‘The White Lotus’ episode 5 recap: “This is consent”
It was clear from the end of last week’s episode of The White Lotus that things were going to get messy at the full moon party, and episode five follows through. It luxuriates in the mess, offering a sloppy kiss to fuel that incest subplot, a rave to stoke rivalries among friends, and one killer monologue from a surprise guest star.
The episode starts where the last one left off: with Gaitok frantically searching for his gun and then checking CCTV footage to identify Tim as the culprit. He confronts him, but Tim brushes him off. This is emblematic of the rest of the episode, which, although it contains several sizzly bits of interpersonal drama, is relatively sluggish when it comes to the overarching plot of the season.
Piper finally tells her parents that she actually doesn’t have a thesis (oops) and convinces them to bring the family to Thailand just so that she can scope out the monastery. She is determined to spend a year there to figure out what she wants to do with her life, a very Eat, Prey, Love moment from a very Eat, Prey, Love-coded character. After Victoria explodes over the revelation and starts comparing Piper’s favourite monk to Charles Manson and Hillary Clinton, Piper retreats to her bedroom to performatively meditate in front of a candle.
Meanwhile, her brothers are inching closer to the edge. As Saxon, Lochy, Claire, and Chelsea disembark from the yacht and into the festive crowds of the city, they prepare for a night of complete abandon by taking some pills and downing a few beers. Saxon at first refuses the alcohol and drugs, telling his brother, “Pace yourself. I need you to be on your game tonight. Let them [gesturing to Chloe and Chelsea in the distance] get all messy” (a rapey move if ever there was one). But he succumbs to ferocious peer pressure and becomes miraculously meek. As Chloe gets more and more overt with her interest in Lochy, the dynamic between the brothers shifts.
“One day, I’m gonna take you down,” Lochy tells Saxon, and somehow, it seems possible. This little high schooler who magically acquired a very cool wardrobe last episode and now seems to be Chloe’s favourite type of toy might just end up calling Saxon’s bluff one of these days.
Somewhere else in the city, Jaclyn, Laurie, and Kate actually seem to be having a good time with the Russians. Laurie turns out to be an excellent dancer, and Jaclyn soaks in the watchful gaze of younger women as she dances in between two of the guys. Kate isn’t thrilled with the situation. As Laurie and Jaclyn down more shots and get more flirty with Valentin and his friends, she starts pressuring them to leave. When they go back to the resort (all six of them), Laurie gets wild in the pool, rips her top off, and starts whispering in Valentin’s ear. Ultimately, however, it’s Jaclyn who sneaks him into her room after everyone leaves. She is, it seems, the craftiest and least trustworthy of the lot.
Elsewhere at the resort, Tim is contemplating suicide. He writes a note and holds Gaitok’s gun to his head, but Victoria walks in at just the right (or wrong) moment to helpfully remind him that there is no reason to be stressed because he has already succeeded in every way. Once she goes back to bed, he prays for God to tell him what to do. We’ll have to wait until next week to find out the heavenly verdict.
Belinda finds herself in a similarly lonely position when she tells Fabian about Greg’s murderous past, and he tells her in hushed, sinisterly melodic tones that many of the guests at the hotel have “colourful pasts” and that she should mind her business. This might have turned into an anxious evening for her, but she turns things around by asking Pornchai to come to her room for protection. After an awkward moment in which they discuss which bed he should sleep in, she finds the courage to tell him how she feels. “Just so you know, this is consent,” she says. “Do you guys do that here? We just started.” He joins her on the bed, and they begin passionately consenting together.
Back on the yacht, Chloe tries to cure her boredom. They are all trashed, but she manages to get a game going in which she instructs Saxon and Lochy to kiss. Saxon is more wasted than the others, so it’s up to Lochy to cover the three-foot space between them. He gives his brother a chaste peck on the lips, draws back, and then goes in for a full snog, looking, it must be said, in complete control of his faculties and not at all self-conscious. Saxon, on the other hand, sways backwards, looking dazed and childlike. It’s the exact opposite of the day they arrived at the hotel when he laid naked in bed next to an embarrassed Lochlan and announced that he was going into the bathroom to jerk off.
The headline moment in the episode had nothing to do with the full moon festivities or the White Lotus but with Rick’s escapade to Bangkok. As Chelsea worries that he’s going to do something stupid, he’s meeting an old friend at an upscale bar. The friend is played by Sam Rockwell, a surprise addition to the cast, and he offers a killer monologue. It’s best to let the masterful screenwriting do the talking, but let’s just say that Rick’s friend has undergone a personal reckoning about his sexuality since moving to Thailand, and he’s a vivid storyteller. Rockwell is longtime friends with Walton Goggins and has been in a relationship with Leslie Bibb (who plays Kate) for nearly two decades, so it’s possible that Mike White wrote the scene for him just because he happened to be visiting the set. However, after his appearance last night, it’s hard not to want more.
Compared to last week’s episode, which featured an avalanche of plot developments and reminded us why we love The White Lotus, episode five felt more akin to the first three episodes. A lot happened, but none of it felt like a major plot development. It’s another filler episode, but there’s no getting around the fact that a filler episode of this show is better than the greatest episode of most other shows on television. We’re over halfway now – there are eight episodes this season – so things should really start picking up soon. Hopefully, it will involve an explanation of the baby shower where Kate and Victoria met each other because that scene still haunts me.
