with friends as soon as possible. I don’t feel the same way about Season 3 (though I have rewatched episodes for the purposes of these reviews).
Again, it’s filled with great moments. Great little character moments, pockets of humor (Parker Posey to the rescue) and gorgeous cinematography, sets, and a location to die for (or in, as the case may be). But those moments haven’t transcended into a compelling overall story. What is this season about? Season 1 was largely about a conflict over a room, the butting of heads between the privileged guests and the resentful staff. Season 2 was a murder plot to kill Tanya and steal her fortune, and a story about the complexities of love and infidelity. It was a story about lust and envy.
But what is Season 3 about? Too many of the subplots feel entirely detached from one another. There’s no unifying thread. And there have been some big missed opportunities for interesting conflicts that could have cropped up earlier in the season. For instance:
- Gaitok spots the Russians and realizes they were the jewel thieves from earlier this season, but it’s only in Episode 7. Why not have this take place earlier in the season so that he can spend some time trying to investigate Valentin, potentially leading to conflicts with both the Russians and the Gossip Girls.
- Gaitok tries to steal the gun back but fails to do so, instead finding a different gun while investigating Valentin. He passes this off as the gun with his boss, who doesn’t look at it closely enough to realize it’s not the same one. This leaves Timothy with the gun, which created a lot of tension that is now basically gone.
- Have Saxon try to figure out what’s up with his dad sooner. He finally confronted him in Episode 7, but surely he’d be going to the front desk to check his phone at this point or much sooner. Or heading into town to an internet cafe or something. Basically, ever since the moment Timothy got everyone to give up their screens, that entire subplot came to a screeching halt. There should be more going on with this by now. The hotel should be paging Victoria or Saxon with a call from Timothy’s lawyer trying to get hold of him. Anything to keep this story going instead of effectively just ignoring it for the last three episodes.
- The Gossip Girls are just too isolated in general. I’m not sure how to tie them to the other groups, but even just having Jaclyn make her way to Greg’s party and maybe her and Saxon leaving the party together instead of Chelsea and Saxon (which led to a moment of us worrying they’d hook up, but ultimately not much else).
I’m still curious what happens, who gets shot, who shoots who, etc. but I don’t actually care that much. Yes, I like Chelsea and Piper and Lachlan’s okay despite the incest. Victoria is pretty awful but she’s most of the comic relief, so I don’t want her to die. It seems possible now that it involves Gaitok and the Russians, who he spots at the Muay Thai fight and puts two and two together about the robbery, but honestly as sweet as Gaitok is, he’s kind of the Portia/Albie of the season. Just not that bright. And Mook (Lalisa Manobal) really only likes Gaitok because she thinks he’s getting a promotion. It seems like she’ll Lady MacBeth him into doing something rash as she urges him this episode that hey, morals are fine and all, but don’t you want a promotion? Mook don’t want no scrub.
At this point in Season 1, I was all-in whether I liked the characters or not. Armond’s antics were so hilarious and depraved, you couldn’t look away. And you really empathized with him because you hated Shane so much. And hating Shane was a real feeling. I felt strongly about his character. I disliked him intensely. I don’t feel that strongly about anyone in Season 3. In Season 2, I was completely reeled in by the two couples and by the Tanya-and-the-gays drama playing out. I was less interested in Albie and his dad, but I loved the grandpa and I genuinely liked the prostitute, Lucia (Simona Tabasco, the spiciest name ever) and her piano-playing friend, Mia (Beatrice Granno). The hotel manager, Isabella (Eleonora Romandini) and the petty dynamic between her and her employees felt fleshed out much more than Fabian and his staff.
I write all of this out of frustration, because I’ve been pretty patient with this season and I’ve enjoyed each episode individually, but we’ve come to the penultimate episode, with only the finale remaining, and I’m left feeling as though I’ve put too much faith in Mike White and his ability to tie it all together. Because even if he does in the finale, will the rest of the season hold up to scrutiny? It might look like a lot of filler. Lots of head-fakes. Lots of building toward nothing. That might play alright the first time, but rewatching when you know that nothing is going to happen for the first seven episodes . . . that’s a tough sell.
Hopefully next week’s episode knocks it out of the park in a very big way. We’re going to need one helluva finale if this season hopes to even come close to the previous two.
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