Season 3, Episode 6: ‘Denials’
This “White Lotus” season moved at a lulling pace early on, putting the viewers in the same head space as the vacationers, feeling equal parts enchanted and dazed by an exotic, sun-splashed locale. The show’s creator, Mike White, then cranked up the energy considerably over Episodes 4 and 5, in which several characters made sudden, fateful choices — perhaps without fully understanding what they were doing.
This week? It’s hangover time.
In terms of narrative progress, this episode inches along. It ends just before three significant events begin. Saxon and his parents (and maybe Belinda?) are about to attend a dinner party hosted by the dangerous Gary. Rick and Frank are walking into their meeting with Sritala’s husband in Bangkok, which could very well turn violent if Rick follows through on his need for revenge. And Piper and Lochlan are spending a night at the Buddhist temple, at Victoria’s request.
But while there is more anticipation-building than action this week, White does develop the season’s major themes in ways that help them strike a little deeper. Over and over, as they face crises mostly of their own making, many of these characters find themselves asking: Is there a better way to live?
The Ratliffs are the most in need of a new path. When last we saw Tim, he had Gaitok’s pistol by his side and had just finished writing a suicide note. By the end of this day, he still has not pulled the trigger. But he does imagine shooting himself, and he perhaps stops himself from doing it for real only because he also imagines Victoria and Piper finding his body. Later, he imagines shooting Victoria and then killing himself, thus sparing his wife from having to live on in shame and poverty.
At the moment though, Tim is leaving his options open. He stashes the gun in a chest of drawers and spends the day on an assignment handed to him by Victoria. She wants him to check out Luang Por Teera (Suthichai Yoon), the senior monk whom Piper is planning to spend a year following. (“He better be the best Buddhist in China,” Victoria harrumphs.)
Victoria expects that Tim — her confident, successful, morally upright husband — will give this phony guru a good dressing-down. But instead, Tim is captivated by Teera’s thoughts on the inescapable pain of everyday existence, which he blames on an insatiable hunger for self-gratification born of a spiritual emptiness and a loss of connection with nature. Teera also describes death as the end of suffering (“a happy return, like coming home”). Which may not be the best thing to say to a suicidal man.
Tim’s assessment? “I liked him. He seemed legitimate.” Victoria’s reply? “I should have gone with you.”
Victoria is still insistent — adamant, even — that Piper, deep down, is as materialistic as the rest of the Ratliffs. She hates that her daughter is so glib about what Tim and Saxon do for a living. (“Gambling with other people’s money,” Piper calls it.) Victoria is sure that if she can get Piper to see how grim and uncomfortable living in a monastery will be, she will come back to Durham and have a happy, normal life, “Like the rest of us.”
But that “like the rest of us” is presuming a lot. Tim, for one, is not that happy right now. As for “normal” … well, there is a reason Lochlan agrees to spend the night in the temple with Piper, and it isn’t because he feels bad about abandoning her at dinner the night before. Both Lochlan and Saxon are dealing with the memory of what happened on the yacht, where the two brothers apparently didn’t just kiss; they also enjoyed a little fraternal fondling while having a threesome with Chloe.
Speaking to each other in the morning, both brothers insist they don’t remember what happened. But Chloe sure does. She brings it up with Saxon while pressuring him to come to dinner, at Gary’s request. Gary knows she was fooling around with the boys, and for some reason he wants them around when he “deals with something,” presumably with Belinda (if she agrees to come over).
Chloe passes along her boyfriend’s invitation because she does not want to lose access to Gary’s money. Also, even though Chelsea tells Saxon, “I don’t think there’s a drug in my world that would make me get with my brother,” both women are quick to add that they don’t judge, because, as Chloe said, “Everyone has their thing.” (“It’s not a thing!” Saxon protests.)
Chelsea has better things to worry about, namely her “soul-mate,” Rick, who may be about to do something very stupid in Bangkok. Chelsea is not alone in her concern. Frank, too, tries to talk his old friend down from doing something “messy,” adding, “I’m trying to live a different kind of life here, brother.”
Frank’s quiet plea moved me because it turned this episode from one that spins its wheels a bit to one that strikes to the core of White’s fascination with the rich and lost. This idea of trying to improve oneself — to think beyond one’s immediate feelings of need — informs so much of what’s been going in Season 3. It even casts a different light on what is going on with the gal pals, who spend this episode passive-aggressively adjudicating Jaclyn’s early morning rendezvous with Valentin.
Laurie is obviously mad that Jaclyn stole Valentin — although she insists, unconvincingly, that it’s more hilarious and pathetic than enraging. (“I’m laughing! It’s funny! Ha! But also …”) Jaclyn, meanwhile, insists stubbornly that nothing happened with Valentin and acts hurt that her best friends are gossiping about her, knowing how much she hates how the tabloids dig into her personal life. All of this leaves the ladies wondering if people ever really change. “We’re still the same people we were in the 10th grade,” Laurie says with a smirk, pretending not to care.
And yet … Here are Piper and Lochlan at the end of the episode, sitting on the temple floor, listening to Luang Por Teera tell them: “Let’s shut down our monkey mind, yes? Close your eyes. As thoughts emerge, acknowledge them. Say hello, and very gently let them go. Goodbye!”
One of these two Ratliffs is trying to let go of crass western materialism while the other is trying to bury memories of one very weird night with his brother. But the promise offered to both of them — and to everyone at the White Lotus this season — is the same. Whatever it is within them that is making them feel angry or dissatisfied, it is never too late to leave all of it behind.
Concierge Service
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One of the primary complaints I’ve heard about this season is that White is not making the White Lotus staff a big enough part of the story. This critique is valid. The balance in the first two seasons was also tilted toward the guests because their kinds of spiritual crises — the soul-sicknesses of the obscenely wealthy — seem to captivate White the most. Still, in the Hawaii and Italy seasons, it was definitely harder to recap what happened in any given week without mentioning the locals.
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That said, I suspect that Belinda — who is part guest, part staff — will be more integrated into the main plot next week as she edges closer to spending some extended face-to-face time with Gary. (Also, her son arrives in this episode, and we already know that he will be on the scene when the violence at the resort eventually erupts.)
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I also expect Mook and Gaitok to figure into how the final two episodes play out. Gaitok once again anchors the episode’s most nail-biting scene as he sneaks into the Ratliffs’ villa to find his purloined pistol. Right before the family comes home, he spots the drawer where Tim stashed the gun and is able to get away in time. If this gun is the source of the shots we heard in the season premiere, it does not appear that Tim will be the shooter.
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Kate’s “pleasant vibes above all” ethos is on full display when Laurie calls Jaclyn “fake.” Kate replies, “One person’s fake is another person’s good manners.”
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I got a bit misty-eyed when Piper first met with Luang Por Teera to warn him that her crazy parents wanted to grill him. The monk could have easily said, “I’m too busy,” or, “Who are you?” Instead he smiles and says: “Bring in your parents. I can answer their questions.” Even though he does not know Piper, he is willing to spend a few minutes explaining to her father that each human soul is like a drop of water, yearning to return to the ocean. It is a moving moment of empathetic guidance — and one that gives this season’s abundant water imagery more meaning.
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