Picking up where the motif of his last HBO effort, Enlightened, left off (in terms of the “wellness” aspect), Mike White brings us another scathing series named after the hotel driving its central narratives: The White Lotus. From the instant we’re introduced to the show with its now indelible theme song featuring close-ups on a tropical motif wallpaper pattern, we get the immediate sense that this is to be a slow burn. Even the wallpaper’s gradual bleeding is a foreshadowing of that, complete with highly specific animals (most especially the monkey, the lounging jaguar and the bound-to-sting jellyfish looming over the natives in the water—all animals that embody the rich). Even the dead-eyed fish caught helplessly in the seaweed offers symbolism for affluent/working class relations.
We begin with Shane Patton (Jake Lacy) sitting in the airport waiting area. The older couple in front of him sees fit to strike up a conversation, mainly the woman in the duo, who proceeds to babble about her trip as though anyone cares. She notes of where they were staying, “Not much to do there, but we just like to sit around anyway.” The banality of this statement is laden with so much weighty meaning that the woman uttering it could never understand. For it is the luxury of the rich and even middle-class to “sit around” at their leisure. The woman and her mute husband are the first example of the lotus-eaters to come (and yes, there will even be an episode called that). As Shane stares out at the as-of-yet unknown body being loaded onto the plane, we flashback to one week earlier. When all the darkness of class divisions at The White Lotus began to brew. That Mike White’s last name also mirrors his skin tone and the show title’s allusion to white privilege (by way of mentioning that specific color in the moniker as well) is but a bonus to the many layers of this project.
As Armond (Murray Bartlett) awaits his “VIPs” at the shoreline where waves crash violently against the rocks, it’s very clear that he’s in the mindset of “let’s put on a show.” There’s no other way for him to think of it if he wants to actually get through hosting each batch of faux pretentious assholes (but, in case you didn’t know already, money can’t actually buy erudition). Lani (Jolene Purdy), the new trainee at the resort, stands next to Armond, listening to him as he explains “The White Lotus philosophy” of service, which is: “Self-disclosure is discouraged, especially with these VIPs who arrive on the boat. You know, you don’t want to be too specific. As a presence, as an identity. You wanna be more…generic.” She nods along as he continues, “It’s a Japanese ethos, where we are asked to disappear behind our masks as pleasant, interchangeable helpers. It’s tropical kabuki. And the goal is to create for the guests an overall impression of vagueness.” Although Lani seems as though she might become a fixture of the narrative, she ends up appearing so ephemerally in the show that one might wonder what her purpose was at all. But of course she’s a symbol of all exploited working people who power through their pain—even when in labor—in order to keep their horrific, low-paying job. The ones who grin and bear it lest they risk losing the only pittance that pays for their barely livable conditions.
Although Armond might seem cold and degrading toward her, it’s telling that he is driven to start doing drugs again (after five years of sobriety) precisely because he feels so guilty for being the one to facilitate her exploitation while she was going through such a traumatic ordeal. This, indeed, is very indicative of his own middle management woes. As he says to another employee, Dillon (Lukas Gage), “They exploit me, I exploit you.” And so goes the endless cluster fuck of exploitation that we all play into because it’s simply “what’s done,” “how life works,” etc.
Critics keep referring to the show as a “satire,” but where is the satirical element, really? This is how it goes down all day, every day at luxury resorts and beyond. The unspoken caste system that “makes the world go round”—for rich people. The White Lotus’ entire point is to make you realize just how impossible it is to have any empathy for this ilk and their “problems”—in addition to showing its viewers that nothing will ever really change. The wheels of the machine keep grinding in favor of the rich just as they always have, and likely won’t stop until said echelon destroys the planet for their profit “till the end.”
But even the rich are not immune to the climate chaos their business practices are responsible for creating, and White finds a way to acknowledge that when Mike Mossbacher (Steve Zahn), the “castrated” patriarch married to CFO Nicole Mossbacher (Connie Britton), tries to find outdoor water-based activities to do with his son, Quinn (Fred Hechinger). Armond pleasantly tells them it’s “quite biblical out there”—in other words, the ocean is too fucked up to accommodate their sense of entitlement, proving that even the rich can’t buy a “sweet vacation” anymore thanks to climate change. “A few reefs are still thriving,” Armond offers as consolation when Mark says he wants to try scuba diving. But even barring the fact that the underwater world has been decimated, there’s still the little hiccup of Mark and Quinn needing to get their PADI license. When Mark then suggests water skiing as an option, Armond laments, “The swells are too great. We just had a hurricane pass through, so…” Jet skiing meets with the same response, which just leaves “mere” snorkeling as an option. Poor little rich boys.
As for the rest of “Mossbacher crew,” there’s outsider Paula (Brittany O’Grady), who we’re first introduced to in a “Post Hope” t-shirt. Yes, that we all are. Olivia (Sydney Sweeney), the Mossbacher daughter who brought her along for the ride instead wears a “Bardo College” shirt—presumably the university they attend together or just a weird play on Bard. Clear from the outset that she thinks she’s “different” from the rest of her family, Olivia proceeds to mock everyone else on the boat with Paula, including her own parents. Among the other targets of their vitriol is Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), the newlywed on her honeymoon with Shane. Upon their arrival at the shore of the hotel, she’s greeted by Armond as “Mr. and Mrs. Patton,” setting the entire tone for her identity crisis to come. She responds, “Mrs. Patton, wow. Sounds so weird. Like, am I changing my name?” Rachel turns to Shane as she asks this, as though already realizing how much she’s deferring to him in general where once she had her own separate selfdom. She’s quickly learning that whatever that was has summarily disappeared. And without the distraction of the wedding planning or the wedding itself, everything is suddenly laid bare to her: she’s a trophy wife.
While Rachel initially appears to be the “in-betweener” character, toeing the line between two classes, it becomes eventually apparent that she’s just as spoiled as anyone else not working at the resort, looking for what amounts to high-class problems to help her stay tied to her supposedly “working class” roots. The presence of literature in most of the episodes also speaks to each character’s perception of themselves. While Paula and Olivia freely read Freud and Nietzsche, Rachel reads Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend in episode two, “New Day.” The same episode that invites an extremely awkward encounter between Rachel and Nicole even though it starts out initially pleasant enough. From afar, Rachel clearly lusts after the “boss bitch” persona of Nicole as she watches her traipse past her at the pool. Having already commented to Nicole’s blasé daughter about how she “doctored” a profile piece about her for one of her freelance journalism gigs, when Nicole hears which particular piece it was, she shuts down completely, telling Rachel that her attitude in the piece was not only hostile but also denigrated the #MeToo movement. In this exchange, it becomes clear to us that the purpose of the little tiff is meant to reiterate that not only does Nicole do everything she can to avoid metaphorically looking in the mirror, but also that Rachel may not be very good at what she does. And since she’s not, then what’s really so wrong with transcending fully into “Mrs. Patton”? Unfortunately, it’s a long and hard road to that revelation.
Another new arrival the same week to the hotel is Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge), who immediately latches on to the hotel’s spa manager, Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), telling her she’s just desperate for a massage. That she’ll take anyone willing to touch her in some way. She’s not “picky.” Oh but of course she is. Rich people who don’t think they’re picky are simply more passive aggressive or, in Tanya’s case, faux oblivious. As she strikes up a “friendship” with Belinda, who is kind enough to offer her own healing services to Tanya that first day even though the spa is fully booked, Belinda makes the mistake of taking her at her word. Of believing she’s someone who could actually be genuine. That’s why she’s blunt enough to tell Tanya when she invites her to dinner, “Rich people, you know, they’re the ones fuckin’ up the whole world.” Tanya wants to believe she’s “with it” enough to know that, and to be the exception to the rule. And even Belinda wants to believe it too. Because that would mean she might actually carry through with her off-handed comment about how Belinda needs to open her own wellness center and that Tanya could be the one to fund it.
As for the setting of The White Lotus, anytime Hawaii provides the backdrop, of course it’s going to be laden with symbolism. And while it might be hard to imagine the show moving on to another milieu for its next season, the sad reality is there are so many countries that have the residual hangover of colonialism to fit in quite nicely with Mike White’s themes. At one point, actually, Nicole asks Paula what her thesis is on. She responds glibly, “Colonialism.” In part, because she’s lying to spare Olivia’s parents the knowledge that what was really in the bag they lost was drugs, not her “thoughts.” But also in part because she knows it should make them uncomfortable, yet it doesn’t.
The contentiousness between Olivia and her mother ramps up in episode three, “Mysterious Monkeys.” Irritated that her daughter thinks she’s somehow “above” their family despite gladly taking their money, Nicole retorts, “What? You’re gonna cancel him? Dox him? Sick the K-pop fans on him?” when Olivia says her dad is coming across as too homophobic. To that end, it’s clear Mike White is incorporating some autobiographical elements into Mark’s storyline, as he finds out his father was a closeted homosexual who died of AIDS. Those unfamiliar with White’s own background might be interested to know that his father was a speechwriter for Religious Right “beacons” like Jerry Falwell before coming out in the mid-90s. In any case, as Olivia continues to berate her parents’ lifestyle and views while also benefitting from them, Nicole tersely snaps, “Your generation’s only sacred value: biting the hand that feeds you.”
As the dynamic between Shane and Rachel becomes glaringly clear to the latter (she’s just a pretty fuck toy whose sole job is to make him happy), another pointed reading choice comes when we see Shane with a copy of Blink. Sort of like the mid-00s White Fragility for white people, the book’s topics focus on “thin-slicing” and “snap judgments”—often made with our own deeply ingrained biases. For Shane, it is Armond who is leading him to the quick (and, to be fair, accurate) decision that he’s being fucked over. His fears about being taken advantage of are longstanding, he makes clear to Rachel. For he knows there’s a lot of jealous bitches out there who don’t want to see him enjoy his “success” (if what is meant by success infers winning the birth lottery).
Armond is one of the few in his life, it seems, willing to put him in his place. And perhaps if Shane hadn’t made such a big deal about not being given his precious “honeymoon suite” (a.k.a. the Pineapple Suite), Armond might not have found undercutting ways to sabotage him and the thing Shane thinks he wants just because he can’t have it. One such sabotage includes setting up Shane’s candlelit boat dinner to coincide with Tanya throwing her mother’s ashes into the ocean. Knowing full well Tanya’s going to be a drunk wreck that will allow for the antithesis of a romantic atmosphere. On the boat, when the time finally comes to scatter the remains, Tanya keeps saying of her rich mother with the house in Carmel, “My poor mother.” And maybe the rich are to be “pitied” in some ways for how emotionally devoid they are, but it’s hard for most average people to draw from their already thinning reserves of empathy.
At the beginning of episode four, “Recentering,” Paula asks her secret fling, Kai (Kekoa Scott Kekumano), who works there, if the hotel was already built when he was younger. He replies, “They were the ones that actually evicted us from our lo’i. The land that was given by King Kamehameha to the konohiki. It was a sacred title. Can’t be broken. But the government…they terminated our lease illegally.” Paula, incredulous, demands, “And now you work for the same assholes that stole from you?” He shrugs, “When my brothers found out that I took this job, they were so pissed. But I gotta make a living, you know?” This notion that, for all the contempt the “lower” class has for the wealthy, they’re still at their mercy regardless of “having principles” speaks to why the system of oppression can never be broken.
Yet the prototype for privilege—the rich white male—genuinely believes they’re “losing power.” Even those who facilitate their behavior do. Like Nicole, who asks Olivia and Paula to be nicer to Quinn, explaining, “He is a straight, white young man and nobody has any sympathy for them right now. And I just feel like we should. Yeah, in a way, they’re the underdogs right now.” “Go on,” Paula baits in disgust. Nicole is happy to, adding, “Well for instance, young guys like Quinn who are just getting out of college, I don’t care how incredibly impressive they are, it is almost impossible for us to hire them.” “Well, isn’t that ‘cause up until now they’re the only people you’ve ever hired?” Paula ripostes. Olivia chimes in, “Yeah, don’t you have enough of them on staff?” Nicole continues to chirp away, “Trust me, I get it, but I understand how guys like Quinn can feel a little alienated from the culture right now.” Olivia can only say, “Mom, cringe.” Paula turns to Nicole and assures, “I think he’s gonna be okay, Nicole.” Not picking up on her sarcasm, she replies, “Thank you Paula.”
The brewing resentments between Paula and Olivia as they relate to the latter never really being able to fathom someone like Kai’s situation bleed into her increasing hostility toward Olivia’s parents. “What do you stand for?” Paula asks Mark at dinner one night. Later, he’s in “deep discourse” mode as he says, “See, this is the same old tribal thinking: replacing the old hierarchy with a new one.” Nicole piggybacks off that statement with, “My feeling is most of these activists, they don’t really wanna dismantle the systems of economic exploitation. Not the ones that benefit them, which are all global, by the way. They just want a better seat at the table of tyranny.” And maybe she’s not wrong, but it’s not as though “these activists” will ever be given the opportunity to know. They weren’t born rich enough to. “What does it matter if we think the ‘right’ things or the ‘wrong’ things. We all do the same shit. We’re all still parasites on the Earth!” Quinn finally exclaims, interrupting their petty squabbling. “There’s no virtuous person when we’re all eating the last fish and throwing all our plastic crap in the ocean.” This, indeed, plays into the idea that no life is more valuable than another, when, in fact, that’s what the entire notion of capitalism (sometimes loosely viewable as what Ayn Rand called “objectivism”) is based on. “Some people count, some people don’t.” And those that “don’t count” work for rich people.
While Quinn’s little outburst is very “noble,” he, too, is ultimately unaware of what it’s really like for the other half as he wears an “End Homelessness” t-shirt—more white savior bullshit. Meanwhile, Mark lays it down with, “Nobody cedes their privilege. That’s absurd. It goes against human nature. We’re all just trying to win the game of life.” His vitriol amplifies as he sardonically offers, “Maybe we should just feel shitty about ourselves all the time for the crimes of the past.” Of course, that’s not what’s really being asked of rich white people, so much as the dismantling of systems deliberately designed to make those already in a “lesser than” position be doomed for their entire lives.
As all this is happening, Tanya is in the throes of falling for a more “salt of the earth” hotel guest named Greg (John Gries). She’s even more endeared to him when she mistakes him telling her he works for “the BLM” as Black Lives Matter but it’s actually “Bureau of Land Management.” And yet, this little misunderstanding acknowledges that rich white people love to feel as though they’re “part of” causes, even if on the periphery of them. It makes them feel like inherently less shitty people somehow.
But Paula knows nothing will ever make these people less shitty, which is why in episode five, “The Lotus-Eaters,” she instructs Kai on how to steal the oft-referred to $75,000 bracelets that Nicole wears when they’re not locked in the safe. Presenting him with a “wide open” opportunity while they’re all out on the boat for Quinn and Mark’s scuba diving jaunt in the “real world,” Kai can’t resist taking advantage. On a side note, the code to the safe is 1026, Olivia’s birth date—she’s a Scorpio, which makes a lot of sense. But the robbery becomes botched when a distraught Nicole returns to the room with Mark following her, ultimately “rescuing” her by taking a beatdown from Kai, who flees with the goods. Suddenly, this “heroism” has renewed Mark’s stature in Nicole’s eyes, all at once seeing him as a “man” again, instead of a little bitch of a house husband.
Armond, having had to deal with the Mossbachers’ drama, sits down at the end of the day and tells Belinda, “Sometimes just watching them eat every night makes me wanna gouge my eyes out. The lotus eaters.” He then recites the portion of Tennyson’s “The Lotos-Eaters,” albeit with omissions, as he opts for the selections, “Hateful is the dark-blue sky/Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea/Death is the end of life/Ah, why should life all labor be?” Well, it isn’t. When one is born a lotus eater, who feeds not only on the fruit of the lotus, but the system that cushions them from ever having to leave their dreamlike state.
The final episode, “Departures,” makes it crystal clear (if it wasn’t already) that when you try to fight the stars a.k.a. rise above “your station,” catastrophe inevitably ensues. While Kai would have been happy to have Paula simply stay behind with him in his small abode, she wanted him to reach higher, forgetting that things don’t work out so seamlessly for people of his class stature (or lack thereof).
As Armond delights in going further off the rails, Dillon follows him into his office and asks, “Is this like a kamikaze situation?” More to the point, will Dylan be taken down with Armond? Armond returns, “What do you care? They exploit me, I exploit you. Crash and burn, Dillon. Better at your age, before you’ve wasted your entire life.” This, to be sure, is what most people have to do in order to secure their basic livelihood, never so lucky as to pepper their existence with “fun jaunts” to Hawaii and the like.
Olivia, meanwhile, has grown wise to Paula tipping Kai off to their room, making digging remarks at her about stealing when Olivia is actually well-known for stealing the guy Paula likes every time she sees the attraction develop (which is the main reason Paula kept her trysts with Kai a secret). Unable to take Olivia’s phony self-righteousness, Paula snaps, “I guess it’s not stealing when you think everything’s already yours. Just stop pretending to be my friend. I’m just some prop you use for some weird cred.” And it’s true that many who take the risk on being friends with whites feel this way. Even if that’s not the case, it’s difficult to not feel such a sentiment at some moment in the friendship when the divide becomes all too palpable.
As for Tayna, she’s gone off her own deep end with Greg—even though he offers plenty of telltale signs about his poor health. Which is why Tanya tells Belinda, regarding their so-called business plans, that the last thing she wants is another transactional relationship. This said before slipping her a large envelope of cash. It, naturally, makes Belinda feel like a big ol’ emotional prostitute Tanya was just using the entire time to unload on. And it completely negates any kind of genuine connection Belinda might have foolishly believed they shared. But it’s impossible to share a connection with a rich person, especially if you aren’t one.
In this instant of Tanya arbitrarily backing out, we’re shown that, even at the most “minuscule” of levels, rich people hold everyone’s lives in the balance, yet have no awareness of how their little “experiments” or “fun and games” affect others when they’re done playing, likely having lost focus and moving on to something else. A new “toy” to play with.
Rachel happens to catch Belinda right after this fallout. And even though Belinda had told her to call if she wanted to talk through her “problems,” it’s clear that dear B has finally reached the end of her rope in trying to “understand” this stratum. Thus, while Rachel tells Belinda her “problems” with having a life of no problems as a result of staying married to Shane, you can see she’s all out of sympathy for any of these people, speaking up when asked, “You want my advice? I’m all out.” You can’t console those who are desperate to create problems where there are none. And even Rachel can see that having money is probably more important than having self-respect. In this sense, she can technically relate to the staff at The White Lotus in terms of needing to be willing to surrender her dignity for the cash.
Soon after these final denouements, everything goes back to the way it was, including Paula and Olivia’s friendship based on reading and being smug (Paula choosing Discourse on Colonialism and Olivia Écrits for their airport waiting books). Except for Armond, who is met with a far more severe fate for his “daring” to “go against” the rich. It is while sitting in his office drugged out of his mind that the flood of insane, maniacal demands of the customers plays in his head like a greatest hits of white privilege before he’s emboldened to enter the fabled Pineapple Suite, where Shane and Rachel have finally been moved to after a great power struggle. What follows reveals that the absurdity of Armond’s entire existence—or anyone’s existence that must cater to the whims of those with more money, therefore power. A life ultimately summed up by his demise, which, in spite of its ridiculousness and unjustness, he has to laugh at. Would that we could all do the same in order to keep from crying.
