The White Lotus does something few other shows are able to achieve. It can take a beautiful place and otherwise mundane stories, and somehow fill us with a rising sense of dread and unease. The really curious thing about tonight’s episode is that while everything felt ominous, while it really felt like something terrible was about to happen, nothing really did. Nothing particularly bad or scandalous went down in the end, though it felt like we were inching toward the precipice of some horror or another the entire time. Spoilers ahead.
While nothing horrible or scandalous went down, each of the various storylines ended with something startling or unexpected. What I thought was going to happen (though I didn’t always have a solid prediction) didn’t end up happening. But each little subplot gave us a peculiar little twist.
The Full Moon Party
Last week’s episode ended with Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and his brother Lachlan (Sam Nivola) embarking on a voyage to a nearby island where a Full Moon Party was set to take place. The only thing on Saxon’s mind is sex. He not only wants to get laid, he wants his little brother to get laid. And they have their eyes set on Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon).
On the island, they pop pills (I assume its ecstasy, but this isn’t clarified) and drink like fish. Saxon doesn’t want to take drugs (Saxon is the drug, he proclaims annoyingly) but when the other three do and then peer pressure him, he obliges. Soon, they’re all spun out and high, watching the festivities go down around them, sitting on the beach as fireworks burst in the sky.
This entire story is dangling infidelity in front of us. Chloe is determined to cheat on Greg/Gary (John Gries) with the “little magician” because she’s starved for attention. She thinks he might kill her if he found out (not at all ominous!) but it’s worth the risk. She encourages Chelsea to cheat on Rick (Walton Goggins) though Chelsea seems horrified at the thought. Still, we watch thinking that surely one thing will lead to another. Scenes of the partygoers are spliced together with the Gossip Girls on their own adventure (which I’ll get to momentarily) and it all has the effect of a building sense that something is going to go terribly wrong.
And then nothing really does. At least by the time the episode ends, nobody has hooked up with anybody else. Nobody cheats. The girls kiss as part of some kind of dare or game, much to Saxon’s delight, and then Lachlan leans over and kisses his brother right on the lips, at first a quick peck, but then back in for a longer, lingering kiss. This seems to be all part of the game they’re playing, and Lachlan laughs it off, as does Chloe, but Chelsea looks genuinely weirded out (I think I was making a very similar expression!) and Saxon looks confused. This is a genuinely strange moment, especially after all the little incestuous hints we’ve been getting all season.
The Gossip Girls Go Clubbing
Last week, the Gossip Girls met up with Valentin (Arnas Fedaravičius) to go have a good time. The plan is to go clubbing, and right away things start to feel dodgy. I’m pretty sure that Valentin was in on the jewelry theft, along with both these other men, Biković (Julian Kostov) and Vlad (Yuri Kolokolnikov). But my feeling of unease grew beyond just the threat of these women being around thieves.
At one point, Valentin’s friends return to the table with shots after they all spend some sexy time on the dance floor, where Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) seems to get off less on the dancing itself, and more on the fact that people are watching her. She’s addicted to attention, and willing to do just about anything to get it, especially since her husband isn’t returning her calls and texts. In any case, when they show up with the shots, Kate (Leslie Bib) doesn’t want hers. She’s not interested in getting wasted, so she says someone else can do hers.
Valentin looks weirded out by this, like he doesn’t want to take the shot. When Laurie (Carrie Coon) takes it instead, he seems worried. At this point, I started to wonder if the drinks were drugged. Once again, this sense of something terrible happening started to infiltrate my thoughts. At one point, Laurie even says that something bad is going to happen.
Date rape seems a little bit outside the normal tone for this show, but all signs pointed to the drinks being drugged . . . but they weren’t. Pretty soon that was very obvious. Jaclyn and Laurie were drunk, but clearly not anything more than that. When some Russian women approach and begin yelling at the men, clearly jealous and accusatory, Kate suggests they all leave. But Jaclyn and Laurie invite the men back to their suite, and the party continues in the pool, where more than a little nudity suggests that yes, some sort of sex party is about to go down.
Only it doesn’t. Nobody is drugged and no crazy orgy takes place. Kate manages to get rid of the Russians and everyone goes to bed. Only, Jaclyn has a little trick up her sleeve. As soon as everyone is down for the count (Laurie snoring on her stomach in her room) Valentin returns. Jaclyn takes him to her bed. Jaclyn, who has been urging Laurie to hook up with Valentin from the start, who has been talking up her amazing relationship with her husband.
It’s pretty clear what kind of person Jaclyn is at this point. She wants Valentin because Laurie wants him. She even helps create that in Laurie just so that she can take him for herself, because this makes her feel desired and more desirable than her friends. It fills some gaping emotional hole in her heart, if only briefly, to take what isn’t hers away from someone she proclaims to care about. And sure, it’s not like Valentin is Laurie’s boyfriend or she has any real claim to him, but clearly Jaclyn is being horribly manipulative and backstabby here.
Timothy’s Got A Gun
The gun was introduced last week, and I still believe that it’s the same gun that will be shot at the end of the season, though a second gun is introduced this week in Bangkok. We’ll get to that in a minute.
Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) discovers the missing firearm and has a near mental breakdown until he remembers that there’s video footage. He goes through the footage and sees Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) go into the office while Gaitok was off walking Mook (Lalisa Manobal). He knows who took the gun, but he goes about getting it back in the worst way possible.
Rather than turning to his supervisors and telling them the truth, he tries to confront Mr. Ratliff on his own. Naturally, this doesn’t go well. Gaitok says that he can’t find something and thinks Ratliff has it, but Ratliff just looks up and tells him “I have no idea what you’re talking about” and walks away. When Fabian (Christian Friedel) asks Gaitok if everything is okay, Gaitok denies that anything is wrong. He ends his shift without telling anybody about the pistol’s theft. He’s hoping to protect his job, obviously, but this will almost certainly lead to very bad things.
It very nearly leads to Timothy’s suicide. It’s been a long day listening to his wife, Victoria (Parker Posey) tear into their daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) over her decision to move to Thailand (Victoria’s line, “So you’re just going to move to Taiwan for a year?” is too hilarious; even off the benzos she has no idea what country it is they’re currently visiting).
He still can’t admit what’s eating at him to his wife or children. He’s keeping that secret as long as possible, even though it’s eating him alive. The pills he stole from his wife are clearly not helping. He writes a brief suicide note, apologizing to his family and telling them he loves them, then presses the gun to his temple. He can’t pull the trigger, and when Victoria appears he quickly hides the gun.
Just when it seems like he might finally come clean and tell his wife the truth about his shady business dealings, he veers back into his lies. His reputation as a standup guy and a successful businessman are clearly important to him, but even more important to Victoria. The truth will crush her, and almost certainly end their marriage. He’d rather die than face that or prison time.
Posey is hilarious throughout this storyline. Victoria can’t understand her daughter’s choices and worries over every detail. What if Piper emerges from the meditation center with entirely different values. “Different than what?” Piper asks. “The ones we gave you!” her mother replies. “That’s kind of the point,” Piper fires back. What if it’s a sex cult? Victoria wants to know. It goes on and on like this. In the end, when she turns to her dad for some kind of advice, he’s too distracted and high to be of much help. Piper’s expressions speaks volumes. Her parents are out of their damn minds.
The Belinda Blues
We don’t see Greg this episode, but we hear about him when Fabian tells Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) that a guest has been asking a lot of questions about her. She’s deeply unsettled by this revelation and returns to Fabian where she hilariously whispers to him that she suspects Greg murdered his wife and may be dangerous. Fabian, who clearly isn’t the brightest crayon in the box, doesn’t seem to follow. When he finally catches what she’s throwing, he tells her that nobody will be contacting the police. She’ll be fine, he says, as long as Belinda focuses on herself, and on doing her job.
But she’s not happy and she turns to Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul) for comfort and advice. He agrees to stay the night with her and when he asks if it’s okay if he sleeps in one of the beds, she tells him that it’s fine though he can also sleep in her bed. “This is me giving consent,” she blurts out, “If that’s something you guys do.” She babbles on nervously and it’s really quite endearing. He sits on the bed next to her and nods.
It’s ironic, I think, that outside of Jaclyn, Belinda is the only other character who gets lucky this episode. Nothing for Saxon or Chloe or Lachlan or Laurie.
Pornchai also discovers what’s been making the noises Belinda keeps hearing: A very large lizard had taken up residence in her room. He gets rid of it much to Belinda’s relief. What a gentleman. I wonder if there’s more to him than meets the eye, however.
Rick Goes To Bangkok
Another bit of irony: Rick, on his revenge quest to Bangkok, has perhaps the mildest night of anyone. He meets an old friend (Sam Rockwell) and they go for a drink, though Rick discovers that his old drinking buddy is now ten months sober, drinking chamomile tea instead of whiskey. He learns an awful lot more than that about his old pal (whose name I didn’t catch).
Specifically, and hilariously, Rick learns that his friend is a sex addict, but a rather philosophical sex addict. He regales him with details. He came to Thailand both because he couldn’t go back to the US and because he was attracted to Asian girls. But after a thousand nights of sex with every Asian girl he could pick up, he realized that he still wasn’t satisfied. His epiphany, however, is not what we or Rick were expecting. He realized that he actually wanted to be an Asian girl and, um, have sex with himself. So he started picking up men, dressing in drag, and sometimes he’d even pay an Asian girl to watch, so that he could imagine he was her having sex with him. Or something.
This has to be the most unexpected and hilarious moment in the season so far. Rockwell’s delivery is so matter-of-fact as he admits to this enormous debauchery, and the look on Rick’s face is priceless. Again, I suspect my own expression was much the same. Rockwell’s confession is also his explanation for sobriety. He found Buddhism and cleaned up his act. Not drinking is easy, he tells Rick; being celibate is the real challenge.
Rick has ignored Chelsea’s calls up to this point (she leaves him a very adorable voice message) but when he calls back she’s busy partying. You get the sense that something bad is going to happen, but nothing does.
Not yet, anyways.
This was yet another tremendous episode of The White Lotus, and probably the most stressful one of the season so far. I spent the whole time on the edge of my seat waiting for something bad to go down and then (mostly) nothing did, outside of some bad friend behavior from Jaclyn and a weird incestuous kiss between brothers. But I suspect that bad things will happen, and quite soon. Timothy still has his gun. Rick is on his vendetta, and despite a nice evening with an old friend, his plans for vengeance haven’t changed. The Gossip Girls are headed for a massive falling out, I’m sure, and we still don’t know who shoots the gun and who eats the bullet.
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Previous White Lotus Season 3 recap/review:
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