‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 7 Recap – The Calm Before the Storm

We’re almost at the end of our third stay at The White Lotus, and we’ve reached the point in Season 3 where everything is knitting together and we’re right on the cusp of all-out disaster. Impressively, Episode 7 still doesn’t give away much about how it’s all going to go wrong, but it reassures us at every turn that it very much will go wrong, which is, of course, precisely what we’re here for.

And there are themes! Like last week, which really delved into the season’s Buddhist underpinnings, “Killer Instincts” is about stuff. When the sage guru figure gives another lecture, this time on violence and its relationship to fear, the thesis is pretty clear. We’ve arrived at the point where almost everyone gets a choice: To pursue that thing they think they want (like Rick), admit that thing they’re terrified of (like Tim), or try to buy their way out of trouble (like Greg). Depending on how things go, the fear that drove these people to these positions may indeed erupt into carnage.

Let’s start with the person who was most undersold by last week’s drama – Rick.

Revenger Isn’t Worth It – But Is Rick Really Free?

We didn’t see much of Rick in the previous episode, but he occupies a good chunk of this one. With the help of Frank, who is posing as a director, he has finally managed to come face to face with the man who he believes killed his father – Sritala’s husband, Jim Hollinger (a fearsome Scott Glenn.)

But the whole thing is a complete farce on multiple levels. Frank and Rick have clearly not talked the plan through properly. Frank is forced to freestyle some cockamamie story about being a huge fan of Sritala’s work and wanting to cast her in a film, despite not being able to name a single role she has ever played. When he realizes quite how badly things are going, he orders the first of several drinks, which is problematic since a fundamental part of his demented rant about Asian girls was that he was sober.

Nevertheless, Rick is able to get some alone time with Jim. It’s probably a little bit like the movie – or TV! – scene he has always imagined it to be; Rick with a gun in his pocket, but not pleased to see Jim, letting on bit by bit that he knows who he is and what he did. But Jim seems none the wiser. There’s a brief flash of recognition when Rick name-drops his mother, Gloria Hatchett, but that’s all. Rick isn’t interested in hearing an explanation or an apology. He has made up his mind. But to do what?

As it turns out, nothing. Rick can’t shoot Jim. He can’t even hit him. Instead, he just kind of tips him over and legs it for a night out on the tiles with a now very drunk Frank. It hardly seems worth the effort, which makes me think we haven’t seen the end of this story just yet.

Scott Glenn in The White Lotus Season 3 | Image via WarnerMedia

Saxon Is Having a Terrible Time

After being masturbated by his own brother, Saxon is really being forced to consider a few things, and Greg’s party – which branches off into a couple of interrelated subplots, including this one – doesn’t make things any easier on him. I certainly didn’t have Saxon becoming the least weird guest on my White Lotus bingo card for this season, but here it seems we are.

Putting the incest thing aside, Saxon’s mostly just bummed out by the fact that he can’t seduce Chelsea, since Lochlan scored with Chloe and Saxon has been thoroughly out-macho’d by his dorky little bro. This theme continues apace but also gets weirder, as if that were possible.

But before that, a brief aside. Saxon is many things, but stupid isn’t one of them, so he has cottoned on that Tim is hiding something. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt a very legitimate pang of sadness for him when he was begging his father to reveal if his secret is anything to do with work, since Tim’s work is also Saxon’s work, and Saxon’s work is all he has. His entire identity is bundled up in it. “I can’t handle being nothing,” he says to his father, and because Tim is fundamentally a coward, he pretends everything is okay. And then he expands his murder-suicide fantasy to also include Saxon.

Anyway, the weird stuff. Chloe eventually approaches Saxon with an offer. As it turns out, Gary has a very private sexual fantasy stemming from watching his parents have sex as a child. He’d apparently like to catch Chloe having sex with someone else as a way of exorcising the demons; it’d be like “winning his mother back from his father”, according to Chloe, who at this point I think is just trying to get laid for the fun of it and is making up some of these psychosexual fantasies on the fly. Saxon’s horror when he realizes what she’s getting at is very funny either way. And he turns her down.

Saxon instead spends the evening with Chelsea learning how to get in touch with his spiritual side. He’s clearly trying to take the long way into her knickers to salve the burns she has been giving him all season, but she’s not having that. The second he touches her hand, she gives him a couple of books and boots him out so she can check on Rick.

Natasha Rothwell and Nicholas Duvernay in The White Lotus Season 3 | Image via WarnerMedia

Greg’s Proposition

You might recall that the entire point of Greg/Gary hosting a soiree was to have a brief word with Belinda. Given she has figured out who he is and suspects he might have murdered his wife, this was understandably interpreted by Belinda as a threat, but Zion convinces her to go along with him as her protection. It’s a good job she isn’t paying him for this, since it takes Greg roughly five seconds to get her alone.

But he doesn’t threaten her. Instead, he offers her $100,000 as the investment in her business that Tanya never followed through with, but it’s really hush money so that she doesn’t tell anyone where he is. He’s trying to live out the rest of his days in peace, apparently. Belinda asks for some time to think about it, and Zion helps her along by encouraging her to take the dough. If not, she may well become a target. And besides, couldn’t she use the money?

The White Lotus Season 3, Episode 7 doesn’t quite clarify whether Belinda’s conscience could survive this decision. Is she willing to become an accessory to murder to line her own pockets? I think not, but in the grand scheme of things, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Fight Night

A couple of subplots intermingle at the Muay Thai fights that Valentin invited Kate, Laurie, and Jaclyn to. Only Laurie ends up attending, since the women are all at each other’s throats because Jaclyn bedding Valentin has picked the scabs off some of Laurie’s old high school wounds. It all gets very nasty, and Kate’s peace-making efforts fall on deaf ears, so Laurie ventures out alone to meet the guys.

Gaitok and Mook are also in attendance, which is important since Gaitok recognises the guys – Valentin, Vlad, and Aleksei – as the men who broke into the hotel and robbed the gift shop. This is a recipe for disaster, since Gaitok is still trying to impress Mook and his boss by embracing his killer instinct, despite the fact that it might clash with Buddhism’s pacifistic principles. In fact, Mook is using the Muay Thai fights to point out that a certain kind of violence is perfectly fine and acceptable. I’m willing to bet money on Gaitok taking this lesson entirely the wrong way, especially since Tim’s stolen gun is missing by the end of the episode.

But while we’re on the topic of bad decisions, Laurie goes home with Aleksei, perhaps to prove a point to Jaclyn, and finds their pillow talk taking a worrying turn into grifting territory. Aleksei spins some far-fetched story about an expired visa and an elderly mother in Russia and asks her for ten grand. Luckily, she doesn’t fall for it. Not that she has much time to think about it, since someone returns home – presumably Aleksei’s girlfriend, who mustn’t be in on the scheme – and chases her out of the house, slapping her about the head as she attempts to climb out of the window. It’s funny for us, but probably not quite what Laurie had in mind for her big night out.