"I'm Glad You Have a Beautiful Face"
The White Lotus Finale Recap is here.
To: Fabian Wheastytea,1 White Lotus Thailand General Manager
Dear Mr. Wheastytea,
This letter is in reference to a stay my family and I had at your hotel last week. Although the property is beautiful, our stay was — not to be too dramatic about it — positively atrocious. The first few days were fine, although the hotel gift shop was robbed the second day we were there and, as far as I understand it, the perpetrators were never apprehended. This is obviously concerning, and also one of the items stolen was a necklace I had planned to purchase for my wife. Additionally, I had signed up for a massage later in the week, and my masseuse, Belinda, never showed up. When I complained about this to the gentleman at the desk, Pornchai, he just started crying. You yourself seemed highly distracted most of the week; you may recall that when I asked you if we could rent jet skis, you just invited me to come watch you sing in the dining room and then drove off on a golf cart.
But this is nothing in comparison to what happened with regards to the unfortunate mass shooting that occurred toward the end of our trip. As you know, at least THREE but perhaps as many as FIVE people were shot dead in the middle of the hotel property, in broad daylight, while I was eating a frankly subpar mango at breakfast. This was obviously terrifying and not at all relaxing but we understand that sometimes tragedies occur. (It was all the more distressing because the gentleman in the villa next to us was screaming for help at one point earlier in the morning, and seemingly no one ever showed up, even though I called the front desk about it. I saw him and his family with all their baggage later so I guess they were okay, but it was upsetting to have my call ignored.) Given this level of upheaval, we naturally assumed the remainder of our stay would be comped. You can imagine my dismay when I returned home and looked at the hotel rewards portal to see that I has been charged in full. As a Blossom Level member, I expect better from this hotel. Two summers ago, I was in Sicily for a wedding when a dead body washed onto the beach, and the General Manager, Valentina, credited my account with 100,000 points. That was only one dead body. Although I would prefer that my stay be comped in full, if financial restitution is not possible, I would be satisfied with 500,000 Lotus Bucks for use at a future stay.
Very sincerely,
George Higgentoot, Blossom Level Member #91481333
PS: I think Pam kept my iPad.
Well, friends, here we are! At the end of another stay at The White Lotus, the world’s most dangerous luxury hotel chain. And the body count has exploded. Unlike previous seasons, which only claimed one victim, we had (at least) three dead bodies at the end of this one: Rick, who admittedly had it coming; my beloved Chelsea, who I kept telling you was safe because I thought it would be too sad to kill her (what a fool I am!); and Rick’s Dad (duh), Jim Hollinger. Every single Ratliff almost died — and they really did get me there with Lochy! — and all three of the women on the Girls’ Trip at the very least briefly had the shit scared out of them when they were nearly in a mass shooting but, on the bright side, at least they managed to patch up their friendship. Gaitok did end up with the promotion he thought he wanted, a sweet new pair of sunglasses in which he admittedly does look cooler, and Mook’s extremely hard-earned respect — which will perhaps prove to be more trouble keeping than it’s worth. Valentin and the Russians all got away with their crimes, which is admittedly possibly for the best for Gaitok, who chose kindly not to rat them out knowing that doing so would get them all deported back to a harsh fate in Russia.2 Frank climbed back on the wagon eventually, after being metaphorically run over by the wheel. And Belinda, sweet Belinda, finally got what she deserves in the form of five million dollars from Greg. As for Greg?
I suppose we’ll see him in the French Riviera (or wherever) next season, popping up in the cabana next to Belinda and Zion and asking them if they can lend him a hand with a little something. Just this once.
As a high-level take on this season, I don’t think it held together as well as the first two. There were a lot of shaky plot points, and I say that as a person who doesn’t really care that much about plot holes anymore, especially in a show that’s as much about vibes as The White Lotus is. But a lot of characters did stuff because the plot needed them to, rather than because it served their characters, which was not an issue the first two seasons ran into. This season’s “wellness” angle was a total bust; there was no reason whatsoever for the hotel to be posited that way other than to have a plot-related excuse for the Ratliffs (and only the Ratliffs!) to give up their phones. You could have explored the issues of excess, and pertinent (and interesting!) aspects of Buddhism simply via the location and with Piper Ratliff’s plot line. (She could have begged her family to do a digital detox and Tim could have gone along with it in the guise of being a supportive father.) Skewering the wellness industrial complex seems like an idea Mike White had in the shower and then got bored of about three weeks into production. And he’s right that this show doesn’t need it: The White Lotus is about rich people getting into a really fucked up vacation situation and maybe dying in the course of it due to their own very human foibles and flaws. He doesn’t need to gild the, er, lotus. I also think there were some missed opportunities in storytelling and characterization that might have been ameliorated by the use of a small writers room that employed some Thai writers.
HOWEVER! Even when I find this show imperfect, I also always find it eminently watchable. (In full disclosure, it is probably my favorite current TV show.) Mike White as a writer has his speed bumps and never more so than this season, but as a director, he’s generally excellent; the performances and casting on this show are always uniformly stellar, and the visuals are great. And even when parts of this season didn’t totally work, the ways they didn’t work were always still interesting and worthy of discussion. Just look at the massive amount of think pieces that came out every week, dissecting the show’s themes and metaphors, symbols and Easter eggs. The scripts for this season may have needed a little more time in the oven — White allegedly had a lot of it come to him in a literal fever dream??? — but that doesn’t mean I didn’t sincerely enjoy the ride. The White Lotus is put together with a tremendous amount of thought and care and it shows, and that’s worth digging into even if it’s not perfect. (I also think that expecting every season of a good show to be perfect is a fool’s errand; nothing is going to be an A grade every single time, and we all need to be okay with that. Artists used to be able to lay an egg every now and then.)
Finally, The White Lotus — like Severance — is a great advertisement for a TV show dropping one episode per week. There is so much delicious anticipation between chapters, and it’s more fun to get to appreciate each new development on its own. It’s better for all of us to let these shows breathe a little, and it’s better for the show too, to get to take up space in our brains for more than just three insane days.
Enough of my blabbing. Let’s get granular, starting with the Ratliffs: In short, Tim seriously decides to KILL ALL OF THEM except Lochy, making a piña colada out of the poison fruit growing in the garden of their villa.