‘White Lotus’ episode three recap: “I’ve done a lot of bad things”
Is it just me, or are we all starting to feel like checking out of the White Lotus this season? It’s episode three, and it feels like all the action is filler, and the main arc of the story is stagnating. Don’t get me wrong, I’m on the edge of my seat, but Fabian, the character I am desperate to like above all others, is still so scarce that I can’t make a case for him, and that whole snake bite subplot seemed to come out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. I mean, she came back to the resort with nothing more than a medium-sized bandaid after getting fanged by a cobra?! Nah.
The episode started on an ominous note, with Victoria (Parker Posey) having a nightmare in which she walks into a tsunami. It turns out that Lochy has been gruesomely fixated on YouTube videos of people doing this in real life, proving that he is a little creep, just like the rest of his family. When Victoria wakes up, she isn’t wearing makeup or a vacant expression, which made me think, for a split second, that this episode might finally reveal something about this character that would make her more than just a font of cooky one-liners. Sadly, it did not.
The major plot developments included Tim’s office getting raided by the FBI (does anyone care?), his insistence that his family hand their phones over to Pam after all, Belinda finally realising why she recognised Greg/Gary, and Chloe and Saxon shamelessly flirting. The only real takeaway about Rick is that he can turn on the charm when he wants to—and boy, do I wish that was his whole character. His goal was to extract contact information from Sritala so he could go to Bangkok and confront her husband for some mysterious reason that has been kept in the dark since the first episode.
Most of this week’s instalment involved the characters taking drugs, which sounds a lot more exciting than it was. Rick, after revealing during his latest de-stressing meditation session that he has “done a lot of [unspecified] bad things,” finally got his hands on some weed, but it was clearly laced with something because it inspired him to let all the venomous snakes out of their terrariums at a snake exhibition, one of which bit Chelsea. Not to worry, though, because she got a bandaid at the hospital and is, therefore, totally fine and not all mad at him.
Tim has started taking Victoria’s sleeping pills, which will presumably lead to something interesting at some point, but not in this episode. Chloe inexplicably found Saxon worth talking to, but they apparently did nothing about it. Piper finally got up the courage to talk to the monks and got an appointment for Friday. Again, that might be interesting at some point, but not in this episode.
One thing that did stick out this week was the revelation that Kate voted for Trump. This is the first time that the show has felt excruciatingly dated. Season three was filmed at the beginning of 2024, long before the convicted felon lurched his way to re-election via podcasts. Now, six weeks into his reign of chaos, we are all (I think it’s safe to assume) utterly exhausted by the mere mention of him.
It was clear from the first episode that Mike White is taking aim at current events this season like never before. He wouldn’t have put a mass shooting in the first scene of the first episode if that wasn’t the goal. But dragging Trump into the discourse feels deeply uncool at this precise cultural moment. We’re all saturated. The last thing we want is a plot line that involves him. Who among us thought that any of the one-percenters who fling their entitlement around the White Lotus in every season did not vote for him anyway?
Lastly, I’d like you to imagine—if you dare—a version of this season without Aimee Lou Wood. If you’re not on a first-name basis with her, she plays Chelsea, the snakebite victim, Rick’s long-suffering, self-proclaimed life partner, and an Aries to boot. This is a terrible thing to imagine. She is the beating heart of this year’s group of degenerates, and it’s becoming painfully obvious that having just one perfect character isn’t enough. I remain hopeful that episode four will finally unleash something special, but three episodes of foreplay is seriously testing my patience.
