White Lotus Review – an absolutely exquisite third season | The white lotus

EITHT to a dozen wealthy Americans, half of them hide a dark secret as they go to a glamorous place for a luxury holiday where the other half complicates the problem by creating some dark secrets. A dead body that destroys everyone’s fun, but increases the audience’s exponentially. Shiny unhappy people get their fair deserts at the end of an immaculately depicted eight hours of series. Yes, my friends, we can only be back on the white lotus.

Written and directed as ever by Mike White, this time he takes us, his new gang and one or two familiar faces to Thailand. We have the family group, with Parker Posey (possibly Parker who poses it a little too much in a part that does not require as much boiling as she brings to it) as Victoria Ratliff, a strong medical southern belle and wife of the wealthy businessman Timothy (Jason Isaacs). They are parents of three children: the pleasantly shaking chip-off-the-old-block Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger and Answer to Your First Question is Yes, he is; the answer to the next is, no, he is actually very, very much good); Idealistic daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), who writes her dissertation on Eastern religion and at whose request they chose Thailand as their holiday location; And sweet, gentle Lochlan (Sam Nivola) who may be trying to find out how to get out as gay in a family that doesn’t seem to meet much difference.

We have the weird couple, Rick (Walton Goggins) and his much younger girlfriend Chelsea (played by Aimee Lou Wood, from the fame of sex lessons). Goggins is in his happy place like Rick, a tortured soul that fibrillates on the edge of violence and has come to the city seeking the owner. The reason is still unspecified, but if I had to choose between redemption, bloody revenge and sell him a kitten, I know what my money would be on.

And we have a trio of looser narrative cannon: Three old friends reunite in some quality time together after a few years. Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) is a successful actor Laurie (Carrie Coon) is a high-flying lawyer who is recovering from a recent divorce and Kate (Leslie Bibb) is a home-mother who seems to have it The whole, including a nice line in character assassination, depending on which of her friends is present or absent. Their dynamic-not bad girls, but not quite the riding-or-dies, they think they are beautifully depicted.

Further from the center – so far – we have a tender romance that blooms between Hotel Security Guard Gaitok (Tayme ThapThimthong) and “Health Guru” Mook (Lalisa Manoban) and possibly another between returning character Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) and another employee as she embarks on a research trip for her own wellness business.

It all creates a rich stew for options, and white adjusts spices and shows the heat with a skill from a Michelin-star chef. What is the source of Rick’s suffering? Why does Timothy get calls from the Wall Street Journal? Which of the Ventrio should first crack and how? Is there more or even less for Saxon than meets the eye? And is Piper really as anodyne as she seems? No one else in the white lotus has ever been.

As always, White has an eye on the intentional ignorance and hypocrisies of the US economic elite. The power dynamics of sex and class are under control again, but this time religion is also interrogated. Specifically, the Western appropriation of Eastern faith and practice – you know, the good bits; The bits that can be packed as a vague “spirituality” rather than an organizing principle that one must build a moral life.

That said, the last series had less satirical bite than the first one – which relentlessly went after its characters and never missed a chance to save the unthinkable arrogance or active evil between Americans rich enough to have distanced themselves from the flock. And on the evidence of the first few episodes, it seems that the third series may have moved even further from the original mo. But the precision of the storytelling and realization of any character, from the most central to the most peripheral, remains masterful. Exquisite shot, written, pace and executed, it is a lavish party for all senses. Come in, the water is lovely – until the bodies start to flow past.