Summary
The White Lotus Season 3 feels tantalizingly close to something terrible happening in Episode 4, but despite all the pressure on the trigger, it doesn’t quite squeeze a round off.
The White Lotus is always about a murder. Season 3 is potentially about several; we know this because the premiere featured a bunch of gunshots and at least one floating corpse. This is the reassurance Mike White gave us, hoping it’d keep us going through multiple episodes of table-setting. Episode 4 is maybe the most frustrating outing of the season thus far in that it’s the one exerting the most pressure on the trigger without letting a round off.
Virtually every subplot here reaches a vital turning point but doesn’t… quite… get all the way there, leaving us on the cusp of a major development in each that feels tantalizingly out of reach. We shouldn’t conflate “frustrating” with “bad” here, though. Part of me suspects it’s all intentional, a strategy to make the eventual payoffs even more impactful. Or perhaps that’s just wishful thinking.
Girls’ Trip
If nothing else, “Hide or Seek” finds something to do with Jaclyn, Kate, and Laurie. Taking a break from bitching about each other, Jaclyn leads a mission to find some real fun, enlisting Valentin to devise an action-packed itinerary. He immediately misunderstands the assignment by sending them to an all-inclusive resort full of leathery retirees, but instead of calling it a day Jaclyn marches back to the White Lotus and instructs Valentin to find them some real action – or else, basically.
Initially, it looks like he’s had them off again when he takes them to town in the midst of a super soaker festival and they all get drenched without their consent, but he eventually meets them in a club with two of his buddies, Vlad and Aleksei, both of whom get some intriguing looks from the ladies. I’m not entirely sure where this is heading – or whether Valentin’s employment will survive it – but it’s mostly just nice to see these three on the move.
Burn the Boats
While this is going on, things are getting progressively worse for Tim Ratliff – for the entire family, really, with the possible exception of Saxon and, latterly, Lochlan, who both discover that a swanky boat full of revelers is up their street. Not so for the rest of the family, though.
For different reasons, Tim and Victoria are both up to their eyeballs on prescription pills. The latter is just numbing herself in case she’s forced to mingle with the ruffians, while the former is trying to come to terms with the collapse of his empire, the seizure of his assets, and potentially the worst fate of all – being poor. That’s the worst fate as far as he’s concerned, anyway. It’s like he hasn’t even considered there might be a stretch in federal prison coming his way.
Greg, who’s co-hosting the party aboard his yacht, is visibly distracted, and seemingly uninterested by Chloe’s obvious interest in Saxon and her request to take the boat to a big party on a neighboring island. Greg’s preoccupation is thanks to Belinda, who made a point of recognizing him in the previous episode. Now he has to brainstorm a way to make that particular problem go away, and he settles pretty quickly on her son, Zion, who we met in the premiere cold open but who hasn’t made it to the resort yet, as a means to keep her quiet.
Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan, and Carrie Coon in The White Lotus Season 3 | Image via HBO
“You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die.”
Rick’s revenge mission continues apace in The White Lotus Season 3, Episode 4, but I’m unconvinced by it and so, I think, is he. If nothing else Rick finally reveals to Chelsea the real reason behind his fascination with Bangkok, and the fact he’s looking for his father’s killer without a concrete idea of what he plans to do when he finds him. But I think Rick’s probably going to be in for a surprise.
All the signs are there. Rick has rationalized his loss by casting his father as a noble victim and his killer as a cartoon villain, but the reality is likely something much more complicated. Rick doesn’t have anywhere near enough information to feel strongly about this either way; his dad could be alive, could have deserved it, could be a killer himself. Who knows? Nobody, is the answer, Rick included, and Amrita’s warm little warnings about how he can potentially let things go rather than pursue them to self-defeating lengths feel a lot like foreshadowing to me (also, maybe just me, but there’s some romantic chemistry between these two, right?)
The Gun
“Hide or Seek” finally introduces a gun to the White Lotus, which we can safely predict will be brandished to unsavory ends in the near future. It’s Gaitok who gets given it as a kind of backup plan for his general incompetence, but it’s Tim who promptly steals it, proving immediately that Gaitok shouldn’t be armed under any circumstances.
Who does Tim plan to kill? If anyone it’s likely himself, but I don’t suspect he’ll hold onto the weapon indefinitely. He’s a white-collar crime guy, not a cold-blooded killer; his theft is probably just a way to get the firearm floating around the White Lotus’s general population.
But if nothing else someone who earnestly plans to use it needs to get a hold of it soon. Season 3 has been plenty of fun thus far, but it’s time; there’s too much teasing, too many subplots on the cusp of disaster, to spend another hour waiting around. The center can’t hold. This is when things need to take a welcome turn for the worse.
