One can only imagine what the Google reviews for the White Lotus hotels, the luxurious titular resorts of HBO‘s latest cultural phenomenon, would look like: “Beautiful, spacious villa, friendly staff. Unexpected mass shooting murder spree and cloudy weather. Would recommend.” Despite the litany of murders plaguing this fictional playground for bored millionaires, guests continue to flock there season after season.
Set in the lush, tropical climate of Thailand, Season 3 once again introduces viewers to a new roster of disparate guests. The show thrives on its characters and their exaggerated idiosyncrasies. From the endearing, free-spirited charm of Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) to Victoria Ratliff’s (Parker Posey) viral drawl — her pronunciations of Buddhism and tsunami are among the season’s most mimicked moments — creator Mike White proved again he has an uncanny knack for crafting memorable caricatures.
Though there are far too many nuances to unpack every detail, The White Lotus’s third season, at its heart, is about the importance of family. Timothy Ratliff (brilliantly portrayed by Jason Isaacs) arrives at the resort as a proud patriarch, defined entirely by his wealth and status. Yet beneath his finance-mogul veneer, Timothy teeters on the brink of financial ruin and despair, having learned early in the season that he’s implicated in some embezzlement scheme and firmly in the FBI’s crosshairs.
While some critics argued his storyline was wasted on episodes spent zonked out on his wife’s Lorazepam — guzzled like Tic Tacs — and quietly contemplating a murder-suicide of his family, Timothy’s seemingly aimless spiral is exactly what gives his narrative its power. His meandering descent sets the stage for his eventual clarity.
Just as the first season offered a critique of elite progressives, whose loud moral posturing masked deep personal hypocrisy, Season 3 delivers its own quietly traditional message: Family, not fortune, is the bedrock of a meaningful life. Timothy is neither a monster nor a martyr but a man whose identity is so entangled with success that when it falters, he sees no path forward.
What makes The White Lotus addictive and appealing across political divides is how the series gathers characters with the most grating personalities and allows audiences to witness their slow, inevitable unraveling — from charismatic finance executive to spaced-out, disconnected druggie. White again deftly balanced comedy with weighty themes. Timothy’s harrowing contemplation of massacring his family is undercut and made even more biting by his wife’s oblivious reaffirmation of her attachment to luxury: “I just don’t think at this age I’m meant to live an uncomfortable life. I don’t have the will.” It’s one of the season’s funniest yet darkest moments.
For a series so steeped in materialism, spirituality and faith formidably writhe beneath the third season’s surface. Against the backdrop of Thai Buddhism, we meet Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), a security guard torn between his faith’s pacifist teachings and the confrontational demands of his job. However, faith is portrayed differently among the locals and the affluent vacationers, the latter of who latch on to belief systems merely as bandages for spiritual emptiness. This vapid ethos is vividly exemplified by Saxon Ratliff (Patrick Schwarzenegger), who delivers a standout performance — made all the more impressive given the star-studded cast. The eldest son of the Ratliff family, Saxon is an avatar of the modern finance bro, whose life is defined by careerism, bench-press numbers, and fleeting, transactional romances.
In one of the season’s standout episodes, after a late-night yacht party during which (in some scenes best witnessed firsthand) Saxon unsuccessfully pursues Chelsea, she piercingly explains that any encounter between them would be an “empty experience.”
“Once you’ve connected with someone on a spiritual level,” she tells him, “you can’t go back to cheap sex.”
In the finale, we see Saxon — for the first time — display genuine vulnerability, nearly tearing up as he watches Chelsea run into the arms of her boyfriend (Walton Goggins), experiencing a moment of human connection Saxon has never truly known. It’s a testament to White’s skill that the scene evokes real sympathy for such an obnoxious and unlikeable character.
This is what The White Lotus conveys so effectively throughout the season: the illusion of happiness propped up by wealth, the spiritual malnourishment inherent in transactional relationships, and the quiet, persistent ache for something authentic. And this isn’t even mentioning the trio of old friends at their reunion, embalmed in artifice, desperately pretending their lives are perfect. To White’s credit, one of them, Kate (Leslie Bibb), who casually reveals she’s an “independent” married to a Republican in Texas (well, Austin), is never used as a cudgel to browbeat the political Right. It’s a quiet reminder of what makes the show so watchable: Nothing is off limits, but no one is reduced to a straw man, either.
In its third season, White again crafted multifaceted characters and slowly peeled back their facades as their storylines intertwined. Despite some detractors complaining that “nothing happens,” The White Lotus isn’t about grand narrative arcs. It’s about the mental and emotional unraveling of its characters. The series is less concerned with dramatic events than with the emotional consequences simmering beneath the surface — like a social Hunger Games, where the contestants’ worst enemies are their own anxieties, insecurities, and pretensions.
Perhaps that’s why affluent vacationers keep returning to the White Lotus. Something always happens.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a computer engineer in Toronto pursuing his MBA.