No Mud, No Lotus

In Season 3 of The White Lotus, the vibes are immaculate, but the stakes are imaginary

“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship— be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles is that pretty much everything else you worship will eat you alive.” -David Foster Wallace

“This show and this format have so much unrealized potential and it’s because Mike White does not share the pen. Cinematography and great long shots and brooding music do not substitute or replace a plot that makes sense and moves.” -Sam Sanders

Warning: The following post contains spoilers for season 3 of The White Lotus

The White Lotus (noun)

1. A craft cocktail of cringe and dread, served in a stylish but hollow goblet, made by wringing every last drop of awkwardness and misery from a rotating cast of acidic, insufferable, self-destructive rich people.

2. A TV anthology series by Mike White, known for moody B-roll, awkward meals, and the slow unraveling of people who probably deserve it.

3. A modern prestige TV staple like The Bear, Euphoria, or Succession—with a style so specific, it’s flirting with Wes Anderson levels of self-parody, tailor-made for drinking games or yelling BINGO halfway through an episode.

Since Mike White writes and directs every episode of this show, you quickly notice his recurring fixations:

• Sexual tension, non-sexual tension, and awkward silences so long they make you squirm

• Passive-aggressive power plays in flowy beachwear over breakfast

• Slow-mo depictions of ill-advised benders

• A vain, hot character who is used to always getting their way swopping in on their friend’s crush

• One episode where most of the sex finally happens

You also pick up on things he’s not interested in:

• Happy rich people

• Conversations that don’t end in emotional asymmetry or someone storming off in a sarong

• Clear-cut heroes or villains

• Sexual encounters that don’t threaten to ruin three people’s vacations

• Character arcs that don’t involve self-loathing, self-flagellation, or self-immolation

Despite this hyper-stylized approach to television, I was impressed by the clever writing, great casts, and suspenseful twists and turns of seasons 1 and 2. It felt like a welcome entry in the booming “eat the rich” genre. This was a fun, bingeable show with some provocative, if not original things to say about entitlement, gender dynamics, and how wealth erodes self-awareness and empathy.

Each season built on the last in thematic focus and tonal escalation. The previous two seasons, set on the islands of Maui and Sicily, were stylish explorations of money and sex, respectively.

When we headed to another gorgeous island: Koh Samui, Thailand, I was excited to see what the third theme would be. For six episodes, I remained puzzled.

In the meantime, a few things were crystal clear. First, Mike White appeared to have soured on the “oooloolooloo” sounds that epitomized the soundtrack. Apparently, White and Emmy-winning composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer had a falling out, which explains the absence of those iconic, haunting noises.

Second, Patrick Schwarzenegger’s Saxon Ratliff inherited the mantle of Most Punchable Character from Jake Lacy and Theo James. The Ratliffs, a family that gives new meaning to the phrase, “don’t be a jerk to your brother” sucked all the oxygen out of the resort from the moment they arrived. Many people got oddly hung-up on the authenticity of Tim and Victoria’s North Carolina accents as delivered by Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey, but I was more concerned with the subtle whiff of incest drifting in off the Gulf of Thailand and the growing storm clouds of financial doom gathering over Tim’s head.

These clouds take forever to break, which brings us to the first issue: pacing. Episodes progress with the urgency of a hungover brunch. This season could’ve lost an episode and been better for it—relying too much on vibes and dread to substitute for plot.

While the world of the show felt bigger, it also felt more aimless—lacking the delightful chaos and ricocheting action of earlier seasons. Season 1 was confined to a single resort due to COVID restrictions, which ironically gave it a claustrophobic momentum that worked in its favor. In contrast, Season 3 sprawls—too many characters, too many storylines, too many locations. The resort’s German manager, who could have been cut without affecting the plot in the slightest, epitomizes the broader issue this season: too many disparate characters, too few threads that connect or matter.

The earlier seasons thrived on social cross-contamination—guests bumping into each other, drama snowballing, chaos compounding. The best parts of Seasons 1 and 2 were when people collided through hookups, blowups, and shifting alliances. Here, the mischief simmers on low in separate pots for far too long.

Like Season 3 of The Bear, this show now requires lots of patience to consume. Unlike that mess, it actually rewards it—eventually. In the final stretch, The White Lotus reminds you why it’s (sort of) worth watching. At the eleventh hour, the narrative kicks in—offering some overdue payoff and just enough messy morality to chew on.

Season 3 is about the need to worship something—money, status, revenge, or something deeper—and what happens when that search for meaning collapses in on itself. It examines spirituality, but mostly reveals the void its absence leaves behind: hollow, desperate people unraveling despite living in Eden. It just takes its sweet time getting here.

But the real problem isn’t pacing—it’s that the story lacks consequences and never builds to anything meaningful. White gestures at transformation but rarely commits to it.

The Ratliff family’s arc (especially Tim’s) flirts with financial ruin, familial collapse, even suicide—before retreating back into safe ambiguity. When Tim shot himself, I was shocked—intrigued. Finally, a meaningful choice with lasting consequences. But nope, just a vision. Then White repeats this with the murder-suicide piña coladas, then again with Lochlan’s smoothie fake-out, and I felt more yanked around than Saxon’s private parts. The Ratliff family’s arc is set up to be the most dynamic and damning, but ends up drained of nearly all of its stakes. As The Atlantic astutely notes, after eight episodes hinting at murder-suicide, “The finale sends them off with nothing worse than a stomachache.” White sips darkness, then tosses it like a half-melted frozen daiquiri. Piper’s arc of choosing comfort over enlightenment should feel poignant as a foil to her father’s but instead plays like a retread of Olivia—the Gen Z cynic from Season 1.

The toxic girls’ trip storyline is the strongest thread because it gives us people who don’t just stare at dread but actively wrestle with it. Jaclyn clings to fading fame and sex appeal, Kate weaponizes likability, and bitter Laurie scrapes together meaning from the rubble of divorce, burnout, and midlife malaise. There’s movement, conflict, actual change. You know—storytelling.

Laurie’s closing monologue, about the messy construction of meaning through friendship, hits harder than most of the season’s more dramatic events. It’s the kind of payoff the show needs more of: earned, surprising, and quietly profound—not just another close-up of a brooding white man or a moody drone shot of the jungle.

Of all the doomed dynamics this season, Rick and Chelsea win the MPT: Most Predictable Tragedy. His revenge arc was stitched together from the oldest tropes in the book—“you killed my father,” followed by “I am your father.” Their relationship never gave us a reason to care, so when it all came crashing down, the stakes were there, but the soul wasn’t. Their tragic ending should’ve gutted us; instead, it just checked a box: kill the innocent woman to prove that revenge is hollow. Message received. Seen it before.

Gaitok and Mook could’ve offered a compelling back-of-house arc like Armond or Valentina. Instead, their story floats in from a show with flatter characters. Gaitok’s moral conflict—abandoning nonviolence for a promotion and a girlfriend—was treated like a tidy fable, flattening both Buddhism and Thai identity into feel-good abstraction. White clearly knows how to write sexually frustrated white men and over-it career moms, but when it comes to characters whose ethnicity doesn’t match his last name, his pen runs dry.

This season’s many arcs gesture at big ideas—revenge, morality, cultural compromise—but don’t actually wrestle with any of them. For a show so committed to stylized discomfort, it’s weirdly allergic to the emotional consequences necessary to give these themes weight.

In the end, the season’s biggest tension isn’t between characters—it’s between style and substance. White still writes sharp dialogue and crafts intriguing dynamics—but the more he leans on misdirection and fake-outs, the less it all means. The narrative is littered with cul-de-sacs that blunt momentum and deflate the stakes instead of building them: Gaitok’s stolen gun, the eerie noises in Belinda’s room, and the nefarious, thieving Russians are all teased as serious threats that amount to nothing.

Once a Buddhist monk starts explaining philosophy over slow-mo montages, everything starts to feel earned. But if it takes that much heavy-handed symbolism to land your theme, maybe it wasn’t so strong to begin with. Compared to Season 1’s sharp critique of tourism as neocolonialism and Season 2’s jagged take on sex and power, Season 3’s meditation on death and meaning feels murky and underbaked.

While the character writing and performances remain consistently strong, and White still knows how to stage an awkward breakfast confrontation better than anyone, my unifying frustration is that none of this matters. Characters stare into the abyss, contemplate change... then order another cocktail. Sure, Chelsea dies for Rick’s sins, but revenge eclipsing love is one of the oldest tropes in Hollywood—and this version barely flickers before being snuffed out. Besides the characters who die, no one really changes or suffers the fallout of their actions. We never see the Ratliffs reacting to their father’s financial crimes. Jaclyn, Kate, and Laurie, fresh from witnessing a literal mass shooting, shrug it off like a bad hangover.

While earlier seasons left us with the nihilistic observation that “these rich assholes never change,” Season 3 doubles down so hard on this idea that it breaks the plot in the process. If nothing changes, if nothing sticks, why are we supposed to care?

The most indisputable takeaway from this season and the other two was delivered by Wu-Tang Clan 30 years ago: C.R.E.A.M.—Cash Rules Everything Around Me. This explains almost every character’s behavior—including our queen Belinda (one of the rare nonwhite characters with a real arc), but by season three, it’s no longer a satisfying revelation. It’s a thesis that’s grown tired from repetition, like a resort buffet you’ve eaten one too many times. This show that once felt fresh and unpredictable now feels exhausted and lost.

C.R.E.A.M. also explains how Mike White—like George Lucas before him—keeps plodding forward without creative input or challenge, stuck on the lucrative but stale treadmill of his own success. Are we just going to repeatedly vibe to an old thesis in a new setting? Personally, I’d love to see him shake things up, bring in collaborators and leave the tropics behind. Like many, I’m ready for The White Lotus: Swiss Alps or Aspen—fewer bikinis, more stylish outerwear. It’s giving existential dread in cable-knit cashmere. And maybe, just maybe, some actual consequences and at least one character who learns something.

If that’s too much to ask, can we at least get a spinoff where Belinda, Zion, and Pornchai open a hip sauna in Bushwick?

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