white lotus s3 chat
☆☆☆ spoilers ahead + these are obviously just my random thoughts ☆☆☆
opening thoughts
I actually wrote these thoughts out shortly before the season finale came out, so while some of them are definitely off the mark in terms of predictions, I still wanted to share them since I've appreciated this series for less of the mystery aspects and more of the character studies and tropes it tries to analyze when it comes to characters and real life people. I feel like the season finale warrants its own essay in the future, but I'm pretty happy of the things I did observe about the characters while enjoying the series. I think it's softened the blow a little knowing that in terms of the mystery of who doesn't make it, it's fairly simple if you've paid attention to the dialogue even more so than the symbolism. The beauty of the discussion is the "why" aspect, and the character's motives until the end. I'm looking forward to S4!
tim
Despite his panic and fear that he’s ruined his family with the scandal, nothing ends up happening. When he’s talking to his business partner Kenny, he says that he “only” got 10 million out of helping him, implying that he doesn’t see it as a whole lot of money. This puts into perspective that Tim is worth much more than that, and there’s hardly ever consequences for people that high up no matter how many lawyers might want a chance at the case. His lawyer also implies that they could freeze his accounts, but it’s never confirmed if they do. Tim likely makes smoothies and acts sketchy about them even though he never ends up putting anything in them.
Tim might experience some enlightenment in thinking that death is what could nullify this guilt he’s been feeling, but ultimately he sees his inability to kill himself and his own family as the selfishness that keeps him from ever being worthy of such a thing. Ultimately however, by not giving in to taking his or his family’s life, he lives to see his credit card being ironically cleared for their stay and they go home without his family ever thinking that anything was wrong.
victoria
Victoria spends a lot of time either pam’d out or misunderstanding her surroundings. It’s unlikely that she experiences a massive enlightenment, since her character seems like the type to never really change in her ways unless there was a chance to truly shake up her lifestyle by the end of the series.
The fact that she accepts that she won’t handle change is important, and as she’s rich and unassuming of those who struggle around her, like her own children, she will likely come out of this trip without ever grasping what Piper was looking for, or what they could’ve lost from Tim’s shady business decisions.
saxon
Saxon leaves the island potentially with one of the clearer enlightenments about himself, which perhaps might make him somewhat find closure or an even playing field with someone like Lochlan or even Piper. He leaves the island with more questions about himself now that he realizes that he’s been living at the mercy of other people, which contradicts his ideals on masculinity that he’s been trying so hard to instill on Lochlan and weaponize it against Piper.
That said, Saxon might come out feeling like he could try learning a lot about himself, but ultimately once they’re ready to leave the island, he might be swayed back into his old thoughts by assuming that he could leave his insecurities back in Thailand, or that they don’t wholly represent who he really is. His questions about his identity will continue to lurk in the background, and perhaps he takes Chelsea’s books with him as a start in the right direction.
I think his character is meant to study the way rich white young men respond to the world that they’ve been raised to believe is for them, but it still answers to the forces of nature or other strong ones at work. Saxon starts off by envisioning himself as the Ratliff heir with the strongest sense of identity until he realizes that he’s been modeled completely off from his father, who now has emotionally closed the door while dealing with the scandal, and his mother is always out of touch from their surroundings and only admires him like a trophy.
He’s also realized that his attempts to model his own brother after him has backfired and essentially created a shadow of the very persona he tries to push to show off his success. There’s room for him to take some of these insecurities and at the very least begin to envision what his life and soul could be if he chose for himself, but there’s also a lot of societal pressure and privilege at play that could keep him bolted in that position because it’s a system that regardless of his happiness, still works for him.
piper
Piper has been actively working to create a distance between her and her family and to individualize herself from the wealth, privilege, and way she’s been raised. At the same time, she can only be afforded to visit this monastery and pursue some of these dreams because of the wealth she has. But with everything she’s afforded, there’s a price. This likely sounds like a trip that Piper would’ve wanted to take by herself, but her parents had either no confidence in her traveling alone or unknowingly stole her travel plans to turn them into something that she now has to collectively share with them, even if they don’t share the same affinity for the culture and religion that she’s been trying to immerse herself into.
This can be why she isn’t too thrilled when Lochlan expresses an interest in wanting to stay. She never gets to have anything for herself, and especially now when she’s beginning to realize that by also prodding Lochlan away from Saxon and trying to mother him in her own way, she can’t shake him off either.
Piper seems interested in wanting to learn about Buddhism, but at times it comes off as shallow or idealistic to the point where it seems more like a ploy to differentiate herself from her family. She still has some of her parents’ traits and responds to privilege in similar ways as they do, but she might be trying to actively stop becoming them the same way Saxon has become a clone of his father. Still, I don’t think she’ll remian in the monastery, and it will be symbolic of her being able to have afforded to take an expensive vacation for a life decision that she ultimately changes her mind on.
lochlan
Lochlan decides to take back his plans to stay in the monastery when Piper tells him that she doesn’t want to be responsible for him, or alternatively stays when Piper decides that she doesn’t want to anymore. It might have something to do with him either admitting to the extent of his dark thoughts, or him coming to realize that his expression of said thoughts is part of his strugg le to make sense of his real identity.
He might have some kind of breakdown after being rejected in a sense by both Saxon as a masculine/father figure and Piper as his material/feminine one. At best he takes this as a sign that he doesn’t want to choose either school Tim and Victoria want for him. Lochlan isn’t seen drinking whatever final smoothie/cocktail is being offered, which could also be his way of showing that out of every member of the family, he’s the one who might have a chance of breaking away from their way of life.
belinda
Will continue to resist taking the money until she eventually agrees to do it for Zion to pay for his school and the rest to start her business on her own. She doesn’t think she’s in the clear, but it’s more money than she’d been promised despite her convictions to resist any bribes and stay on Greg’s radar.
Might not continue things in Pornchai since she’s just visiting, and could be a commentary on the fact that even while she’s also working class like the rest of the staff, she has a chance for mobility and to leave Thailand like the others can. Her enlightenment is the awareness of this situation could be a mirror of when she scoffed at Rachel in S1 when she was having her crisis with not knowing whether to leave her mega rich husband or not right after Tanya had pulled out of the deal with Belinda.
zion
Will encourage his mother to take the money thinking it will be the safer option. Later when the gunshots are fired, Zion fears that they’re somehow connected to Greg taking his back on Belinda’s word, but they’re unrelated and she’s actually okay. They will leave the island together, albeit with Zion having to live with the fact that he egged his mother on to a situation that might never leave them completely safe from harm.
jaclyn
Jaclyn starts off by being the most confident and poster child of the trio of friends, and that shouldn’t be ignored even if she might be the one with the most chaotic life. It’s clear that neither Kate nor Laurie seem to be qualified to take the queen bee status from her, and this trip cements the fact that whether they like it or not, Jaclyn is their clue.
She’s their focus on their gossip, the one who wanted them to go out and have fun even if it meant breaking the rules, and the one who is desperate to prove that she’s not washed up. Everything she’s done to shake her own life up continues to be a reflection on the kinds of things the other women haven’t been as insecure about only until after they meet. And when people go on trips with friends, this is the sort of thing that tends to come out of the woodworks.
Jaclyn likely will reveal that she did pay for Valentin to come over, perhaps begrudgingly because she never wanted him to blab to anyone that she ended up in a situation like Laurie. Unlike her friend, however, Jaclyn has the status and wealth to likely cover up her lapses in judgment.
I do think that the Russians will come back in some way, and while I think it’s possible that she might get caught in the crossfire since it comes from left field, if she does make it though, she likely won’t lose her friendships since they need her just as much as she needs them.
kate
Kate is the type of friend who won’t instigate things but will gladly participate and go along with them. Therefore, the blame is never really put on her for starting the gossip, even if she’s the one who’s egged it on. Still, she’s also the confidante for both of her friends. She can understand Jaclyn’s insecurities as much as she can understand Laurie’s. Some might see her as spineless or secret devious, and both things can be true in this case.
She could be the one surprisingly affected by both of her friends’ decisions to have hooked up with shady Russian guys, especially if Gaitok has figured out that they’re linked to the robbery. The irony is that while Kate was never the instigator, she might ultimately be affected by her friends’ recklessness and the types of activities that made them gossip-worthy in her eyes.
I am not 100% confident that she will die though, but will more likely be stuck feeling like she’s in a toxic friendship with two people whose gossip she has to thrive off of from to feel better about herself, but also can never quite escape them and the consequences of their antics.
laurie
Laurie’s actress really captures the insecure white woman who’s searching for her identity past her failed marriage and disjointed relationship with her child. She’s never been the Jaclyn in the group, and only finds confidence in trying to punch down various aspects of Jaclyn’s life the way Jaclyn actually does for her life in return. Neither women can seem to accept that their unhappiness isn’t automatically correlated with the other’s. Both women are experiencing some form of disconnect in their identities and instead of banding together through it as they claim to be on the trip for, they’ve spent a lot of it trying to twist the knife on each other.
Laurie’s mistake of sleeping with Aleksei isn’t just the result of her own lust, but also need to prove that she’s got a better shot at happiness and pleasure than Jaclyn ever could especially by exercising her privilege as the single woman of the trio. She only used Aleksei to try to differentiate herself from her friends and pursue something that she hoped would make her feel desirable and worthy, but instead he winds up using her by trying to ask her for money, and then gets her caught in the crossfire with his real girlfriend.
It’s evident that Aleksei has connections to the hotel through Valentin, and since he’s been involved in the robbery, and Laurie also spotted the stolen items in his room, they might try to scheme some way to silence her and her friends. Either somehow gets hurt from Laurie’s actions, or they come out unscathed but Laurie still ends up blaming Jaclyn for pushing her into the mess.
The situation in EP 7 ended as a turning point for Laurie to have no one else to blame but herself for what went wrong, but old habits might die hard. She’ll likely just blame her actions as her poor, misguided attempt to be influenced by Jaclyn’s behavior, and insists that she will leave that all behind once they wrap up their trip since “what happens in Thailand, stays in Thailand.”
rick
At the end of S7, Rick looks like he thinks or really has reached enlightenment. The most obvious feeling is that he might not be as much of a wreck as Chelsea thinks he is, but it’s also possible that he is actually trying to gaslight himself into thinking that he’s really found the answer to everything he’s needed in life.
I believe that he did meet with his father, and perhaps in a lot of ways, maybe he got his answer without killing him that he never became like him even at the cost of becoming this vengeful, moody man along the way. Unlike his father who eventually came to settle down after his crimes, Rick is slowly revealing that he’s more of a facade of those things. He seems shady but he sucks at coming up at schemes with his friends. His friend Frank might seem tough and scheming too, but he’s a man clearly aware of how his fetishes have shaped and helped him understand his identity, something which keeps coming back at Chelsea but never with Rick.
Of the characters, I think it could make sense of Rick is the character who dies since he’s gotten everything he wants and nothing at all at the same time. He didn’t kill the man he thought he wanted to. He’s been pushing away the one woman who wants to have a real connection with him. He’s sunken his friends back into their vices, so good luck on him rescuing him from that. He seems unbothered by the prostitutes, booze, and drugs because he’s so caught up in the mythos he’s crafted in his mind about his own life and upbringing.
I initially thought that Rick is supposed to represent the kind of men who visit Thailand to soul-search and heal from the past by immersing himself in the exotic and assuming that there’s some kind of magic at work that you can only find there. I think that’s why I don’t buy in on some of Chelsea’s superstitious assertsions about their relationship, because it’s only being fueled by this belief that Thailand provides some sort of cosmic awakening to men, especially those white and privileged, to come there, reap off the land even if emotionally, then go home.
While Rick blames his father for doing that in a physical sense, Rick has reaped off the spiritual and emotional energy from the land without so much as appreciating the real beauty of it. He doesn’t like their boat rides, the food, the scenic or religious overtones. He only visits the city out of revenge and when he’s finally doing touristy things with his friend, he’s going to hotels, buying drugs and prostitutes and essentially submitting to all of the stereotypes people have of traveling to Thailand to explore their vices, then come home to live their squeaky clean lives again in the west.
That said, I think this is why I don’t think he could die. He might go on to live and continue the very cycle he tried to stop by blinding himself with the notion that he really did find something more.
If the story really wants to give him a positive arc though, then he will use this realization to choose Chelsea, even if that feels a bit too neatly tied up.
chelsea
Chelsea is interesting to me because in many ways she’s very endearing to the point where she makes some of her toxic traits appealing and romantic, and even downright dangerous. My initial thought about her was that she’s definitely meant to portray the privilege that a younger white woman has when in a relationship with a much older white man than one he’d have with a younger Asian woman, who is typically seen as an exotic acquisition or beauty looking to bask in a cushy lifestyle and be afforded a life she could never have otherwise. Chelsea is that kind of girl, but tries to mask some of these aspects by insisting that she believes Rick needs her and that they have some kind of cosmic attachment together. At the end of the day however, she is still benefitting from his money and the sort of parental figure he takes on with her.
Chelsea is in some ways more enlightened by the fact that money seems less of a priority than love, but even Chloe warns her that love in such situations only reveal more vulnerabilities than strengths in a person.
I interpreted Chelsea’s realization with Saxon that while she’s prided herself for resisting him for Rick’s sake, she might not necessarily be immune or morally superior to him as she thought she was. This could be linked to her sensing that Rick has discovers his own nirvana without her, or that he’s not in much of a sorry state to keep him appealing enough to her. While some assume that “exotic” women are trying to stay with these white men for their physical currency, Chelsea thrives off of the emotional one. Once she might think that he’s run out of that, it might leave the door open for her to question what else is there in the relationship.
The happy ending lover in me would always wish for Rick to suddenly appreciate her and Chelsea to also revise her idea of love so they could be happily ever after, but also realistically, they either carry on believing that the magic of the island protected or spared them somehow, which is a very western idea of these kinds of retreats, or if one of them dies, it is the retribution of the other’s lack of emotional and spiritual disconnect. I also realistically don’t think they work well, and it’s the fantasy of what they could be is what keeps them together.
I don’t think Chelsea and Saxon become a thing. At best, they could be defined as kindred spirits or temporary soul mates who appear in people’s lives just in that moment to take them in a new direction of self-discovery.
gaitok
Gaitok is clearly struggling with the conflicting messages about what real masculinity is, especially when analyzed from his cultural and spiritual upbringing, and by what he’s being demanded of in his job. His character could be a commentary on how South East Asian men, and by extension many other men in general are raised to express masculinity through violence, but also at the contradiction of Buddhisms’s emphasis on nonviolence.
Gaitok is similar to Lochlan in many ways, being dragged from one end to another to participate in activities that he thinks will make him prove his masculinity and either grant him things in life he wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise without it, such as a date with Mook, being accepted and respected by his work peers and even men like the Russians on the island who are seen as handsome and favored by the guests, and securing him a decent job in a country that doesn’t always have a surefire ladder for every person.
Since Gaitok has made the connection that the Valentin is friends with the robbers and likely helped them gain access into the hotel by fooling him, he might feel the need to finally tap into his “killer instinct”. It sort of reminds me like the scene in Pocahontas where Thomas, the most benevolent explorer of the bunch, keeps being encouraged to shoot. When he finally does, he shoots down someone who, even if was attacking his own friend, didn’t deserve to die. As a result, he’s torn by the fact that he thought he was protecting someone, but now is faced with the gravity of what murdering someone really means. It’s hardly a “masculine” feeling when it involves guilt, sorrow, and the devaluing of life.
So while Gaitok might shoot, either he misses and strikes someone innocent, or what I more likely think is that he will shoot down Valentin or one of the other guys, but won’t find that satisfaction in what he’s done now that he’s got blood in his hands. Even when he’s applauded as a hero, or new doors open for him, he becomes a victim of a system where his violent actions are the only real reason why he has some kind of class mobility, but it puts him further from enlightennment.
mook
Not really sure on her fate, though I most likely think she will live to see Gaitok manage to shoot someone down, likely one of the robbers, and assume that this makes him more appealing than ever. This is partly due to cultural pressures for women, especially POC women, to be expected to stay with men who express masculinity and protective tendencies through aggression or violence, even if it ironically makes them far more dangerous to be with. I don’t buy that Mook is bloodthirsty like some theories think, but she’s rather caught up in the expectation that as a Thai man, Gaitok has more to prove in terms of his masculinity when compared to the way the Russian men are seen as strong, muscular, and clearly more in control of their surroundings than others.
chloe
Chloe is interesting, and in fact might be the character I think will either die or reveal that she knows more than she does. She’s nonchalant about certain things, especially with her story about Greg wanting to be cucked, and while she plays it off like it’s nothing, it almost seems like a scam.
What’s interesting is also the fact that Chloe had previously been casted as a Thai or East Asian woman, and for whatever reason was changed midway to be French Canadian. Part of me thinks it’s because they didn’t want to perpetuate the stereotype of the Thai woman who is scheming behind the scenes for money from a rich white older man, and especially if she might be prone to resorting to violence, extortion, and manipulation.
Even then if she does resort to any of those things, it seems to challenge the idea of how women in lesser privilege will have to use their sexuality to get what they want, and that option is usually only ever afforded to women who are conventionally beautiful and willing to stomach being with older men. What’s also interesting is that the show isn’t shy about depicting other white men on the island seeking these younger women out, some of which insist that they love their partners beyond their money, but Chloe consistently try to take on a “realistic” approach towards her arrangement with Greg, even if it includes manipulation from both ends.
greg
Greg is weird and I can’t pretend what other shady stuff he did in season 1, and he’s still not cleared from Tanya’s death in season 2. I think it’s evident that he is one of the wealthiest, if not the one most who’s reaped off of Thailand than any other person in the series. He’s using that power to exert his control onto others.
I think it’s weird that he would find Belinda as a threat, but he does seem to be suspicious of her. It’s possible that Belinda was sent to the island to investigate Greg since he refuses to come back to Italy, but it seems weird that she had to google him and Tanya.
The fact that he’s also a white man trying to silence a black family is also not lost on me. He knows his power, and even when he talks to Tim in the yacht, he seems like he still knows that he’s the real top dog out of everyone there. It might be satisfying to see someone like Belinda really hit him in the Achille’s heel, but it’s tough to determine whether that’s going to really happen if she’s the one with the social and economic disadvantage in the long run.
