The White Lotus Faces the Abyss in Season Three | Vanity Fair

It’s rather fitting, as we enter another terrible epoch (or continue one), that the third season of The White Lotus (February 16, HBO) should be so filled with dread and spiritual ache. The first two seasons of Mike White’s biting, often brilliant anthology series—all taking place at different properties of an ultra-luxury resort chain—certainly weren’t free of those themes, but they perhaps had other mortal concerns higher on their minds.

Season one, in Hawaii, was a class survey that pitted the blithe guests against the locals attending to their whims and subject to their predations. Season two, in Sicily, delved into the dark adventure and risk of sex and desire. Now, White has traveled to a gorgeous Thai island with a host of (mostly) new characters, friends and family members and lovers either brimming vessels of anxious energy or deadened voids in search of meaning.

The Thai White Lotus puts a heavy emphasis on wellness, encouraging its guests to seek physical purification and an easing of any psychic pain they’ve brought with them. But most of season three’s characters aren’t really capable of doing that—at least not in the six episodes I’ve seen. The season is, thus far, a slow burn, deliberately arranging its pieces into some kind of violent endgame. A gun passes hands, shifty men move through the sea of vacationers like sharks, word of a faraway crisis laps at the shore. White is not setting up any sort of good vs. evil conflict, I don’t think, but rather examining various strata of already-lost people. This round of episodes is gloomier than seasons one and two, though still sharp and intriguing where it counts.

As is White Lotus tradition, White arrays various pods of people, some of whom will commingle, others who remain atomized from the rest. Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey play Timothy and Victoria, wealthy (and no doubt Republican) North Carolinians on vacation with their mostly grown children: fratty finance bro Saxton (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Buddhism-curious college student Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), and virginal high school senior Lochlan (Sam Nivola). The parents are vulgar Americans of the more sophisticated variety, while the kids are all coddled by their upbringing in one way or another. There is decency in them, more overtly in Lochlan and Piper, but they all share the same basic ailment, somehow allergic to a world they nonetheless control.

An unhappy couple, older American Rick (Walton Goggins) and younger Brit Chelsea (Aime Lee Wood), have arrived at the resort seemingly in the midst of one endless argument, he testy and withdrawn, she pleading with him to open up, to let her in, to enjoy the beauty and possibility surrounding them. But Rick stays brooding, only unburdening himself, in existentially mournful fashion, with the resort’s resident spiritual advisor (Shalini Peiris). This plotline grows a bit tedious—it’s hard to understand why Aimee sticks around—until White finally peels back a layer and shows us more of what’s animating this lonely couple.

Entering with much more gusto is a trio of three childhood friends, now in slightly discontented middle-age. Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) is a famous-enough TV actress who’s financed the travel of her two oldest gal pals, Austin society lady Kate (Leslie Bibb) and embittered New Yorker Laurie (Carrie Coon). A happy reunion soon gives way to private conversations in which two of the friends gossip about the third, a familiar configuration to anyone who’s found themselves in a fractured, if still loving, friend group. Here White is his dishiest and most fun, writing shiveringly credible dialogue delivered with natural flair by the actors. There is some drama, too, a quieter kind about being stuck in old social patterns, of life’s amassing of worries and disappointments. I wish only that this narrative had a stronger tether to the rest.

There is also the hotel staff to be considered. A potential romance between security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) and lifestyle butler Mook (Lalisa Manobal) seems threatened by Gaitok’s belief that he is not tough or manly enough for Mook, who has caught the eyes of the burly men who protect the hotel’s owner, grand dame Sritala (Lek Patravadi). Given that this is White Lotus, we can probably expect doom looms on the horizon of this story, though I’m hoping White will find a less expected conclusion. I hope the same for Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), the masseuse whom we last saw jilted by the dearly departed Tanya in season one. Belinda has traveled to the resort for a corporate exchange program, there to learn some new tips and techniques from her Thai counterparts. Belinda’s plotline grows more complicated than that, but I won’t spoil how.

White has put together all the necessary components for this season. However, the theme song is not as vibrant as the previous one, and the stories in this round feel slightly less engaging than before. It's all intriguing, but the tight control and creativity that characterized the previous two seasons are somewhat lacking. White appears somewhat fatigued, leaning on clichés as he struggles to find new scenarios for wealthy, troubled characters.

At least, this is true for the initial episodes. As the season progresses, the intensity grows. The actors settle into their roles, and the storyline becomes more intricate. White ventures into taboo territory in a new way. He effectively includes ominous dreams and signs, creating a mysterious atmosphere within the opulent jungle setting.

This season explores a sickness of the soul, or perhaps a lack of a soul altogether. One character expresses feeling empty, like nothing. Another harshly but truthfully points out this emptiness in a potential partner. The decay that was encroaching on the characters in the previous seasons seems to have fully arrived. Tanya's death does not appear to have rescued humankind from its dire state.

After Lochlan insensitively shows Victoria videos of the 2004 tsunami, she has nightmares about a looming wave, interpreted as a warning by her daughter. Following two unsettling incidents, Chelsea becomes convinced that something ominous is approaching. White observes with resignation as these characters fret over the impending ruin, not realizing it is already upon them. Perhaps the best they can hope for is peace in the afterlife or a chance to improve in the next life, according to Buddhist beliefs.

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