There’s a certain type of prestige TV that appeals to the gawker in all of us, and it increasingly functions as a sign of the times: The rich may have all the power and Hollywood is all too happy to reinforce that status quo. What about something punchier? A lampoon of boorish behavior will have to suffice. Which brings us to the third season of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” in which the wealthy are messy and miserable, but you cannot deny the appeal of their surroundings.
Perhaps more than ever, audiences are desperate for a break from reality and willing to grab at the vicarious pleasures of a television series that unfolds within the world of luxury hotels. No one on screen even breaks a sweat, despite the temperatures hitting over 100 degrees during filming. The unreality is presumably the point. Nothing can puncture the visual fantasy.
As with previous outings, death is foreshadowed before flashing back one week earlier to the guests’ arrival at the elite five-star White Lotus resort. This time, the setting is a wellness-themed getaway on the island of Koh Samui in Thailand. By now you know the drill. All that money and sumptuous trappings, and they’re still unhappy.
The resort itself (which one guest snidely, but not inaccurately, calls “Disneyland for rich bohemians from Malibu”) is lovingly filmed, and the Four Seasons (which doubles as the fictitious White Lotus) could not have asked for a better showcase of its exclusive villa accommodations, which can run $10,000+ a night.
Creator Mike White assembles a tantalizing cast each season, even if he rarely gives them opportunities to do something unexpected. Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb play a trio of middle-aged friends who are on an upscale girls’ trip. White has a real ear for the way women talk about mutual friends behind their back, with its mixture of performative empathy and barely concealed judgment.
Walton Goggins plays a man in a bad mood from the start, whose derisive energy is forever butting up against that of his cheery girlfriend, played by Aimee Lou Wood. Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey are a couple from North Carolina traveling with their three painfully dull children, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sarah Catherine Hook and Sam Nivola. (This is the second time Nivola is in a role with this distinction, coming on the heels of Netflix’s “The Perfect Couple.”) Returning from seasons past are Natasha Rothwell’s spa manager (visiting as part of a vaguely explained White Lotus exchange/training program) and Jon Gries’ mystery man, to whom Jennifer Coolidge’s heiress was married before she drowned last season.
The hotel staff includes a sweet, easily distracted security guard who works at the hotel’s front gate (Tayme Thapthimthong) and the equally sweet health mentor upon who he has a crush (Lalisa Manobal). They are strangely two-dimensional, and even in private they abstain from mocking or simply blowing off steam about these entitled Americans to whom they must offer permanent smiles. It’s the show’s consistent flaw. People always have something to grumble about at work and it’s an obvious way to augment and complicate this fictional world. That all-important contrast is missing (as are any employees who do the manual labor of cleaning up after the guests), which is why the show feels like a deflated satire that never had the courage of its convictions to begin with.
You could argue the show’s intent versus impact, but that requires actually parsing its intent. Upscale resorts are an illusion of ease and comfort. Exploring the reality behind the lie would have been one way to deepen the storytelling layers, or at least give us a Greek chorus.
The show’s narrow scope means it ends up recycling the same tropes of seasons past. The hotel guests aren’t people so much as stock characters with one or two defining traits: young women paired with older men; toxic finance bros who throw their weight around and the wives who look past their faults because (gestures at their deluxe lifestyles); family members who can barely stand one another. There are only so many variations on a theme.
There’s an aimlessness that can come to define the vacation experience. That’s also true of the stories to which White is drawn, resulting in uneven performances (Isaacs’ Southern accent sometimes slips into an Australian accent). Posey is the one to watch as a woman zonked on benzos. This is an actress attuned to how a person checked out of her own life might comport herself. It’s very detailed and very funny. But it’s not enough to carry the season.
The stories Hollywood pumps out have a way of shaping perceptions about whose lives, and concerns, are worthy of being front and center. “One way to rebalance the power between a billionaire troll and regular people,” a recent piece argued, “is to make sure everyone sees who they really are.” In other words, when you expose how uncool they are, the results are embarrassing enough to curb at least a modicum of bad behavior. That may be true. I’m unconvinced the same principle applies to fiction. Real-world counterparts never see themselves in these depictions. The delusion remains intact.
“The White Lotus” — 1.5 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: 8 p.m. Sundays on HBO (streaming on Max)
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
