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Life Lessons From The White Lotus
Sunday night, HBO aired the season finale of The White Lotus — season 3. The White Lotus is HBO’s anthology series that follows seriously dysfunctional, seriously wealthy white people throughout their weeklong stay at the exclusive White Lotus resort — located in multiple countries. The first season was in Hawaii. The second season was in Sicily. This season was in Thailand.
The White Lotus is always studying human nature. While it has fun doing it at the expense of the wealthy, usually corrupted hotel patrons, it also delves into the psyche of everyone who lands on the screen. The resort staff aren’t mere background players, even though they are, in the eyes of the wealthy guests. Until they aren’t.
The show describes itself as a dark comedy drama. The first two seasons, at least for me, involved characters I found myself deeply unable to be invested in. Besides Belinda. However, this season had characters that were slightly less annoying than in previous seasons. There were fan favorites massage therapist Belinda, hopelessly in love Chelsea, and hopelessly lovesick, Gaitok. There was also Belinda’s son, Zion. This season was better at letting the viewer see the wheels turning in the characters’ heads — whether we agreed with them or not — we understood the ways they rationalized their behavior.
