(Credits: Far Out / HBO Max)
All of our White Lotus Christmases have come at once. Just when it seemed like creator Mike White had lost his touch, episode four of season three hits like the long-awaited beat of a techno track. We should have known that this episode would hit a new level as soon as the yacht pulled up. All of the best episodes of The White Lotus have involved yachts. Think of Tanya trying to scatter her mother’s ashes in the first season or that final party in the second season. It all comes down to the yachts and the people who own them, and last night’s episode delivered.
Finally, we have an instalment so full of consequential moments that it’s hard to keep track. Chelsea has, at long last, had enough of Rick’s casual cruelty and threatened to walk out on him if he didn’t confide in her. (Yes, Chelsea!) Tim has gone into a full tailspin and has stolen not just a few of Victoria’s lorazepam pills but the whole bottle. He also flashed his children in a moment of frustration over Saxon’s protein shake, a truly perfect moment that calls back Steve Zahn’s similarly disgruntled full-frontal moment in season one.
Chloe ditches Greg/Gary and is partying with Saxon and Lochy on the yacht for the full moon. Rick has finally told Chelsea that he’s going to Bangkok to confront his father’s killer. Belinda discovers (somehow for the first time) that Tanya died in mysterious circumstances, and Greg/Gary is wanted for questioning. And Jaclyn’s crew gets the Triangle of Sadness treatment.
Most consequentially, perhaps, is that Gaitok has a serious chat with the head of security about the robbery and is given a gun. After the opening scene in episode 1, in which the resort echoed with gunshots, we knew it was only a matter of time before a firearm appeared. Instead of leaving Gaitok’s acquisition of the gun as a mild cliffhanger, however, we finally get a handful of genuinely suspenseful cliffhangers, including the fact that Tim seemingly takes the gun while Gaitok is talking to Mook. He’s off his head on lorazepam, has just been told his assets are frozen, and’s almost certainly going to prison. He has just screamed at his lawyer over the phone that he’d rather be dead than tell his family that they are now poor. Things do not look good.
Tim isn’t the only one consumed with thoughts of the end. Death hangs over the entire episode. Early on, Chelsea tells Rick that things happen in threes and that after her near-death experiences of being in a robbery and being bitten by a venomous snake, she’s pretty sure she knows what happens next. “Death is coming for me,” she says, with her usual cheeky smile. Rick is contemplating the death that happened before he was even born. When he tells Chelsea on the yacht that the owner of the White Lotus murdered his father, she asks him if this is a Princess Bride situation (“You killed my father, prepare to die”). He says he isn’t sure. But anyone who’s been keeping track of that furrowed brow from the first episode can be pretty confident he knows exactly what his plans are.
Meanwhile, Belinda and Greg/Gary are onto each other. She does a quick internet search for Tanya, apparently for the first time, and discovers that she died in Italy. (It seems like this information would have reached her long before now. Tanya was a frequent White Lotus guest, and her mysterious death would surely have been a topic of conversation at the Hawaii resort where Belinda still works). Much more concerningly, however, Greg/Gary now seems to be on the offensive. The end of the episode shows him tracking down Belinda on Instagram and zooming in on a picture of her son, Zion, who is on his way to Thailand.
The most enjoyable part of the episode was the utter demolition of Jaclyn’s character. Her husband isn’t answering her calls, and she decides to launch into party mode in retaliation. When she asks Valentin to recommend a more lively part of the area, he directs her, Laurie, and Kate to another resort down the beach. Jaclyn’s dawning realisation that he’s sent them to a cheaper hotel for retirees is shot like a drug trip. She gazes in horror at bodies with cellulite and wrinkles as if she’s hallucinating the Underworld. It’s the first time we’ve seen Jaclyn really lose her shit, and it tells you everything you need to know about her.
Valentin gets even more vicious later in the episode when he leaves the women on their own in the centre of town, where a hoard of children with water guns terrorises them. We don’t often get to see White Lotus guests mingling with the general public, and it’s an inspired move. Sure, it might not hit Ruben Östlund levels of savagery, but watching these women cower in a convenience store like they’re living through a Thai version of Assault on Precinct 13 is a highlight of the season, and helps rebalance the perspective after last week’s Trump revelation. Kate might have voted for the short-finger vulgarian, but that doesn’t mean she’s any worse than Jaclyn or Laurie.
And finally, I cannot conclude this recap without the most obvious and triumphant development: they brought the music back. That flawless theme song with all the breathless, unhinged voices appeared for several seconds towards the end of the episode. It wasn’t enough to fully capitulate to those who have been crying out for its return, but it was enough to reassert the dominance of the showrunner. With this episode, Mike White is in full possession of the ball again, and with that blip of the iconic theme song, he’s arching a single eyebrow at us, reminding everyone that he knows exactly what he’s doing.
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