‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 review: More murder, mystery and maybe enlightenment
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And so we turn to chapter three in Mike White’s semi-anthological omnibus luxury travel mystery series, “The White Lotus,” premiering Sunday on HBO. As before, the season begins with an unidentified corpse, then steps back in time to set the stage for murder — or whatever it turns out to be — as guests arrive by sea at their fancy resort hotel.
The current series was filmed in Thailand (the Four Seasons Koh Samui standing in for the eponymous resort), following the Maui-set first and the Sicily-set second. This iteration of the White Lotus is a posh wellness retreat, tending to the mind and body, with electronic devices locked away, for those willing — though, of course, not everyone is willing. (To be sure, there are also bars and restaurants and splashy entertainment.) Creator-writer-director White — I have only just realized his name is in the title — digs into spiritual matters here, as he did into sexual last time around. That isn’t to say there are no sexual matters, though they reflect in different ways on the spiritual, and vice versa. In a way, it’s a sequel to “Enlightened,” the 2011 HBO series created by White and its star, Laura Dern, about a businesswoman who, after a nervous breakdown, comes back changed after a tropical spa experience.
It’s a more sophisticated, more personal take on a kind of star-stuffed, multithread melodrama exemplified by MGM’s 1932 “Grand Hotel” (the movie in which Greta Garbo says, “I want to be alone”) and midcentury adaptations of Arthur Hailey novels such as “Airport” and “Hotel”; the latter became “Arthur Hailey’s Hotel” for five television seasons in the 1980s.
Most of the main cast is helpfully introduced as the guests debark upon the shore of the resort and meet the relevant staff, including the hotel’s manager, Fabian (Christian Friedel), and co-owner Sritala Hollinger (Lek Patravadi), a former singing and film star and a “pioneer in the wellness space.” Despite the expense, not all the visitors are happy to be there.
From North Carolina comes the Ratliff family: father Timothy (Jason Isaacs), who does something in finance; mother Victoria (Parker Posey); and children Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), a preening bro who works for his dad; college senior Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), avowedly here to interview a Buddhist monk for her thesis, who dismisses the hotel as “a Disneyland for rich bohemians from Malibu in their Lululemon yoga pants”; and Lochlan (Sam Nivola), a late-blooming high school senior. Their “house mentor” — each group gets one — is Pam (Morgana O’Reilly).
With Season 3 of the hit HBO show ‘The White Lotus’ slated for 2025 release, Thailand is gearing up to court luxury travelers and more Hollywood productions.
Reuniting on a girls’ trip are old friends Kate (Leslie Bibb), who is a TV star (Sritala is a fan); Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), a rich housewife living in Austin, Texas; and Laurie (Carrie Coon), a divorced corporate something or other who has just not been made partner. One might say they attest too much to their mutual love. Their mentor: Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius), a buff, tattooed Russian, introduced shirtless.
Then there are Rick (Walton Goggins), whose character is suggested by cigarettes, a half-buttoned floral shirt and a sweaty demeanor, and Chelsea (Aimee Lee Wood), his cheerful, much younger girlfriend, who declares she’s going “to help you get your joy back — even if it kills me.” Their assigned mentor is Mook, played by Thai pop star Lalisa Manoban, aka Lisa from the South Korean pop group Blackpink, good in her first acting role. Mook runs wellness sessions, entertains at night and is the object of a crush by Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), a sweet, hapless low-level security guard.
As has usually been the case in this series, the guests are rich white people, the better (or worse) to contrast with (much of) the staff. Neither guest nor staff, exactly, and not at all rich, is Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), the Maui White Lotus spa manager, back from Season 1, connecting with her opposite number, Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul), on a sort of professional exchange program. (She thinks she recognizes someone from that season, as you might well.)
Superficially, this is a story of soul-sick Westerners in the soulful East, like “Lost Horizon” and “The Razor’s Edge” — but apart from Piper, enlightenment is not on any guest’s menu. Which isn’t to say some might not be forthcoming; philosophical therapist Amrita (Sri Lankan actress Shalini Peiris) would like to help.
Lalisa Manobal, better known as Lisa from Blackpink, is making her acting debut on Season 3 of HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Here’s what you should know about the multi-hyphenate artist.
Perhaps because we have been down this road before, and because the series opens, flipping the old Chekhovian dictum, with the sound of shots that will later — chronologically earlier — require the display of a gun, a sense of impending disaster haunts even the quieter scenes. (The show is both a whodunit and a “who was it done to.”) There is less — really no — explicit comedy this time out, no replacement for Jennifer Coolidge’s needy heiress from Seasons 1 and 2. (As if you could replace Jennifer Coolidge.) Yet something in the direction, something like affection for these bumbling adults and young adults, lightens the tone. This isn’t “The Night of the Iguana.” And, for a fan of the show, there’s built-in interest that comes from seeing just what White will erect on the old premises, and to what purposes a mostly fresh cast and their characters will be turned.
If the seasons share any overarching themes, they’re that money can’t buy happiness — having no money doesn’t buy it either — and that people bring their crap with them wherever they go. None of White’s characters are actually on vacation, at least not on vacation from themselves.
Yet “The White Lotus,” in all its seasons, is a comedy; if all does not end well — some characters will be disappointed, somebody will die — all that ends well ends well. Life-affirming, or at least life-accepting, decisions are made, a modicum of understanding is reached, lovers are reconciled, goodness tends to triumph. Change comes to the players if not the playing field. (“Grand Hotel,” says a character in that movie. “Always the same. People come. People go.” He also says, “Nothing ever happens,” but that part is irony.)
There are also lizards and monkeys.
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