‘The White Lotus’ Review: Season 3 Is an Invigorating Vacation for the Soulless and Soulful Alike

Late in “The White Lotus” Season 3, one of the titular resort’s featured guests solicits a respected Buddhist monk for advice. The request is, ostensibly, on behalf of someone else, but it’s rooted in the questioner’s self-interest, and the attentive local isn’t fooled. “Many people come here from your country, I think, because of spiritual malaise,” the monk tells the wealthy American tourist. “[They’ve] lost connection with nature, with family, with spirit… what is left? The self — chasing money, pleasure. Everyone runs from pain toward pleasure, but when they get there, only find more pain. You cannot outrun pain.”

His words ring all the more clearly in a series that opens on an unidentified dead body and then jumps a week back in time to frame the ensuing episodes around a pressing, purposefully peripheral question: Who’s going to end up dead? Who can’t escape their fate? Whose pursuit of pleasure, readily available to the narcissistic travelers via the luxury hotel’s ample amenities, will instead conclude with pain’s ultimate resting place?

Mike White, who wrote and directed all eight episodes of Season 3 (just as he did in prior seasons), uses this simple time-shifting construction to escalate tension and satire. Not only are you trying to piece together what seemingly innocuous choices might lead to a character’s downfall, but you’re also gleefully judging them for risking everything over relatively minor slights, and past seasons culminated in tragicomic curtains for both victims. (One died for the sin of taking a shit in a suitcase, the other for overestimating her abilities as an impromptu action hero.) Having only screened six of the eight episodes for review, I can’t say whether Season 3’s departed will be given a similarly “happy return,” as one Buddhist puts it, but the murder-mystery component burnishing the HBO series‘ comic tapestry feels all the more apropos in a season so focused on spiritual vacuity.

If Season 1 spins its satiric take on white privilege through Hawaii’s history of colonialism, and Season 2 sews up the same comedic targets via their sexual politics, then Season 3 revels in how money can unravel its subjects’ very souls. Watching rich assholes bitch and moan over whether they have a great suite or the best suite has always been ludicrous. (It’s funny — and sad and frightening — because it’s true.) But watching as the wealth they thought would save them gets stripped away as the clock ticks down — on their physical lives or innermost selves — proves immensely satisfying. And, for those of us whose compassion can still interfere with witnessing a satisfying comeuppance, surprisingly stirring.

So let’s give ample credit to another impeccable cast. Among the rich and troubled is the Ratliff family, whose internal divisions materialize the second they arrive, when Victoria (Parker Posey) rambles to the White Lotus welcome committee about how she and her only daughter, Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), are proud Tar Heels, while Timothy (Jason Isaacs) and his eldest son, Saxton (Patrick Schwarzenegger) remain loyal to their alma mater, Duke University. The people-pleasing youngest child, Lochlan (Sam Nivola), has just been accepted to both rival schools, but surely his selfless parents and siblings won’t push him toward their choice, rather than the best option for little Lucky. Thankfully, this isn’t the family’s defining dynamic. Posey lives up to the considerable hype for her pill-popping wasp queen, and Isaacs runs away with his (rare) juicy comedic role. (“The Death of Stalin” hive, rise up.) Together, the Brit and Baltimorean create their own distinct Southern drawl that’s pitched slightly more for punchlines than precision, yet couldn’t be more fitting for their roles if they’d actually grown up in Charlotte.

Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan, and Carrie Coon in ‘The White Lotus’Courtesy of Fabio Lovino / HBO

Then there’s a trio of old — check that, long-time friends, led by the woman paying for their reunion: Jaclyn Lemon (Michelle Monaghan), a TV star who’s looking to escape the constant attention her profession demands by taking a girls’ trip to a remote hotel with her childhood buds, Kate (Leslie Bibb) and Laurie (Carrie Coon). Split evenly across America, Jaclyn lives in Los Angeles (of course) with her hot actor hubby, Kate’s in Austin, Texas to raise her own purportedly idyllic family, and Laurie is the resident New Yorker, divorcee, and heavy-drinker. She’s also the only single lady present, but can her brimming wine glass help shed enough of her inhibitions to stand out next to an actor who not-so-secretly covets the limelight? Will her friends support her or judge her? Will she support or judge them, for their own emerging sins?

Last to arrive are Rick (Walton Goggins) and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), a couple whose attachment to one another is hard to parse given his disinterest in her and her youthful, inextinguishable brightness toward him. To her immense credit, Chelsea is unafraid to chastise her droopy-dog of a partner whenever his near-constant complaining goes overboard. She even promises to help him get his “joy back,” as they overlook a literal paradise. To the show’s credit, Rick isn’t a simple bummer or jackass. He’s legitimately (if not clinically) depressed, and you’re quick to find out the very good reasons he has for sporting such a dour disposition. A black hole of identity (“I don’t need to detach,” he says. “I’m already nothing.”), Rick proves as challenging for his wellness instructor as he does intriguing for the audience, thanks in large part to Goggins’ empathetic embodiment, which comes through in spite of Rick’s barbarous behavior.

While Isaacs and Goggins are the cast MVPs, it’s as close of a race as any other “White Lotus” season. There are only one or two overt villains, and even they get poked and prodded in ways that add dimension to their lizard brains. Chief among the heroes are the resort staffers, led by returning favorite Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), the masseuse from Season 1 who was achingly led on (and let down) by Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge). Visiting the White Lotus’ Thailand hotel to learn new techniques and share her own, Belinda’s arc is less pitiable this season, but her purpose is arguably even more critical.

After all, the enlightened monk might’ve mentioned that — no matter how specific his advice feels to an audience of one — we all end up dead. It’s a universal truth, and if we can’t escape the end, we should make the most of the here and now. To the vacationers (and surely a few oblivious viewers), that’s exactly what they’re doing. These husbands and wives, pals and businessmen, brothers and lovebirds are absurdly wealthy, and they’re spending a sliver of their personal capital to reconnect with their family, make new memories with old friends, or accomplish long-sought goals.

But there’s a difference between going through the motions and living in the moment — a key distinction many of the aforementioned 1 percenters could never appreciate. For as much as their money provides the kind of swanky shelters that come with private swimming pools, it can also shelter them from fundamental bliss. They’ve come to rely on their wealth to take care of so much, they’ll use it as a crutch to support whatever they’re unwilling or unable to sustain themselves. They travel all around the world without leaving the comfortable confines of their hotels. They pay for things without considering what they’re paying for or why. They convince themselves their fortune can protect them from any kind of misfortune, any kind of unease, any kind of burden. It’s an illusion worth shattering, and “The White Lotus” Season 3 smashes each character’s flimsy values in ways both hilarious and harrowing. They cannot outrun their pain, but in White’s transfixing, exacting new season, their pain can still become our pleasure.

Grade: A-

“The White Lotus” Season 3 premieres Sunday, February 16 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. New episodes will be released weekly.