A new cast of privileged people seek solace in Thailand in the third season of The White Lotus
In 2021, when we needed a reprieve from real life the most, The White Lotus transported us to a luxury resort in Hawaii, where it let us bask in tropical sunlight and bathe in the azure waters, while simultaneously giving searing commentary on white privilege. A year later, viewers traveled to the White Lotus in Sicily, exploring sex and gender politics in an equally picturesque setting. With his third season, series creator Mike White takes The White Lotus to Thailand, bringing with him a new gallery of ego-driven Westerners that, this time, are trying to find inner peace within opulent surroundings. “It felt like we had to focus on something new,” says White. “The idea was, it would be cool to do something about religion, God and spirituality. There’s a lot of Buddhist concepts that I thought would be interesting to explore and Thailand seemed like the perfect backdrop for that.”
As his characters are often prone to debauchery, Thailand also provided the right setting for the duality between the spiritual and a hardcore party culture. “In this [season] it definitely is more explicit, people wanting to be their ideal self and be more than the base animal creatures that they can be,” says White. “And Thailand does have so much going on. It has all the temples and this spiritual dimension, but it also is known for the wild nights. It felt like that would be a great canvas to explore those themes because people either go there for one or the other or a mixture of both.”
The common thread in the first two seasons was Jennifer Coolidge’s character Tanya McQuoid, who unfortunately met a premature end in season two. Picking up the thread in the third season is Tanya’s spa therapist Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), from Hawaii, who had hoped to start her own wellness practice backed financially by Tanya — promises that never materialized. “I think people were kind of bummed by Belinda’s final moments in the first season where she’s still working at the hotel and her dreams were dashed,” says White. “I was like, it’d be fun to give Belinda another chapter and work with Natasha again.”
For Rothwell, returning to the franchise, this time as a guest on an R&D trip, allowed her to explore a new side to a familiar character. “We get to see Belinda outside of her work uniform,” she says. “I think when people travel, they often try on versions of themselves that they may not otherwise. Belinda is trying to figure out what her vacation persona is. I don’t think she’s someone who gets to do that often.”
Joining her at the resort are three childhood friends reuniting for a luxury vacation, played by Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb and Carrie Coon. Although these besties are perpetuating the illusion that they are all living fabulous lives, the truth soon starts to seep out. “I think a lot of it has devolved into artifice. Any time you’re not keeping up with your relationships you run the risk of that,” says Coon. “We were joking that if these women had walked into the villa and said, ‘Listen, this is what’s going on with me right now,’ and started off in this honest and authentic way, then it would have been a very different vacation. But that’s not what happened. Everyone’s pretending and I think everyone can relate to pretending to be living an extraordinary life.”
Also staying at the hotel is newish couple Rick and his questionably young girlfriend Chelsea, played by Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood. While Rick is not in Thailand for introspection, it appears that he is headed for a reckoning. “Rick Hatchett has not always been the person that you meet in the show,” says Goggins. “He’s a guy who’s been running from his past for a really long time. He makes his living doing nefarious things and has been for a number of years. He is a world traveler for a reason, because he can’t go back home. He can’t face what happened in his life. But at the end of the day, there’s always a catalyst for our own existential crisis, right?”
The characters may not exactly be likable but what draws an extraordinary cast to this franchise, time and time again, is that White has a knack for making generally despicable characters ones you — if not quite root for — want to follow to their arc’s conclusion. “It’s very rare that you come across writing that is so three-dimensional,” says Jason Isaacs, who plays an affluent family patriarch who finds himself in legal trouble. “Mike rather brilliantly introduces what seemed like one-dimensional characters and then he peels the layers away. He puts them in impossible pressure cooker situations until the only thing that can emerge is their essential humanity.”
The White Lotus airs Sunday, March 9, on HBO Canada