Mike White’s Emmy-award-winning series The White Lotus returned to HBO last month for another season of watching the affluent and ignorant squirm, this time in Thailand. After the significant cultural impact of the second season, set in Sicily and complete with audacious and hilarious storylines, many fans and critics have been feeling underwhelmed by the latest installment. Though I’ve been enjoying the slow burn of the eroding comforts of this season’s guests, complaints of it being too boring, lacking its former comedic draw (we miss you, Jennifer Coolidge), and moving along at a glacial pace have been abundant. After Sunday’s sixth episode, Denials, I’d say people are changing their tune.
The aftermath of the previous episode, Full Moon Party, where viewers finally began to feel the tension rise, is catastrophic, and for once (I’m sure all critics complaining of pace will agree), incredibly blunt. The guests are being exposed to profound and devastating truths, or teetering tantalizingly on their cusp, and how they handle it is yet to be seen.
TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains mentions of incest, suicide, violence, and graphic language and imagery. Please exercise personal care when reading.
The Point Of No Return: Drunken Incest
We last left Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Lochlan Ratliffe (Sam Nivola) on Gary/Greg’s yacht with Chloe and Chelsea drunk and high, playing a game of dare. In the previous week’s episode, viewers squirmed at the game’s climax: at first, a brief peck from the two brothers that evolved into a lingering and intense second kiss. When the pair pulled back, Saxon looked dazed and confused, but Lochlan was smiling. Oh brother, if only that were the last of it.
Slowly, throughout the episode, we get brief flashes of memory from the night before, first from Saxon and then, by the end of the episode, from Lochlan. When we first see the brothers, Saxon is waking up to the sight of his brother’s bare ass. This is reminiscent of a scene in the second episode where Lochlan stares timidly at Saxon’s butt whilst he sleeps in the bed next to him. In the earlier episodes, Saxon had clear power over Lochlan, and Lochlan had a certain subservience to Saxon, but with this slight detail, we immediately see something in their relationship has shifted. This is strengthened by a genius touch from Mike White: the brothers end up dressing in the other’s bathing suits from the night before. Their roles in their previous power dynamic have reversed.
We finally see enough of the previous night to learn that while Lochlan was having sex with Chloe, he was also getting handsy with Saxon, who was lying next to them. Saxon, an infinitely arrogant and unpleasant man with a lofty sense of his masculinity, is about to crack right in half. Trying to push off his memories of the night before, he heads to the pool where he finds Chelsea (Aimme Lou Wood) and self-righteously complains that he can’t understand why she didn’t hook up with him last night (clearly trying to share some of the blame for what he ended up doing instead). Again, Chelsea reminds him of her boyfriend, explains monogamy (to which Saxon scoffs) and then, much to my applause, tells Saxon that:
“Once you’ve connected with someone on a spiritual level, you can’t go back to cheap sex. Hooking up with you would be an empty experience […] I know. Because you’re soulless.”
For once, Saxon seems hurt, and — even more preposterous for his character — seemingly starts to engage in some self-reflection. While recovering from the first shot from Chelsea, Chloe comes in with a bomb. Chloe announces that Gary/Greg knows about Saxon and her and wants him to come to their house for a party tonight. She suspects learning of their affair has turned Gary/Greg on, and Chelsea chimes in by saying that maybe he wants to have a threesome with them. Saxon vehemently rejects having the potential for intimacy with a man (classic), which Chloe brazenly counters: “What about last night?” You can practically feel Saxon’s stomach turn. He frantically refuses her insinuation, “That’s my little brother […] you guys forced us to.”
Chloe simply shakes her head and says exactly what every viewer on the edge of their seats was hoping she would: “I didn’t force him to j*** you off.” I’ve wanted Saxon to be brutally humbled for some time, but even I had a wince of sympathy for him. Saxon’s whole self-image has been destroyed, and there’s no coming back from this one. I’d say drunken incest is something that stays with you forever.
“Sometimes I Just Have To Be Honest”: A Fight 20 Years In The Making
Another satisfying development: Kate sees Jacqueline sneaking Valentin out of her room after her secret affair the night before. Most girls will know someone like Jacqueline: the girl who over-the-top cheers you on, only to take whatever it was you wanted for herself due to a pathological need to prove she’s the best. After relentlessly telling Laurie to go for Valentin because she’s the only single one in the group and clear signs that Valentin is interested in Laurie, Jacqueline just had to swoop in and be the victor. But don’t worry, she made sure to call her husband and check in after he left.
Kate tells Laurie what she saw and Laurie, rightfully so, is pissed. She confronts Jacqueline about it, much to Kate’s annoyance, and Jacqueline blatantly denies it. Infuriating but very on-brand. Laurie’s ability to play the feigned best-friends-since-we-were-teenagers game has run thin. The trio has been simmering with resentment and rivalry for the past five episodes, and is finally starting to boil over. Laurie is direct with Jacqueline, which may be the first time any of them have been direct with each other throughout the season:
“I don’t know. When Kate told me she saw him coming out of your room this morning, it just made me laugh. Like, nobody changes. We’re still the same people we were in the tenth grade. It’s funny, it’s just funny […] This is what you always did.”
This friendship is surely heading for an implosion twenty years in the making, and I can’t wait to watch. I hope Laurie comes out on top; the Jacquelines of the world need to be taken down a peg or two.
The Fall of the House of Ratliffe
Timothy, Victoria, Piper, and Lochlan head to the monastery Piper has recently revealed she will be living at for the next year. Thus far, a character lacking in development, we finally get a look into Piper’s mindset when she goes to meet the monk she’s been waiting to see, Luang Por Teera. Simply put, she’s lost: lost in life and lost in her family. Victoria, played by season standout Parker Posey, is vehemently against her daughter’s decision, but agrees to come along and insists he better be “the best Buddhist in China”.
While Victoria tours the grounds, Timothy goes and meets the monk alone. He doesn’t ask much about his daughter, clearly too distracted by his own turmoil. He asks the monk what he thinks happens when we die. The monk pleasantly replies that all humans are like drops of water. When we are born, we rise into the sky, and when we die, we fall back down, returning to the ocean. It’s a homecoming. This seems to give Timothy some much-needed comfort, but it is, of course, short-lived.
After Victoria agrees to let Piper live in Thailand if she can make it through one night in the monastery, they leave Piper and Lochlan behind and head back to the hotel. Victoria, the comic relief of the season, panics about her daughter’s choice and her husband’s lack of condemning it. Timothy argues that they want their kids to be strong because if — and as he knows, when —they lose everything, they’ll need self-reliance.
Traditional to The White Lotus’ style, Victoria’s comedy gets mixed with tragedy as she tells Timothy that she’d rather die than live an uncomfortable life, and she has never been able to tolerate the idea of not living affluently. Not only does this add to the anchor around Tim’s neck, along with the knowledge of his sinking business and legal troubles, but it also confronts him with another hard truth. His wife has married and stayed with him not just for love but for financial stability. An ironic insight into the woman who has been shaming the old men with their “sugar babies” and a brutal comment for a man who is on the brink of losing it all.
The audience is left in suspense as the credits roll. Rick (Walter Goggins) has finally arrived at the Hollinger’s house and comes face-to-face with the man responsible for his father’s death. Will Rick choose violence or self-transformation? We see Belinda cornered by Gary/Greg and invited to his party on the hill just to “talk”. Is Gary/Greg seeking to silence Belinda and sever his ties to Tanya’s murder once and for all? The Ratliffes are hurtling toward disaster at full speed. Will all of them be destroyed in the crash or just a few?
The White Lotus season three, episode six, Denials sees the unraveling of all the guests and promises overwhelming conflicts. Creator Mike White said this season is the darkest yet, and I’m beginning to see why. With only two episodes left until the identity of the gunman is revealed, no suspect is off the table.
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