The White Lotus - series three - starts February 17th

[curiositykilledthiscat]

The Emmy-award winning HBO original series, which offers an inside look at the powerful and wealthy as they navigate complex personal dynamics and face potentially dangerous experiences while on vacation, returns for its third season this month.

"Seeking peace can be a trip," reads the tagline for this season, which was created, written and directed by former "Survivor" contestant Mike White.
This time around, viewers will be whisked away to an "exclusive" resort in Thailand, where an eclectic group of guests and resort employees will play, and likely misbehave, over the span of a week. "The White Lotus" Season 3 guests include a wealthy businessman and his family, three longtime friends who haven't seen each other in a while on a girls' trip and "rugged man with a chip on his shoulder" and his girlfriend, among others.

Anyone else looking forward to this? Starts on Monday and will be shown on Now and Sky. No watching on demand as all episodes will be dropped weekly.

I love that the stand out character from each season is a female character. Played by an older (55+) actress too. 🙌

A gift 😂

In season 2 she does talk about it and seems to regret it.

I've rewatched the season again because dd wanted to watch it. It is so much funnier the 2nd time around. So many great comedy moments thst you don't appreciate on first watch because you are sitting there watching with a real sense of dread. The scenes with Frank and Sritala were hilarious but I didn't get a sense of it first time round because I was on the edge of my seat thinking Rick was going to waste Jim at any second.

Just seen a rumour that series 4 will be set in Berlin, not sure how true it is!

I saw an interview with Mike White where he said it be somewhere in Europe so maybe. Ive seen Norway mentioned as well.

Yes, I saw that Scandinavia had been mentioned.

This lady on tiktok did a comprehensive analysis of the possible location - it was established that it had to be European, luxury non beachy (no seafront this time) four seasons resort and what we were left with was France - and I thought this was delicious - if not a little national lampoon's European vacation.

I just listened to a podcast where they talked about Mike White saying in an interview that he would like to return to a more purely satirical take on celebrity so they were hypothesising that the next season could be based around a film festival.

https://deadline.com/2025/04/the-white-lotus-mike-white-teases-location-season-4-1236361757/

So probably not a cold weather country. I’m predicting either Spain or Greece as the location for season 4.

I don't see why not? There's Berlin, Toronto, Sundance…
A cold-weather location might be good; there could be skiing and all sorts of dangerous activities.

There’s a Four Seasons : Park Lane maybe we’ll get London?

The rumour is that it could be Morocco as White wants to do a season on every continent.

Please no it won't be the same with grey skies, that would be the final nail in the coffin for this show 😂

Maybe it pisses with rain all the time and all the guests stay in the hotel. It would be even more claustrophobic than usual

I'd heard Africa, potentially The Gambia. That could be very interesting, especially if one lot of guests are a wealthy African American or mixed race family.

Agree with all this apart from the death of dull Chelsea feeling “devastating” 🤣

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/apr/08/from-irritating-storylines-to-behind-the-scenes-bust-ups-how-the-white-lotus-went-off-a-cliff

That was exactly my reaction but I thought it was just me. Even in a luxury resort would a therapist (doctor, implied in psychiatry) really tell a patient in evidence crisis to go and sit on a bench so that they could give a mediation lesson to someone in normal post exam stress?

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250412092636/www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/apr/08/from-irritating-storylines-to-behind-the-scenes-bust-ups-how-the-white-lotus-went-off-a-cliff" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Non Paywall Link here

I spent the first half of the week struggling to avoid spoilers as I couldn't watch the final episode until Thursday. Now I've seen the whole series I'm probably going to watch it through again as I like it more in retrospect than at the time. Looking at the end game I think the slower pace in the episodes works better than it felt at the time.

I found Janice Turner's review to be nearer to my reaction - especially on how White observes bad behaviour but as in real life, observes it rather than feeling the need to "punish" it within the story.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/0623cee9-94f6-49c2-ae32-871fbc45806f?shareToken=6dde880a104a3148dd7d8998ff166c29

Loved Parker Posey through the series and her spot on analysis of her daughter combined with her simply letting it go once she had her way. Too much drama would have turned that into a generational spat rather than displaying the dynamic. I think this observing rather than apportioning blame and punishment is something White does well and its rare in moden TV drama. I've seen Maupin pull off this trick but not too many others.

The ghastly Greg swanning off with his Dubai "girlfriend", his half billion and his fetishes for a tiny fraction of his ill gotten fortune is perfectly believable.

The three schoolfriends overcoming their differences and agreeing to disagree because the friendship is more important is also much more in tune with my experience than dramatic callings out and spats over personal religion or politics.

Chelsea's murder was sad but I think she and Rick were wearing the red shirts for most of the series. Once Rick was rejected first by his natural father, then by the therapist at a critical moment it was going to end in death.

I thought two of the saddest endings were Gaitok and Belinda - both corrupted by the wealth surrounding them. I suspect that in another series or two Belinda will be back as a paid therapist, having lost the money in Zion's over confident business advice. The sharks will see him coming. In real life, Pook would not be the winner - having pushed Gaitok to be as violent as the official bodyguards he will make more money, spend more time in the city and probably find a more expensive girl.

I've no idea why they put Lisa Manobal in the role of Pook with so little to do. She just seemed to be simpering in the background with a few trite lines and that is shame.

I'd like to see the next series in one of the luxury, gated resorts in Africa and observe the cross class/multi race politics played out in those resorts. Possibly bring Mombasa back into fashion at the same time but the Cape could also work.

It was a disappointing season, and started to feel like Wiseau's The Room in which plot points are raised in one scene and quickly forgotten about.

A lot of backstories were just missing, thought there was going to be more to Rick than revealed, nothing more really revealed about Greg, the Ratcliffes didn't go anywhere, would've been dark if the Russians were to be deported and forced to fight and die in Ukraine etc.

I think one of the reasons some people feel WL can be slow or just lacking in something is because of the flash forward in the opening episode. You see/hear a shoot out and know at least one person is dead so it sets a certain expectation and gets you to consider who dies, who is the murderer etc. Then the actual series is more of a slow look at relationships and interactions rather than a thriller.

I wonder how different a watch it would be without the flash forward but still the same ending.

I disagree and think people feel WL series 3 was just too slow compared to series 1 & 2 which developed interesting storylines earlier on.

Nothing happened at all in series 1 until the last episode!

I agree that there are so many people now just expecting tok/ insta type of quick hits of dopamine and expect deaths and explosions every episode of a tv series. I love the slow burn of the White Lotus and all of the analysis it generates after every episode. I enjoyed the Times review C8H10N4O2. Thanks for posting* *

Disagree I was hooked on series 1 very quickly & there was lots going on.

I loved Series 3, I rarely watch dramas and loved only having an episode per week. The acting was amazing, the setting of Thailand beautiful. I love the complex characters and the lack of judgement and preaching in the show. I can’t wait for the next series.