“Sorry That Chaise Is Taken. But You’re A Very Pretty Man”: A Thread for White Lotus on HBOMax

Discuss!

Give Jennifer Coolidge the Emmy for this scene alone #WhiteLotus pic.twitter.com/mfZWREXu6w

— Bimini Bon (Bo)ulash ✨ (@BoBayerl) August 16, 2021

I'm currently watching this with another board member and, let me just say, I have a lot to dissect, since I was born and raised in Hawai'i, am part Native Hawaiian, still live here, and used to work in the tourism industry.

I'm only on episode 2, but there's so much going on in this show. I'm not sure if I support the music choices yet or not.

Hopefully this is a link to where the WL discussion starts in the Enlightened thread.

itt we talk about Enlightened on HBO, seasons 1-1000000

this is v minor but when quinn decided to sleep on the beach i was like “he is def too dumb to understand tides” and i love that the show delivered that to me via his phone being washed out to sea <3

still mind-blown that jennifer coolidges terminally ill “BLM” fuckbuddy is uncle rico from napoleon dynamite

also on an acting level the guy who plays shane is insanely good bc he seriously feels like a person i have met in life

What was fun about him is that he’s mostly just played super nice guys in the past and now it’s har to imagine that.

still mind-blown that jennifer coolidges terminally ill “BLM” fuckbuddy is uncle rico from napoleon dynamite

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, August 17, 2021 1:10 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I couldn't stop thinking about how much this guy looks like Jonathan Richman.

I also saw Monster Squad and the episode of X-Files he was in over the last several days so this has been a veritable Gries Week for me.

The whole Black Lives Matter joke was pretty silly but pretty hilarious

Also probably based on at least one real incident https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/oregon-fires-antifa-rumors

“Ok we gotta clear this up now,” said one person on Facebook alongside a Bureau of Land Management announcement of area closures. “Blm does NOT stand for Black lives matter in this in reference to the fires.”

The whole Black Lives Matter joke was pretty silly but pretty hilarious

I disagree, I thought it was a rare moment when they relaxed into a more "sitcom-style" joke that wasn't up to the level of the show!

Eh, it might not have been entirely necessary but it was in keeping with the theme of 'well-meaning' privileged liberalism.

Agreed, and to me it wasn't delivered like a sitcom joke. Coolidge's character was the right type to do that sort of thing- hearing something and assuming the meaning without questioning that assumption, and even telling other people about it before verifying (a familiar quirk). And to that point it was something that she brought up very casually in conversations, which made it a little funnier too. AKA It was done believably imo.

yeah it’s a character note for Coolidge, not a rimshot gag for the audience

exactly.

Glad it landed for you guys

i mean she’s in a permanent haze of painkillers etc! she’s not really operating on a normal plane of existence

Maybe now HBO will let Mike White make that Jennifer Coolidge show he talked about

huh, in the end i hated this!

Why’s that

it seemed focused on the perspective of the occupier as opposed to the occupied and had very little to add of interest in its exploration of the subject. it abused and discarded its working class characters with utter disregard. the arcs of every white character were regressive, poorly considered, unsatisfying and ultimately very very stupidly. it rewarded terrible strawmen characters with closure and pathos and wrote off the secondary cast members as cannon fodder. it grew bored with subtlety and swapped subtext and text in episode four/five and never looked back. it gawked at local scenery and people with the same eyes as a tourist and the same level of insight. the pacing was bad: every storyline came to a head at the same time and muddled into a froth of anxiety and unlikely actions. it veered between exceedingly predictable, dragging a red herring and forcing its hand to move the plot forward.

i'm not gonna lie, it had me in the first half with the grotesque character studies, exploration of service industry strata and the quality acting. ultimately though it wasn't about much of anything but "premium HBO drama fumbles with shifting culture" and i'm sorry i sat through it.

so you're saying there's a chance

i'll probably watch s2 like a doofus

some of what you're saying forks is just up to taste but the idea that it focused on the occupiers/white ppl as opposed to the occupied or non-white subjects was a point that alex jung made in a tweet that mike white responded to in his vulture interview so it seems pertinent. ultimately it's a show that sets out to satirize white culture, white people & how they think/talk about and interact w/ people of color, privilege etc & i think it's legitimate to do that by centering the white characters (as objects of derision, it should be noted). to satirize white culture to the degree that the show does -- coming at it from different angles and storylines -- it prob ultimately does need to center the white characters over the non-white characters they interact with. mike white made this point kinda defensively in the interview but i think it's okay that he picked apart whiteness w/ a show that is largely made up of white characters. i had some quibbles in terms of which storylines it focused on over others and the points it ultimately really wanted to make but as a piece of satire i thought it was really funny.

i also disagree w/ whether it gave terrible strawmen characters closure and pathos and treated secondary cast members as cannon fodder.. i don't read the culmination of the shane/rachel storyline as closure or having pathos. it's obvious that their marriage is destined to fail and that she's a fool for returning to him. the family of 4 comes together by the end but their 16 year old kid runs away, kinda the opposite of closure. armond dies by being stabbed by his enemy after shitting in suitcase while high on ketamine -- i'm not sure there's much pathos there. tanya goes out like a fool, and in turn belinda gets the closest thing i can think of in terms of closure and pathos -- telling off a random white stranger and shutting the door in her face. we never see kai after he runs out of the hotel, which i thought was interesting, and i think there could've been more exploration of what happens to him after being arrested, but the show also never leaves the hotel (aside from the few airport scenes) so i think some of that decision has to be chalked up to the constraints of the show (which was really the constraints of filming during covid as opposed to a purely creative constraint).

The show is also imo an indictment of the viewer, of the person sitting on their couch watching a premium cable show and to some extent luxuriating in the lush scenery and chill vibe like a vacation-by-proxy. It's about the rich people maxing and relaxing and other people's misery and I think it gets a lot of mileage out of getting us to, in equal measure, identify with and be repulsed by their 'plights'. I have seen the enemy and it is us, etc. There were logistical concerns that planted the production squarely in the resort but it would've been a whole different show if, for instance, it actually followed Kai home to oversee his day-to-day activities. The White Lotus guests don't really give a shit about that (and are actively trying to avoid any real-world concerns) and we're implicated in that lack of concern.

'maxing and relaxing in other people's misery'

i think it's legitimate to do that by centering the white characters (as objects of derision, it should be noted).

but not only as objects of derision

belinda gets the closest thing i can think of in terms of closure and pathos -- telling off a random white stranger and shutting the door in her face

she also gets a big wad of money

it's obvious that their marriage is destined to fail and that she's a fool for returning to him.

this is definitely not obvious to me

well, i don't think she's a fool for not breaking off her marriage after 5 days or whatever. but i think she has a legitimate realization as to why the marriage is not going to work for her, the kind that you can bury for some time but eventually splits you apart

do we know that belinda takes the money? i can't remember but i feel like it's left ambiguous. we know she puts it in the drawer at the spa front desk but i don't think we see her take it out

I think that's enough to assume she takes it? Seemed like, even then, she's not going to turn down what she can get. Unless I assumed wrong.

I was really curious how much money that was...just enough to be insulting, but not enough to start a business with?

Part of what Coolidge’s character was offering her was money. Most of it was support, belief and affirmation, all of which were to be ongoing. An envelope of loose notes does not contain that.

I would not say Belinda was particularly interested in whether Tonya believed in her or affirmed her, I think she mostly wanted the money!

Yeah agreed. Then with Rachel there was at first a vibe of "well, maybe this crying white lady will work out better than the last one", before "nah, it's not worth it".

I would not say Belinda was particularly interested in whether Tonya believed in her or affirmed her, I think she mostly wanted the money!

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, August 18, 2021 12:28 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I agree with this, but it was also more than just cold hard cash. Tanya was a potential *investor* who probably could have helped get the business off the ground in other ways (including, perhaps, by attracting other investors)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAyZVIAfhyM

Yes, I meant financial support as an investor, and affirmation both personal and professional. She has no hope of the latter working in an environment where repeat customers cannot exist.

I really disagree with your assessment forks, I think it's a more powerful statement because all the characters had pathos, they weren't just evil strawmen but at the end of the day they still leave the same wreckage in their wake whether they were "good" or well meaning in some ways

Also I took the ending as just a commentary that yes, the rich leisure class never has to pay for what it's done, which *gestures at the world*

I mean sure, but that seems a really on-the-nose message for a show that made stabs at being notably more subtle and complex for almost three hours before it opted to have lines like "what do you expect me to do, give away all my money" lead to wannabe-antifa liberal arts study girl arranging for her summer fling to rob the joint.
I'm pretty sure i _got_ what White was going for here but I found his conclusions to be insufficiently astringent and ultimately not differing much from in perspective and aim from the culture he was critiquing. The call was coming from inside the room as it were.

most damningly, it's had as much staying power in my mind as The Flight Attendant (which incidentally had similar commentary about service industry serfdom without the pretension and similarly devolved). once it showed its hand fully, white lotus didn't give me much to think about.

of course you shouldn't kill people, take their land, and make them dance. that's bad.

this is a fantastic show.

ums is otm. what separates people with power from those who don't have power in this show is whether you have to face consequences for your actions. in the end, armond is dead and kai is in jail. lani may have lost her job -- we don't see her at all after she gives birth in the office. shane, meanwhile, is on the plane home even though he stabbed someone. and paula never takes responsibility for setting up kai.

paula is a really interesting character because her resentment of the family is very understandable. and she does have a foot in both worlds--but i think she misrecognizes the privilege she does have, and it is notable that the "solution" she offers to kai is one that will hurt him more than olivia's family. i was disappointed she didn't own up to her role in the robbery. i don't know if that could have helped kai, but it might have.

paula misundersatnds a lot, really. (tbf she is only 20). like, she sses that olivia wanted to get close to her guy, but she doesnt' see that the only reason she was drawn to do that is to get closer to *her*. i don't know if it the attraction is sexual, but olivia loves paula in a way that isn't reciprocated. the cynicism of the characters means these aren't feelings they could even discuss frankly even if they wanted to.

all of the privileged characters are oblivious though -- they never need to look reality in the face. rachel is another one of these borderline characters. as with paula, in the end she chooses to live in the cocoon of wealth, despite her reservations. i guess the idea is that it's really hard to throw away this kind of luxury, the luxury of carelessness, even though it is a condition that over time erodes the mind and spirit (look at jocelyn)

i read Rachel's return to Shane just through a lens of total cynicism, like she had this awakening to the reality of what she signed up for, recoiled, but then calculated that she'd be insane to prioritize intangible things like dignity and authenticity over money, status, power over others (even if she will never have them in the context of her marriage)

Ultimately I didn't love the series in part because the plot eventually forces all the characters to fall sharply on one side of the have/have-not line. I mean, that is probably totally accurate for a place like that. But it deprives the commentary of some depth and nuance. It was damn pretty to look at though.

she sses that olivia wanted to get close to her guy, but she doesnt' see that the only reason she was drawn to do that is to get closer to *her*. i don't know if it the attraction is sexual, but olivia loves paula in a way that isn't reciprocated. the cynicism of the characters means these aren't feelings they could even discuss frankly even if they wanted to.

I think you're giving Olivia too much credit - she idealizes Paula as an exotic other and uses their friendship as a tool to give some cred to the self-righteousness and condescension she throws at her family and their wealthy milieu. When they talk about Olivia wanting whatever Paula has, and then when she hits on Kai, I think it underscores that she doesn't actually care about Paula too deeply beyond that function. She likes her when she (Olivia) has the power but rushes in to reassert her dominance (or pout at the failure to do so) when Paula achieves something that is beyond Olivia.

Of course genuine friendships can still evolve out of weird power dynamics like that so I'd say it's otm that their cynicism is the barrier - absent that, could see them working through that shit and having something more genuine. also you could certainly read Paula's relationship with Kai as Paula herself enacting that exoticized other thing, like just her way of asserting that she's not really like all these other pampered white guests. Her ultimate plan, pushing Kai to steal the jewelry, supports that read, let alone that she takes no action to implicate herself

she idealizes Paula as an exotic other and uses their friendship as a tool to give some cred to the self-righteousness and condescension she throws at her family and their wealthy milieu.

This is what Paula accuses Olivia of but for some reason I don’t think it’s really true. If it was, I think Olivia would have been defensive or apologetic when called out but she just seems confused. And at the very end, when she turns toward her in bed, I just feel like her biggest anxiety in that moment is losing her friend.

I am not saying that Olivia is a good person. She is cynical and opportunistic and there is a way in which she uses Paula for “cred” with her family. But I think there is also a deeper attraction there. And I don’t think going after Kai was about taking something from Paula, it seemed like a classic homosocial triangle.

In the end, not an important part of the show, really. But I think it shows that deeper feelings between people can complicate these clean divisions based on social and economic power.

The only thing Piper seemed uncomfortable with was the likelihood that Lachlan was going to spend a year trying to lick her pum-pum

Yeah between that and the above "my composer didn't respect me" moment I'm done with Mike White thanks xp to ivy

would've liked this more if there had been any signs of it before it actually happened

There was a lot of time spent this season on characters struggling to make choices that didn't really seem like choices because the show revealed at best the bare minimum of motivations, internal conflict or prospect of (or search for) change. Which could be why so much of this season seemed kind of inert.

Laurie ended up having the most satisfying story because she was the only character who behaved like a person with an interior life motivating her actions as opposed to being a mindless plot automaton, followed by Chelsea and, in an opinion I never would have predicted I would hold at the beginning of the season, Saxon.

I agree about Saxon. He was one of the few (only?) characters not just repeatedly called out on his BS but who seemed to take it into consideration (prospect of change). Maybe sex with his brother was a wake-up call.

Gaitok was badgered to change, and he did…

Yeah between that and the above "my composer didn't respect me" moment I'm done with Mike White thanks xp to ivy

― neu! romancer (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, April 9, 2025 10:23 AM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

honestly it's unsurprising that no one else gives a shit :)

I’d only heard of ‘autogynephilia’ from Imogen Binnie’s Nevada, where I (cis reader) just assumed the (trans) author’s use was legit

binnie via her main character maria absolutely discredits autogynephilia in the novel and correctly identifies it as the theory of a guy who thinks trans women are just perverted men

btw when i say "no one else gives a shit" i don't mean this board. i mean everyone

Allow me to also complain that the writing here originally allows you to connect with Gaitok because he briefly has game (his courtship, for a western audience, is an astonishing combination of forwardness and wholesome purity of intent) after which he is reduced to a frustrating dope (due partly to his core conflict, reiterated at tedious length, but also by just suddenly making him slow), and then the resolution of that conflict is kinda annoyingly simple: he gives in and gets what he wants, womp womp

Yes thank you! This is what I was trying to joke about way upthread

binnie via her main character maria absolutely discredits autogynephilia in the novel and correctly identifies it as the theory of a guy who thinks trans women are just perverted men

Yes. I shoulda looked it up before referencing here, given that it is something I know zilch about outside of the novel and now, apparently, Mike White's convos with Andrew Sullivan. Thanks for the clarification.

I just thought autogynephilia was a specific kind of bi-curiosity

I had never heard the term until like a day ago.

It never would have occurred to me to connect any of the Rockwell character's experiences to transness, he seems so obviously to be portraying a Type of Dude.

Of course Andrew Sullivan is a malicious dipshit, and just going on his podcast is a bad look regardless of what is said. Saying old timey antiquated transphobic shit tracks with what I know of his fondness for old timey antiquated racist shit.

I don't really have any opinion about Mike White as a creator. I like this show, I haven't seen any of his other work. I am definitely #TeamTapiaDeVeer, because I think his underscore was electrifying and his theme songs were iconic.

I just saw a picture of the guy, and my first reaction was, well, of course. They should cast him in the next season.

if you listen to the relevant clip from the podcast, it's very difficult to make any sense of what White says. I don't think he even knows what he's trying to say to be honest

It's excerpted here

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1joh7dd/creator_of_white_lotus_mike_white_appears_on/

Eh, I mean being on that particular podcast is bad enough and if you don't know what you are talking about, even better reason not to toss off/agree with references to things like that!

absolutely

Even Sullivan responds with a confused "Huh."

white's response is incredibly soupy. to me, i think he's actually gesturing at concepts that sullivan would disagree with -- white says that "we're made into two genders and we're hardwired to want to merge those things" -- which i'm not sure a trans skeptic would rubber stamp? but it's also not entirely clear to me what white means by "merge" or whether his remark about "two genders" is a statement about societal structures or him revealing a belief in the binary. (i personally think it's the former.) sullivan seems so thrown off by white's circuitous stammering that he's not even able to offer a substantial response to anything he says

i guess what i feel like i'm hearing is a creator of fiction trying to make sense of a character who is not supposed to be seen in a flattering light to someone who proudly sees the unsavory aspects of that character as being representative of his weirdo beliefs. i have a hard time thinking that rockwell's character is supposed to be seen as living anything other than a thoroughly depressing and empty life so i don't see white as siding w/ sullivan's apparent pride in the representation provided by the character. but maybe i'm being too generous.

the fact that white's main interviews after this season have been to howard stern and andrew sullivan mostly make me think that his media consumption as a 55 year old man is if anything just extremely fossilized

academic job interview pic.twitter.com/YAMYQ1zk91

— Hadas Weiss (@weiss_hadas) April 8, 2025

so, the finale. i mostly enjoyed it while watching, and there were great moments, but it rings hollow compared to the last two finales (both unequivocally great). i did enjoy the season as a whole more than the consensus that seems to be developing.

good things about the finale:
- carrie coon monologue
- ratliff storyline (minus lochlan)
- piper dropping the act and embracing her privilege just before it's stripped away
- saxon maybe turning a new leaf
- fabian wilhelm screaming as he falls into the water
- sam rockwell doing a somersault

meh things:
- belinda, zion & greg - was good on its own, a little bit clunky for her to immediately become tanya, verbiage and all
- the conclusion to girls plotline (really not gonna check in with them after they witness a murder?)
- rick and chelsea. heavily foreshadowed, and brilliantly acted, but also wasn't sure if meant to be darkly funny? usually the satire is less dark, so was it not supposed to be funny?
- gaitok's inevitable betrayal of his nonviolent nature - he was a drip of a character, but useful as a metaphor

bad:
- mook. the whole character. she was basically just a temptress, never defined as her own person
- "rick, i am your father" - misuse of scott glenn is a criminal offense. not nearly enough of him
- lochlan's come to jesus moment: he is immune to poison, good to know
- zion's characterization. did not feel like a real person

― gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Monday, April 7, 2025 11:40 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

just finished the finale and just want to say I wholeheartedly agree with this rundown

Aimee Louise Wood was so good, especially in that last episode – the that little smile she did at Rick.

Agree with jaymc about Piper's arc being hollow and with everyone and Mook just being a terribly thin temptress role. Misogynistic, really.

Still enjoyed the season a lot. Couldn't sleep last night and was feverishly going over each character's relationship with wealth and seeing if it all fitted together as an intricate morality tale.

Haven't read up yet about the composer spat or the "autogynephilia" comments. Maybe I won't.

i am really starting to think that the "let's make fun of the horrible things these people say" format is actually a neat way for white to express what he actually believes in without reaping the consequences

I will never understand this tendency to sift through every utterance or implication made by a creator in order to arrive at a definitive moral viewpoint. People say lazy and half thought things. Unless someone is stepping up and making a press announcement I don’t see what is to be gained by “uncovering” the hidden intention. It’s like the PMRC looking for satanic messages in backwards Led Zep tracks. White had already said he felt that issues around transgender identity deserve careful treatment in these times and thus dropped the element about Coon’s character’s non-binary kid.

Mook just being a terribly thin temptress role. Misogynistic, really.

I totally get this criticism, but I also think (as is typical for the show) it can be seen as more complex... for one thing, because the viewer may find themselves sometimes agreeing w/Mook. "Surely Gaitok's taking it a bit overboard; he has a job as a guard, can't he just guard; etc.?" Granted, it was pretty cold of her to break their date when she finds out he's quitting – but she also didn't force him to shoot an unarmed man in the back, Gaitok made that choice.

I can see a reading where the show is quite cynical, bc the characters who profess to have ideals are either compromised (Piper, easily; Gaitok, with difficulty; Belinda, arguably?) or killed (Chelsea). Not sure how to really reckon with (or "argue against" that), beyond saying that it didn't leave me with an empty, cynical feeling... instead, it felt rich and complex to me, rather than shallow or didactic.

I guess it goes back to my take on previous seasons... which is, even though the show seems on the surface like cheap, easy satire – creating basic character types, setting them up & shooting them down, etc. (...and may have actually been this in less skilled hands!) – it somehow transcends that for me, and becomes this much deeper, more satisfying thing.

https://i.postimg.cc/hPt9Q5DV/IMG-2199.jpg

can't believe the cops didn't even question that guy

He is a cop.

The true protagonist

just finished this - oof at that finale. of course rick is going to murder his father! who didn't see that one coming a mile away! i was genuinely hoping they'd go through with the whole ratliff family being poisoned to death. agree with the comments about piper's change of heart not working.

at this point i wouldn't have even bothered with the greg/gary storyline - felt like an obligatory holdover to the previous seasons that could've been axed and trimmed the season down to something slightly more serviceable.

Really enjoyed this season but I found that the incredible dread I felt during the first episode really dissipated by the end, which was predictable (the dad thing, the people who died) and all those elisions at the end (everybody’s suddenly on a boat and fine! we never see Jason Isaacs final reveal) was a bit cowardly

Any time I read an interview with Goggins about the making of this season he makes it sound like some arduous and intense shoot and not just another installment of an established and not particularly radical show that happened to be filmed at a luxury resort. Like, I like Goggins a lot, but this wasn't "The Brutalist," and his character was pretty one-note broody. ("The Broodalist"?) Maybe he was allergic to coconut or something.

there was apparently some interpersonal drama among the cast behind the scenes, though exactly what happened isn't clear: https://archive.ph/YT17o

also, they spent a very long time filming this season, it was something like 6 or 7 months

I sort of doubt these high-profile actors were locked down on set for 6 months without leaving.

Regardless, whenever I read about alleged behind the scenes drama on this show, it almost always centers around Goggins, and his dark, isolated, intense almost-method headspace. You read the same stuff about Jeremy Strong on Succession, but then you see the final product and understand why Brian Cox makes fun of him so much.

Indeed, for the entire seven-month duration of filming, actors do not live in rented accommodation, as they might on other films. They live on set. That’s right, they live in the White Lotus hotel, with one other, cut off from their worlds, in the searing heat. Isaacs says, “It’s a kind of crucible, a five-star gilded cage. There’s no question that sometimes it is absolutely fabulous, and sometimes it’s Lord of the Flies.”

from

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/feb/08/sometimes-its-fabulous-sometimes-its-lord-of-the-flies-behind-the-scenes-the-white-lotus-season-three

sometimes abfab, sometimes lo-fli

So weird (if accurate), why film that way? It's 10 episodes and nothing complicated. I wonder how much of that was just sitting around while Mike White rewrote or edited. Hell, most of the show is just characters sitting around.

I like the idea of Mike White doing some Herzog shit but in a five star hotel. Though not sure however bad it got it compares to being properly in the wilds somewhere.

I can only imagine how wildly inefficient the set must be. Like it or not, his show is still just 75% sullen people eating meals at the buffet.

the whole genesis of the show was because HBO wanted get a show made during lockdown so they asked Mike White to come up with something set in a single location

maybe he just forgot that people actually can leave the set now

I mean, "The Pitt" is like a virtuoso non-stop ballet of overlapping dialogue and activity set in a single location, and it reportedly took about 9 10-hour days to shoot each 1-hour episode (and there are 15).

Here's a cost saving tip: CGI monkeys

lol

Goggins gets it:

“I mean, can you bitch and complain about looking at a fucking green screen? Of course you can,” he says. “But you also can bitch and complain about being in minus-30-degree weather doing a movie that takes place in the snow, you know? I can tell you right now – if I did eight movies in a row where I’m fucking killing myself for an independent movie, that is soul-crushing. I would look at my friends and say, ‘I just want to go look at a green screen for a while.’”

it's hilarious that this season took 7 months to shoot. what the ever living fuck.

if Mike White got Zaslav to pay for him to drink cocktails by the pool for seven months and turn in a lackadaisical tension-and-resolution-free extended remix of his show, I can’t be too mad about not bailing out a couple eps early