I have been pretty consistent in my criticism that this is a somewhat poor season of The White Lotus with frozen plotlines and nonsensical turns. That was on full display this week with the seeming end of Rick’s revenge storyline, which took him to Bangkok to confront the man who murdered his father. Probably. Maybe. Actually who knows.
Rick cons his way into Sritala’s house and manages to pull a gun on Jim to threaten to shoot him, hit him and then just ultimately, knock his chair over. Rick throws a bunch of accusations at Jim without giving him a chance to give him any information at all, which seems bizarre if you’ve been waiting your whole life for this moment.
But Rick seems satisfied with this, partying it up with Frank and smiling for the first time all series, a weight lifted.
This storyline does not make much sense. What does he think happens now? He just threatened an apparent criminal kingpin and his conned wife knows where he’s staying, a place he has left his girlfriend alone, incidentally, and this entire freewheeling plan seems destined to now backfire.
The only thing that makes sense to avoid this is a reveal that seemed to be strongly hinted at during this scene, that Jim is perhaps Rick’s father, as he appeared to recall his mother at least to some extent, but of course Rick did not give him a chance to elaborate on this. If this is true, he may not send anyone after Rick.
This is, insert eye-rolling, a literal Darth Vader plot: You killed my father, no Rick, I am your father. Not that Star Wars owns that idea until the end of time but I mean, it kind of does, and it would be an annoying ending to this story with just one episode left to resolve it. But conversely, if everything happened exactly as it looked, then the storyline doesn’t really make any sense and was both dull and poorly scripted.
The Rick storyline has been worth it for the existence of Chelsea alone, who is probably the best character this season other than maybe Parker Posey’s Victoria Ratliff. And while I will watch Walton Goggins in anything (and immediately after this aired you can see him jet-skiing nude in The Righteous Gemstones), this story has not been interesting or coherent.
The White Lotus has many issues this season, my biggest one being the totally static Timothy Ratliff plot, but Rick’s grand adventure here is certainly one of them. If this sparks the shootout at the end (Stritala’s bodyguards have certainly been itching for a fight all season), maybe that would be interesting and at least logically follow his actions, but who knows at this point.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
