The Winners and Losers of ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3
Sawatdee kha, Thailand
The bodies have fallen, the monkeys have screeched, the devices have been switched back on, and the staff has warmly waved farewell from the beach. Once again, we are leaving the White Lotus resort behind without everyone who was there when we got started. And once again, it’s time to take a look at how everyone came out of this season of The White Lotus—other, of course, than living or dead.
Loser: The White Lotus Corporate Team
You can squint and sort of, maybe, kind of see how the events of Seasons 1 and 2 would not have become a PR nightmare for the White Lotus as an upscale international franchise. Let’s assume, for starters, that White Lotus Ltd., or rather some baroque and internationally headquartered shell company, has access to very good (and very expensive) lawyers and also a crack Airbnb-esque crisis team that parachutes in with NDAs at a moment’s notice. Season 1: Not great that the resort’s manager was killed in a guest’s room by said guest—but Hawaiian police obviously cleared the guest (inaugural irredeemable jerk Shane Patton) of manslaughter charges swiftly enough that Patton was waiting to board a flight home by the time Armond’s casket was loaded onto a plane in the series’ opening scene. Season 2: Extremely not great that a guest of tabloid-level ancestral wealth died under shady circumstances and conducted a mini-massacre of murderous gays—but that wasn’t actually on White Lotus property, and how can the hotel be held responsible for what guests get up to on their own time off-site?
Season 3, though, is a lot harder to wave away. You have the Thai outpost’s owner (suggesting the resort is franchised—interesting!) showing up at the hotel with armed guards and promptly getting into a fatal firefight with a guest smack-dab in the middle of the resort grounds. Guest kills owner and two private security guards, private security guards kill a different guest, resort security guard kills the first guest—all on hotel premises, with guests and staff alike running for cover as bodies float through the picturesque lily ponds. This incident is, among other things, a PR catastrophe in the making: There’s no world in which this doesn’t attract global headlines (particularly because one of the fleeing guests, Jaclyn, was a famous actress) and result in payouts to survivors. If your job is keeping your hotel chain’s reputation squeaky clean enough to keep big spenders coming, this is not great, Bob.
I think a good real-world model for the White Lotus is Aman Resorts, which you might recall from Daphne and Cameron Sullivan (irredeemable jerk no. 2) bragging about their stay at the (real) Venice outpost in Season 2. Aman Resorts is a chichi, ultra-pricey chain beloved by celebrities and other moneyed loungers that has 35 global properties—including a flagship location in Phuket, where a week in a villa later this month will come at the low, low price of $12,770 per night. Do bad things happen at Aman properties, as they are wont to even on less hallowed grounds? They do! Because I am fun at parties, I encourage you to execute one of my favorite searches: “[location to be visited] + [negative event].” Are there results for “Aman Resorts death”? Tragically, yes. (Never try this for cruise ships.) Speaking specifically of the Phuket outpost—a clear inspiration for this season, though not where it was actually filmed—a guest died following a fatal fall from a hotel bridge in 2011; in 2001, a member of the resort’s sports department was implicated in a murder nearby.
Having said all this: While I [laughs in not checking my 401(k)] don’t personally identify as someone in the market for a $12,000-per-night villa, I do not think the popular perception is that a stay along a sun-kissed Aman beach or atop an elegantly frosty Aman mountain is a recipe for danger. So the White Lotus might be just fine. Then again, “mass shooting at luxury resort leaves five dead” is, perhaps, a macaque of a different color. Either way—lots of billable hours to be filed here, I suspect.
Winner: The Ratliff Clan
Hey, they lived! No murder-suicides or (fatally, anyway) poisoned piña coladas here. Tim is finally at peace, Piper has wised up about her monastery dreams (much to the relief of her parents), and Saxon and Lochlan are, well, uh, there, still. What a great success.
Just Kidding—Loser: The Ratliff Clan
I understand why Mike White ended the season the way that he did. Having said that, it is exceedingly cruel to deny we the viewing public the opportunity to see even the next 90 seconds after Tim—who is watching his family boot up their devices, on which the grim news from back home will reach them at last—happily murmurs, “Things are about to change.”
Both Victoria and Saxon more or less outright said that they had no reason to live absent the family’s wealth and high-flying but apparently extremely corrupt financial business. Piper spent most of this season seeming ready to renounce creature comforts—only to be convinced by a single night chez monastery that she simply cannot deal and wants very much to keep living in luxury as she has been. Lochlan seems more willing (and, perhaps, able) to roll with the punches than the rest of his family—maybe he really did enjoy the monastery life, as he professed to Piper; he, and not she, was the one who found greater (if unwanted) truths about himself during meditation, after all—but his dad just semi-accidentally almost killed him via toxic protein shake, which feels like something they will probably need to deal with at some point.
It seems like a fair guess that there are one or 10 or 50 firearms back home in North Carolina—assuming the Ratliffs even make it onto the plane, or off the White Lotus shuttle boat, for that matter. (That water is looking awfully tempting to Tim as the finale wraps up.) Victoria might not even get a chance to dream up her own troubling familial bloodbath, as her husband has now done thrice. At this point, there’s got to be a warrant out for Tim’s arrest. Does he get popped the moment their plane touches down on U.S. soil? Would Lochlan head back with the doomed Ratliff crew, or would he turn back around and actually give this monastery thing a fair shake? Is Saxon implicated in any of Tim’s crimes? Can Piper bear a lifetime of nonorganic food?
Most importantly: WHAT DID VICTORIA SAY TO TIM WHEN HER PHONE TURNED ON??? Loser: us.
Winner: Job Mediocrity
Let’s review some of the White Lotus staffers we’ve met this season. There’s Valentin, who colluded with two pals to rob the hotel shop. There’s Gaitok, history’s most inept security guard, and Pee Lek, who is none the wiser that Gaitok, ahem, misplaced the resort’s gun for an extended period. There’s Mook, who harbors a not-so-secret thirst for blood.
There’s Fabian, a weird vibes king whose time overseeing the resort as manager can best be described as unsettling. And there’s Pam, who despite Tim’s obvious and profound unwellness blithely reminds him that the seeds of the pong-pong tree fruit growing all over his family’s villa are toxic. “The locals actually call it the suicide tree because people grind up the seeds and eat them when they want to kill themselves,” she explains before bidding him a cheerful adieu.
Sure, not everyone’s bad—Pornchai, you angel, may you reign forever, and Amrita deserves everything, starting with lifelong therapy for PTSD. But whoever’s doing the hiring here—Fabian, I guess?—is not adding the crème de la crème to the payroll. But don’t let that stop them! Quiet quitting is back, baby.
Loser: Duke
There was nothing Duke—the university, the men’s basketball team, the legion of fans who do not seem to find anything concerning in others’ universal disgust, or Stephen Miller—could have done to stop Tim Ratliff’s depressive vamping and near suicide in a Duke T-shirt from becoming a meme. But Duke (the university) most definitely did not do itself any favors by loudly rebuking the school’s representation this season, which made those in the disgust camp all the more eager to spread the meme far and wide when Duke (the basketball team) fell in the NCAA Final Four on Saturday. Babs could have warned you guys!
Winners: Belinda and Zion
Belinda had been on death watch since this season started, with Gary—previously Greg, the onetime lover and also onetime murderer of Tanya—well aware that she had worked out who he was and what he was doing in Thailand with all of Tanya’s money. (Namely, hiding.)
Greg/Gary offered Belinda $100,000 to keep silent, which she refused outright on principle. Then her son, Zion, turned up—and used his business bona fides (MBA, baby!) to demand $5 million instead. It was absurd! There was no way Greg/Gary would agree! Except, then, he did, transferring the dough into Belinda’s account, after which Belinda and Zion set sail—a little wistfully for the former, as she was leaving behind dreamboat of dreamboats Pornchai. Still, to her credit, she suggested that maybe she should just try being rich for a few minutes.
As for Zion—the answer to this is probably “the French”—has any child, adult or otherwise, walked in on their parent naked in bed with an unknown partner and played it any cooler than Belinda’s son did?
Zion, played by Nicholas Duvernay, didn’t get a lot of screen time this season, but boy, did he shine in the finale. Duvernay sparkled as he calmly played payoff hardball with Greg/Gary. Belinda, heretofore known as Ye of Little Faith, doubted he could land the deal. Yet he did, quoting Langston freaking Hughes in the process. More Duvernay—next season, next show, next network—please!
Anyway, I hope Belinda hires a good tax attorney. I’d avoid money managers in the Tar Heel State for now at least.
Loser: Frank’s Tenuous Sobriety
Dead! Chamomile tea!
Having said that: He does end up back in a monastery at the end, so perhaps all is not lost.
Winners: Gal Pals
“I’m so glad we did this,” sighed Kate at the final dinner.
“Me too,” gushed Jaclyn.
Laurie—well, Laurie needed a little more prodding, but she got to love in the end: “I look at you guys and it feels meaningful,” she said. “I’m just happy to be at the table.” Then all three professed their love for one another.
“Let’s totally do this again!” is, if not the most evoked lie predominantly told by women, certainly up there. Our gals don’t quite go there, though their giddiness in the charter boat to the airport—a very short time after fleeing from a shooting, but sure—would suggest that sometime before the trio say goodbye and return to their separate lives, they’ll promise to once again plan an extravagant girls’ trip. I say: Let them pretend that they actually enjoyed their week together, but for the sake of each woman’s mental health, may they never vacation as a group again.
Loser: Gaitok
I know, I know—we’re supposed to believe that things finally turned up Gaitok at the end of the season, which sees him being made Sritala Hollinger’s personal security guard after he dispatches Rick (who helpfully eliminated Gaitok’s bullying predecessors). Mook, who shook him off earlier in the episode when he suggested he might not report Aleksei and Vlad to Pee Lek for the robbery, has happily taken him back. He got the girl and a promotion—what’s not to like?
Except that Gaitok spent the season making it very clear that he wanted no part in any violence. While he declined to report Aleksei and Vlad after Valentin made the case that the three would be sent back to Russia and in serious trouble if he did, he then killed a weeping, retreating Rick as he carried Chelsea’s dead body. Given what we know about Gaitok and his commitment to Buddhism and nonviolence, it’s hard to think that this could possibly sit well with him. Also, Mook—I don’t know! Kind of an agent of chaos, and certainly not someone with Gaitok’s best interests at heart. Step carefully, my friend.
Winner: Greg/Gary
Sure, he’s $5 million poorer, and there is no guarantee that Belinda won’t still report his whereabouts to the authorities. But she’s now strongly motivated not to, lest her enormous payday go kaput—and, as Zion pointed out, Greg/Gary can certainly spare that tiny piece of Tanya’s fortune.
He’s still got Chloe, and his massive estate, and his yacht, and his impending mommy-issues threesome. The world is Greg/Gary’s caviar-bedecked oyster.
Losers: Romantics
At least our lovebirds had one last beautiful moment together:
Last week, it seemed as though Rick had finally found peace, and he told Chelsea as much. Then Jim Hollinger turned up at the White Lotus, apparently in pursuit of him, and insulted both Rick’s mother and father, shattering that fragile peace. Rick might have thought that he was getting it back by grabbing Jim’s gun and shooting him, only for Sritala to tell Rick that no, dumbass, Jim didn’t kill his father—Jim was his father, and while the nasty words about his mom were every bit the insult Rick imagined, the ones about (the man he thought was) his father were Jim reckoning with his own failures. So no peace to be found there—and then he got his endlessly patient, incorrigibly sweet lady love killed right in front of him? Not a good showing! Sure, they ended up together forever as Rick promised, but, well, one hopes that the alive part of forever might have lasted longer.
Don’t be sad that Walton Goggins’s White Lotus residency is over. Be happy that it even happened.
Winner: Those of Us Wondering How, Exactly, Everyone Wasn’t Constantly Being Eaten Alive by Bugs
Fumigators! Of course! Lots and lots and lots of fumigators!
Officially more interested in those $12,000-a-night villas. Anyone know how to rob a bank?
