Is it just me, or is something weird happening in The White Lotus’ much-anticipated third season?. Specifically, something weird and incestuous. We’re only two episodes in and people already have thoughts about one of the storylines in particular: that concerning the Ratliff family.
“No, they wouldn't dare go where I'm thinking with his character, would they?” one person tweeted, after scenes of Patrick Schwarzenegger’s nepo-bro Saxon, full-frontal in the bathroom, being watched by his brother. Reader, they might. There’s no denying that this is one of the weirdest dynamics the show has seen so far; as the uber-wealthy Ratliff family settle into a week at the White Lotus’ Thailand branch, we’re getting increasing signs that they are sex-obsessed beyond the point of what is healthy for normal family dynamics.
“It’s weird because you’re so hot but you’ve never had sex. It’s like a compliment,” younger brother Lochlan tells his sister, Piper, at one point – parroting words Saxon’s been saying. “It’s not that bad, it’s not a big deal.”.
It kind of is, to be honest – as is Lochlan ogling Saxon in their shared bedroom. But would they make the implicit, explicit?. Maybe. “Storytelling is absolutely bound to transgressions and breaking boundaries, and [TV] offers a safe way of doing that,” says Dr Beth Johnson, a Professor of Television and Media at the University of Leeds.
It might be horrible, but that’s part of the appeal of a series where bad things happen to bad people. “Part of the reason that we already watch the White Lotus is about eating the rich. There is definitely that aspect of watching, almost to be able to go, ‘how disgusting.’ There’s this veneer of beauty and beautiful locations and beneath everything's corrupt and broken.”.
But it’s not just about that – for the show’s creator Mike White, it’s may also be about what might be at the root of the Ratliff family’s behaviour. “Mike White is so intrigued by and wants to explore that deep corruption within the world of wealthy elites,” Dr Johnson explains. For her, the potential incest storyline is less about incest and more about power.
“What can you buy if you have so much wealth and power and privilege? When essentially you can buy anything, where do you stop? Where do you get your kicks when you can afford anything you want?”. Plus, when it comes to this particular story, there are all those toxic masculinity elements to consider. The Ratliff family is a traditional one: Saxon’s jokes about women and trans people are decidedly un-PC, something his mother seems to love.
“What is Saxon trying to be? He's essentially trying to be his dad [and trying out] that notion of, you know, what does it mean to be a man who has ultimate power,” says Johnson. In an era when Trump has come to power (as well as his vision of the uber-conservative male patriarch), it’s an interesting time to be drawing comparisons between the ultra-right-wing views espoused by his base and the nepotism he seems to love.
There’s no denying that there is a lot of incest on our screens at the moment. The biggest offender, of course, is The House of the Dragon, the HBO Game of Thrones spin-off in which most of the Targaryen protagonists end up marrying each other. Plus, there’s the 2010 show Boardwalk Empire, in which character Jimmy Darmody literally sleeps with his mother, Gillian. And the original Game of Thrones series, whose pilot episode featured twins Jaime and Cersei hooking up and pushing a child out of a tower.
Then there are the incest-adjacent plotlines that don’t involve siblings that are blood related but are still deeply icky. Cruel Intentions went there with the step-siblings back in 1999, for instance, while tv series Dexter had the murderous protagonist falling in love with his adoptive sister Deborah (something that still divides fans to this day).
So why are directors so keen to go there?. “I think it is the absolute ultimate taboo,” says Johnson. That in itself is surely catnip for directors wanting to break boundaries, but the rise of streaming might have something to do with it, too – as well as streamers’ desires to offer their audiences novelty. “We see so much murder and violence on screens, to an extent that's not shocking. But this is shocking.”.
Regardless of how things play out in the third season of White Lotus, it’s going to be controversial. But that’s kind of the point. “This is Mike White to a tee, you know? He'll be very aware of you know things like Saltburn, and the sort of reaction that got… the sort of intimacy where it's so close and so bodily and so uncomfortable. It can just be used to shock, I think, but I definitely don't think that's why it's being used here.”.
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