THB #675: The White Lotus, Season 3

The new season of The White Lotus takes us somewhere new in the Mike White Cinematic Universe… to less.

For those of you who only know White from The White Lotus (or only think you do… he has a lot of credits for things you have likely seen but don’t realize he wrote), the journey started for me a quarter century ago with Chuck & Buck, which was shocking for its time. Mike wrote the film about a 30-year-old man who still has a passion for his childhood best friend with whom, we find out, he had his early explorations of sexuality. Thus the film’s most infamous line, “Chuck & Buck, Suck & Fuck!”

Miquel Arteta directed, accelerating a budding directing career that had started with Star Maps. White co-starred with Chris Weitz, who was a young writer and director who was about to break out with About A Boy. Lupe Ontiveros was celebrated for her performance and reignited her career with the film. And the film’s producer is now the head of Searchlight, Matthew Greenfield (whose sister is the legendary photographer and documentarian Lauren Greenfield, making their family one of the most impressive sibling factories in the biz).

It was 21 years from Chuck & Buck to the first season of The White Lotus… which seems like a kind of ironic number. White had all kinds of success along the way. But The White Lotus was truly original and the work of an artist who had evolved into a true auteur. White has written and directed all 3 seasons.

And in Season 3, he seems freer than he did in the first 2 magnificent seasons. It is, in my view, the best work he has done. Because, it seems, he felt free to do less. And when you have the kind of storytelling chops that White has, less is very much more.

I haven’t seen the last 2 episodes of the season, so things could happen to change my perception to some degree. Episodes 5 and 6 offer imprints that we know as an audience will be filled in some dramatic way by 2 great actors, one of whom we know is coming but haven’t actually been introduced to and the other of which is introduced with the promise that the subtlety he arrives with with be shattered before the season ends… because just thinking about what might happen with him makes me happy.

In some ways, White Lotus Season 3 has familiar pieces. A family with kids at different levels of maturity, with different degrees of hiding themselves from the rest of the family, with parents being pushed to unexpected places. Men of a certain age that are driven by lust and money and secrets. (”LFH”es, they are called in the season.) The women have a slightly different configuration this time with 3 lifelong female friends vacationing together, each with well-defined comfort zones and insecurities that they other bring out in them. And instead of the two young Italian women willing to have sex for their own benefit, this time we have 2 women in different emotional spaces with their too-old-for-them “boy”friends. And of course, there is the story of hotel employees, though this year has a focus that isn’t on the manager of the resort, even though White cleverly hired Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) to play this year’s manager, a more subtle leader than we have seen in the past. And returning - this one is not a surprise that I will not spoil here - is Natasha Rothwell as Belinda, the spa manager from Season 1, whose son (Nicholas Duvernay as Zion) we meet in the first scene of the season.

I feel good about telling you that much, but not really telling you anything. Ha.

What is missing from Season 3, through the first 6 of 8 episodes, is the hysteria. The glorious madness of Murray Bartlett in Season 1, matched in many ways by Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya. Jake Lacy’s Shane Patton just can’t get over himself while his bride (Alexandra Daddario’s Rachel) finds herself. And the 3 young ones jumping between disconnection and hysteria.

Season 2 brought the return of Tanya, who was trying to find her peace again, before she was being ______ “by the gays.” There was also the “Noises Off” door slamming of the Italian working girls, the manager’s manic semi-closeted lesbian heading into middle age, the family of horny men, and 2 young couples navigating too much money causing endless confusion in their lives and self-images.

For me, the image of Season 3 is the local monkey, just looking in the direction of the camera… seemingly peaceful… before scurrying off.

This is a season of serious emotional tension. But it is being held in check by almost everyone. There are big laughs, but not from the kind of theatrical largeness of Langston and Coolidge. Don’t get me wrong. I love both of those performances and the writing they came from. They don’t seem, in any way, immature. But they are bursts of energy in the midst of personal drama, changing speeds, asking the audience to stick with the heavier stuff before getting a treat. What treats they were!

This season, the stakes are every bit as high as before. Characters are looking to change their lives… others are having their lives changed against their wills… some are acutely aware of their own manipulations and how others manipulate them… and there is the sweet, gentle love story in the middle of it all this season, which White has shown previously he may be willing to allow to continue to the end. It’s kind of heartbreaking to think he won’t… but if he doesn’t, there will be a reason.

I re-watched the first 2 seasons of the show this week in preparation for this review. Still so good. But the difference I was feeling this season was confirmed for me. The season is like when a comic actor turns out to be a great dramatic actor… all that stuff they did led to the freedom not to be funny. I feel that way about Mike White’s work here. His voice as a writer hasn’t changed at all. There is no question who wrote this series. But it’s like he lost the urge to fall back on the safe trick of suddenly accelerating things to 150 miles per hour with great big comic performances. He seems at peace with the intimacy of these human interactions, increasing in intensity and vulnerability, in a way that feels so familiar, but different.

A lot of career-best acting work happening here… again. This is the best piece of writing I have ever seen for Walton Goggins. I suspect we are going to see Aimee Lou Wood a lot in the next decade. She brings an unexpected mixture of oddball and sexy to the show and she was born to be cast as Olivia Colman’s daughter. Carrie Coons is always an inspired watch and actually gets to play her age and something closer to her real energy here. The forever young Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb get a chance to reflect on being those objects in a way I have never seen. Jason Isaacs gets to be more interior than we usually see him. And the three siblings are each terrific… though I am wondering on the casting, as White selected 2 children of established actors (Schwarzenegger and Nivola/Mortimer) and the third, not. Not sure whether that was considered or not. Parker Posey is having a great end to her second act (she kills and is still sexy in Beau is Afraid)… she’ll be a great grandparent character in about a decade or so. Natasha Rothwell is, again, soulful and layered. The Thai cast is outstanding, led by Tayme Thapthimthong and Lalisa Manoban.

I want to write in more detail - including more actors who I am not naming here - but I don’t want to spoil a second of the experience for you.

Best season of a great series… so far. May Mike White continue to thrive and grow and be fulfilled by a new season every couple of years.

Until tomorrow…