White Lotus Season 3 - Review and Analysis

• WARNING: SPOLIERS *

This seems to be what White Lotus is telling us. The rich swan about from place to place in their jets and their yachts and behind every one of them there lies a crime. And for the poor - the Belindas and Gaitoks of the world - there is only one way out - crime.

Whether it’s Greg or Khun Hollinger or Tim Ratliffe - all the fortunes we see in the series are built on some crime or the other. And though it seems that they are enjoying their wealth, we only realise the extent of their suffering when they are juxtaposed against the monk who seems to not be suffering at all. While Greg is on the run and knows no peace or love, the Ratliffes are also trapped in their own samsara - drugs and alcohol and other salves and balms against suffering. You can see the tightness and ‘soul-lessness’ of Saxon as another form of suffering.

And yet, everyone is trying to get where the rich are.

There is another theme wound up along with the theme of crime - innocence. Chelsea, Lochlan, Fabian and to some extent Laurie. They go through the series in stark relief of the other protagonists.

To me, Chelsea represents the Universe. The universe is feminine and it is inviting you to love but you’re trapped in Maya — some story your drug addict mother told you when you were a kid — and this Maya has built for you a reality that is completely fake and all your life you’ve been believing this story while all the time the universe is asking you to drop your attachment and come play, come be loved but no - you just cannot put this burden down.

Gaitok is perched on the middle. He doesn’t desire riches for their own sake. He justs wants the girl. Whatever - desire, attachment - takes him down the karmic path of the bodyguard job and sunglasses and travel and money but it’s unclear how he will manage the stain on his soul. He’s become the killer the world needs but at what cost?

The series is Buddhist in so much of its messaging.

The three friends — Jaclyn, Laurie and Kate — what do they represent? For the moment I am going with attachment. Jaclyn and Kate have something to lose. Career, family. They’re attached. Unhappily but attached. Laurie is unattached to either — she used to be, but her attachments only brought her pain. In that sense, losing what she worked for has put her ahead of her two friends. Jaclyn is on the verge of losing her career. Kate seems ok for now, but what do we know? She had to change everything — going to church now and voting for Trump are some of the ways in which we see her contorting herself into her new life. Prisons, prisons everywhere. And then Laurie, being further ahead in her karmic journey than the others, arrives at an epiphany. that she’s just happy to be at the table. This! This is the path to your freedom, if only you will but let go of that thing that you’re clenching.