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The White Lotus season 3
Season of television series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The third season of The White Lotus, an American satirical comedy-drama anthology television series, premiered on HBO on February 16, 2025. The season was greenlit in November 2022, and filmed in Bangkok, Phuket, and Ko Samui from February to August 2024. Series creator Mike White wrote and directed all eight episodes.
The season features an ensemble cast of Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Sarah Catherine Hook, Jason Isaacs, Lalisa Manobal, Michelle Monaghan, Sam Nivola, Lek Patravadi, Parker Posey, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Tayme Thapthimthong, Aimee Lou Wood, Sam Rockwell and Scott Glenn, with Natasha Rothwell and Jon Gries reprising their roles from prior seasons. The series follows the lives of the staff and wealthy guests at a wellness resort in Thailand. The season received mostly positive reviews from critics, but many criticized the slow pacing and found the final episode disappointing.[1][2][3]
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Cast and characters
Main
- Leslie Bibb as Kate Bohr, a country club wife from Austin, Texas, one of three longtime friends reuniting on a girls' trip
- Carrie Coon as Laurie Duffy, a corporate lawyer and recent divorcée from New York City, one of three longtime friends reuniting on a girls' trip
- Walton Goggins as Rick Hatchett, a rugged and mysterious man with a chip on his shoulder, traveling with his young girlfriend Chelsea
- Sarah Catherine Hook as Piper Ratliff, a college senior studying religion and middle child of Timothy and Victoria
- Jason Isaacs as Timothy Ratliff, a financier in jeopardy from Durham, North Carolina, vacationing with his wife, Victoria, and kids Saxon, Piper, and Lochlan
- Lalisa Manobal as Thidapon "Mook" Sornsin, a health mentor for guests of the White Lotus
- Michelle Monaghan as Jaclyn Lemon, a successful television actress based in Hollywood, one of three longtime friends reuniting on a girls' trip
- Sam Nivola as Lochlan Ratliff, a shy high school senior and Timothy and Victoria's youngest child
- Lek Patravadi as Sritala Hollinger, one of the owners of the White Lotus, who pioneered its health program
- Parker Posey as Victoria Ratliff, Timothy's wife and mother to Saxon, Piper, and Lochlan
- Natasha Rothwell as Belinda Lindsey, a spa manager from the White Lotus in Hawaii, attending a work exchange. Rothwell reprises her role from the first season
- Patrick Schwarzenegger as Saxon Ratliff, Timothy and Victoria's oldest child, who works for his father's company
- Tayme Thapthimthong as Gaitok, a security guard at the White Lotus
- Aimee Lou Wood as Chelsea, a free spirit from Manchester traveling with Rick, her much older boyfriend
- Jon Gries as "Gary" / Greg Hunt,[a] a man involved with Chloe and the widower of Tanya McQuoid. Gries reprises his role from the first and second seasons.
- Sam Rockwell as Frank,[b] Rick's friend and former associate
- Scott Glenn as Jim Hollinger,[c] Sritala's American husband who has recently suffered a stroke
Recurring
- Nicholas Duvernay as Zion Lindsey, Belinda's college-aged son who is visiting her after finishing his business degree
- Arnas Fedaravicius as Valentin, a Russian health mentor for Jaclyn, Laurie, and Kate
- Christian Friedel as Fabian, the general manager of Thailand's The White Lotus
- Dom Hetrakul as Pornchai, the wellness expert at the White Lotus who is assigned to train Belinda
- Charlotte Le Bon as Chloe, an ex-model French-Canadian expat who is Greg's current partner
- Morgana O'Reilly as Pam, a health mentor for the Ratliffs
- Shalini Peiris as Amrita, a meditation teacher and spiritual counselor at the White Lotus
- Julian Kostov as Aleksei, Valentin's friend
- Yuri Kolokolnikov as Vlad, Valentin's friend
- Suthichai Yoon as Luang Por Teera, the head of the local Buddhist monastery
- Yothin Udomsanti as Pee Lek, head of security at the White Lotus, Gaitok's supervisor
Guest
- Carl Boudreaux and Natalie Cole as two hotel guests[4]
- Ke Huy Quan as the voice of Kenneth "Kenny" Nguyen, Timothy's former business partner[5]
- Scott Galloway as the voice of Chuck, Timothy's lawyer[6]
- Rob Carlton as Rupert, Greg's friend, a middle-aged Australian man with a young Thai girlfriend
- Liddy Clark as Australian woman #1
- Wendy Strehlow as Australian woman #2
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Episodes
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Production
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Development
On November 18, 2022, preceding the premiere of the second season, HBO renewed The White Lotus for a third season.[15] Following the second-season finale, series creator Mike White hinted that it would be set in Asia and invoke a "satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality", similar to how the first season focused on money and the second season on sex.[16]
According to executive producer Mark Kamine, White decided at the outset that the third season would explore Eastern philosophy, so the original list of candidate locations included Bali, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand.[17] Through various discussions and research, the list was narrowed to Japan and Thailand, and then Kamine, White, "and others" took research trips to both countries.[17]
On one of those trips, White contracted bronchitis and was given a steroid nebulizer.[18] While recovering, "he found himself imagining a group of Westerners who descend on Thailand in search of spiritual revival".[18] The art seen in the opening credits was inspired by murals in Wat Supat, one of the temples visited by the producers.[19]
White scouted locations in other Thailand destinations but initially refused to visit Ko Samui.[20] He did not have fond memories of the island, because he had already stayed there twice before when he competed on The Amazing Race and the island was used as the show's elimination station.[20] Since the first two seasons of The White Lotus had already been filmed at Four Seasons resorts, another producer went to scout the Four Seasons resort on the island, and eventually White was persuaded to give it a chance.[20]
The third season's production was disrupted by the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, resulting in the release being pushed to 2025.[21][22]
Casting
Upon the third-season renewal announcement, producers confirmed that there would be a new cast of characters in another White Lotus resort.[23] In April 2023, Natasha Rothwell was reported to be reprising her role as Belinda for the series' third season.[24] In January 2024, it was announced that Leslie Bibb, Jason Isaacs, Michelle Monaghan, Parker Posey, Dom Hetrakul, Tayme Thapthimthong,[25] Carrie Coon,[26] Miloš Biković, Christian Friedel, Morgana O'Reilly, Lek Patravadi, Shalini Peiris,[27] Walton Goggins, Sarah Catherine Hook, Sam Nivola, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Aimee Lou Wood,[28] Francesca Corney, Nicholas Duvernay, and Arnas Fedaravičius joined the cast for the season.[29] Biković's casting was criticized by Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs over his alleged support for Russia's invasion of the country; Biković was subsequently dropped from the cast on February 2, and replaced with Julian Kostov,[30][31] who appeared in a recurring capacity.[32] In February 2024, Scott Glenn and Lalisa Manobal were cast in the season.[33][34] In March 2024, Charlotte Le Bon joined the cast several weeks after shooting began to replace Corney in a re-casting[35] after it became apparent that Corney in person was "quite petite and just going to play too young," according to casting director Meredith Tucker.[36] Woody Harrelson was set to play the role of Frank, but scheduling conflicts meant he had to drop out;[36] the part went to Sam Rockwell and was kept unannounced until March 16, 2025 when his surprise cameo in the fifth episode aired.[37]
Wood later revealed that Chelsea was originally written as an American. During her audition, she was asked to use an American accent and her natural Mancunian accent, and White liked the latter so much that he rewrote Chelsea around Wood's accent.[38]
Filming
In March 2023, Variety reported that filming for the third season was likely to take place in one of the Four Seasons hotels in Thailand.[39] Honshu, Japan, was scouted as a filming location by Mike White but ultimately Thailand was chosen because the series received a $4.4 million tax incentive for filming there, while Japan does not have a film-incentive system.[40] Principal photography began in February 2024 with locations including Bangkok, Phuket, and Ko Samui,[41][42][43][44] and wrapped in August 2024.[45]
The fictional White Lotus resort depicted in the show is a composite of scenes shot mostly at the Four Seasons Resort in Ko Samui, together with several scenes shot elsewhere at several other resorts around that island and Phuket.[17] The main effect the producers were looking for in scouting locations was that all the common spaces at the White Lotus needed to look "beautiful" and have "real impact".[17] The Four Seasons was used for its villas, common areas, paths, swimming pool, and fitness areas, and was the site of all breakfast and lunch scenes.[46] However, the resort's restaurant was too dark at night for filming dinners, while its reception area was designed to shock arriving guests with the view from the resort's hillside location but was not properly designed for filming scenes of guests checking into a luxury resort.[20] Accordingly, dinner scenes were filmed at a restaurant at the Rosewood Phuket.[46] The cast and crew worked through the night at the Rosewood to shoot together all the evening dining scenes and ended their workday with a group breakfast.[19] Reception area scenes were filmed at the Anantara Mai Khao Phuket,[20] along with the spa scenes.[46] The security station, driveway, and jewelry store scenes were filmed at the Anantara Bophut Koh Samui.[46] Frank's wild monologue to Rick was filmed at the Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok.[46]
The four resorts which appeared as the White Lotus differ significantly from their fictional counterpart in that they do not have a sandbar nearby[46] and they are all monkey-free.[19] However, the birds and monitor lizard were authentic, since the Anantara Mai Khao happens to sit inside a nature preserve.[19]
One of the biggest obstacles encountered by the cast and crew was filming in Thailand's scorching tropical heat. Air conditioning was too noisy to be used while cameras were rolling; the cast had to do their best "to look as if they're having a good time" on vacation, but the truth was that they could "barely function".[47]
Being a late addition to the cast, Sam Rockwell filmed his scenes in one week during a break from shooting Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die in South Africa.[48]
The Muay Thai fight scene was filmed at Bangla Boxing Stadium in Phuket.[49]
Post-production
The third season qualified for a $550,000 tax credit from the government of Hawaii, because HBO assigned the post-production work to a team of eight people who worked out of a timeshare unit on the island of Kauai.[50] An improvised editing bay was set up in the unit, which was across the street from White's house in Kauai.[18]
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Release
The third season premiered on February 16, 2025, on HBO, with the eighth and final episode released on April 6, 2025.[51][52]
The third season was the first season for which Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts openly promoted its connection to the show (all three seasons to date were shot at Four Seasons resorts).[53] In the lead-up to the season finale on April 6, 2025, the joint promotion culminated in the temporary transformation of the Four Seasons Westlake Village into a White Lotus resort, a screening of the season finale in the ballroom with many of the cast members, and a panel discussion moderated by Tan France.[54]
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Reception
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Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 181 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads, "Darker and more patient with its storytelling than previous seasons while brandishing a superb new ensemble full of acidic performances, The White Lotus' third season offers a spiritual respite that shivs the soul."[55] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 77 out of 100, based on 44 critic reviews.[56]
In RogerEbert.com, Brian Tallerico said season three "will likely be the most visually striking drama you watch this year. White takes full advantage of his setting in a manner that brings it to life in ways that even the last two gorgeous settings didn't produce. The way he constructs his episodes, not just narratively but visually, is arguably without peer on TV right now. He somehow finds a way to capture the opulence and beauty of Thailand while never losing the realism of the stories he's telling there. It's a balancing act between the beauty and the humanity. Of course, the show really comes to life where they intersect."[57] In IndieWire, Ben Travers gave the season a grade of "A-", saying it "smashes each character's flimsy values in ways both hilarious and harrowing. They cannot outrun their pain, but in White's transfixing, exacting new season, their pain can still become our pleasure".[58] With its spiritual themes, some critics likened the season to White's previous series, Enlightened.[59][60]
The cast received widespread acclaim. In The Washington Post, Lili Loofbourow said, "It's fascinating to watch Goggins in particular — who's usually such a scamp — in this subdued mode".[60] She added, "Coon is of course extraordinary, Monaghan is messy and bold and Bibb excels at projecting a rigid, pleasant diplomacy that gets increasingly brittle as the season unfolds. That old 'White Lotus' magic comes back full force in every scene these three share…Each conversation nudges the obvious tensions forward just a tad. It's propulsive. It's believable. It's very, very funny."[60]
Some critics noted the season gets off to a slower start. However, Alison Herman of Variety said "when the story coalesces and kicks into gear somewhere around its halfway point, it's as wild and unpredictable as any of the powder kegs White has combusted".[61] In Entertainment Weekly, Kristen Baldwin gave the season a grade of "B" and said "The White Lotus still works. Even when the storytelling lags, it's still impossible to check out early."[62]
Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote that White "makes effective use of ominous dreams and portents, letting the spiritual murmur in the air of this lavish jungle compound eerily inform the story. The season is about a sickness of the soul—or, perhaps, the sickness of not having a soul at all."[63] He added this "round of episodes is gloomier than seasons one and two, though still sharp and intriguing where it counts".[63] Of the new characters, Lawson said he found the trio of girlfriends to be the "dishiest and most fun", with "shiveringly credible dialogue delivered with natural flair by the actors".[63]
More critical reviews opined that the show was returning to familiar territory and themes of previous seasons instead of covering new narrative ground.[64][65] Lawson noted, "It's all interesting, but the sense of tight control and inventiveness that made the previous two seasons such wonders is not quite there," and commented that the season relies "on perhaps a few too many clichés as [White] struggles to come up with new things for curdled rich people to do".[63] Kathryn VanArendonk of Vulture said, "It's fun when The White Lotus reconsiders itself in structural ways, but at other points there's something anxious about how the series wants to wrestle with its previous obsessions, or continue to ignore its repeated blindspots, like pressing on a bruise to make sure it's still there."[66] In The New Yorker, Inkoo Kang said, "The season as a whole feels trapped between tones: not quite dark enough to confront what happens in a country where foreigners can buy nearly anything they want for the right price, nor frothy enough to simply showcase the baroque weirdness of the wealthy."[67]
Multiple critics expressed that the native characters of color are not given as much depth as the white lead characters.[65][64][68] VanArendonk wrote, "As various season-three characters seek enlightenment or escape, they recreate the season-one dynamic where white characters are full of fascinating, absorbing peculiarities, while the non-white hotel staff are one-note ciphers, destined to keep the plot moving but not have interiority or complex emotional lives."[66] Mel Wang of Rolling Stone Philippines praised Thai actors Manobal, Thapthimthong, and Hetrakul's performances, but said that "good acting isn't enough to save half-baked character arcs." They further criticized the Thai characters' story arcs for "merely act[ing] as vehicles to drive the storylines of the show's American protagonists", lamenting Gaitok (Thapthimthong)'s "wasted" storyline in particular.[69]
Audience viewership and response
The third season is the most-watched season of The White Lotus and averaged more than 5 million more viewers than the second season, which had an average of 15.5 million viewers. The eighth and final episode of the season was the most-watched episode of the series at 6.2 million viewers across its linear airings on HBO and its streaming viewership on Max.[70] The season premiere had 2.4 million viewers, episodes 3 and 4 had 3.4 million, episode 5 had 4.2 million, and episode 7 had 4.8 million, while viewership from episodes 2 and 5 were not released.[71][72]
Ko Samui, the shooting location of the third season, experienced a 65% increase in hotel bookings and reservations since its premiere.[73]
Accolades
The third season received 10 nominations at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards and 13 nominations at the 77th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.[74] It is nominated for Outstanding Drama Series, and received several acting nominations, including Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, and Sam Rockwell for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series; Carrie Coon, Parker Posey, Natasha Rothwell, and Aimee Lou Wood for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series; and Scott Glenn for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. Mike White is nominated for Outstanding Directing (for the episode "Amor Fati") and Outstanding Writing (for "Full-Moon Party").[75]
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Notes
References
External links
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