So, here we are. Once more, the doors to the White Lotus hotel have swung open; guests are being admitted and one of them is in store for a potentially fatal end to their holiday, if the pre-credits sequence is anything to go by. Banish all thoughts of heart attacks and yacht disasters. This time, there’s been a shooting, and as a body drifts into view (though of course, we have no idea who it is yet – that would spoil the fun) the credits roll jauntily. So far, so White Lotus: for what satire about the mega rich is complete without a death or two, even if the hotel where they all happen is surely set to go out of business in a few years.
What other delights does its creator, Mike White, have in store for us this time? An all-new setting - Thailand - for one thing. An all-new cast of wealthy weirdos, for another. There’s Jason Isaacs, playing a deep South businessman with an accent so thick it’s like he’s rolling the words around his mouth before spitting them out. With him is Parker Posey, a MAGA-lite mom, and their three kids, each of whom are as weird as the last – including Patrick Schwarzenegger, whose take on the sex-obsessed nepo-bro is lip-smackingly awful.
“I don’t need to vacation. I love working,” he proclaims at one point. “Saxon works for his father. They love it. It’s Tim’s dream,” Parker’s MAGA-mom says, adding, “We’re a normal family!” when the kids start squabbling about genitals and sleeping arrangements. As they then shift to complaining about the hotel being a digital detox zone, the painful smile on their attendant’s face is stretched to breaking point. The awkwardness is delicious.
As the episode unfurls – slowly, sedately, taking the time to set up each of its characters – we also meet Michelle Monaghan, Carrie Coon and Leslie Bibb, who play a gaggle of three middle-aged women reconnecting after an adulthood spent growing apart – “longtime friends, not old,” they proclaim, while simultaneously eyeing up the hot masseuse pushed their way by the manager. And Walton Goggins, who plays the perpetually disgusted, weary Rick, who’s clearly there for duplicitous reasons – unlike his girlfriend, the perpetually thrilled Chelsea.
Oh, and did I mention? There are returning cast members. Sadly not Jennifer Coolidge (RIP Tanya, forever missed) but the next best thing: Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), the masseuse-turned-entrepreneur who became Tanya’s confidante during season one, only to be screwed over royally by her in the season finale. Now, she’s in the driving seat, visiting the resort to “exchange skills” with the staff (and, ahem, with her handsome tutor), and – in a neat callback to season one – sitting alone in the evenings at a table for one, a la Tanya.
As we’d expect from a White Lotus TV show, it looks beautiful. The shots of the Sicilian Moor’s Heads in season two have been replaced with ones of gargoyles and the gorgeous Thai landscape – intercut, of course, with less glamorous shots of the resort’s employees, like Mook (Blackpink’s Lisa) going to work. White’s trademark, biting wit is back in spades, too. “You’ll notice a lot of bald white guys in Thailand,” one character tells another, as the camera pans across a field of them. “The locals call them LBHs. Losers back home.”.
As the episode unrolls before us, breadcrumbs start being dropped for future plotlines. The three women are all smiles on the surface, but something darker is clearly bubbling just underneath. Goggins’ Rick’s furtive, shifting eyes imply that he’s got plots on the go, most of which probably concern his apparent lack of money – and towards the end of the episode, Isaacs’ businessman Tim gets a call that will likely make his relaxing holiday into something a whole lot more stressful.
In other words, the spark is not gone. All the ingredients are there for something magical: it seems there’s still a lot of mileage in skewering the super rich. And why not? While they bumble their way from one disaster to another in paradise, we can sit in our cold houses back home and watch it all unfurl. That’s karma. The White Lotus airs on Sky Atlantic at 2am on Monday February 17, and will be available to watch after on Sky and NOW.
