HBO's award-winning series The White Lotus returns for its third season with the same familiar formula. Groups of guests (this season there was a family of five!) arrive by boat, and a line of smiling staff welcomes them on the beach. A week-long resort vacation should be enjoyable, and the healing package is designed to relax the body and mind.
White Lotus Resort Season 3 poster
But it is inevitable that something bad will happen. This season begins with a hail of bullets. Who is the once glamorous unlucky person floating down the river? Anyway, in White Lotus, after a week of good days in paradise, someone will die. In the first season, the death was done by the resort manager of Maui, and in the second season, the black waves of Sicily took away our favorite Tanya. This season revealed her last sight in the world, a leg floating above the water.
In the first two seasons, except for those who lost their lives, the rich are still rich after a week. They leave paradise unscathed and return to their previous lives, and their memories here will become the topic of conversation in the future. Nothing can change them, nothing can shake their status, whether it is the sea or the fragrance of the green jungle.
This season in Koh Samui, Asia, things have changed. The father, the pillar of the family of five, has a career change, and the family is facing the danger of sliding down the social ladder, and the danger is even more severe.
In the first two seasons, death came quietly and quickly, but this season it turned into robbery and massacre. After the epidemic, the wave of deglobalization is unstoppable. We have tasted more blood, the old order has been broken, and the world has become more dangerous. The dangerous people who haunt the white lotus have also upgraded from one to several.
The old villains share the same table and see through each other from the beginning. Jon Gries, a familiar face from the first two seasons, returns. This season he has a new name and a skinny new girlfriend. After getting rid of Tanya and taking over her wealth, what will his new business be?
Tanya and Jon Gries in season two, the latter of whom also appears in season three.
Walter Goggins, who ran away from "Fallout", plays Rick with the ferocity of a ghoul, but in White Lotus he feels pity for the venomous snakes and suffers from migraines and past troubles.
Rick
In the most luxurious holiday paradise, there is the most complex class structure. It is a place where good and bad people are mixed together, far away from the "civilized world", awakening the animal nature. If you look up, you will find that monkeys and humans share this space. They watch from a high place and do not disturb the guests. The altar dedicated to the gods in the resort, the bullied guards at the gate, the Buddhist temples in the town outside the village and the shacks performing venomous snake shows all point to the existence of another more complex world.
The female boss of White Lotus is the embodiment of the world of luxury and healing. She is graceful and sophisticated. When she walks towards you with a smile, her face after plastic surgery seems to be frozen in time in another dimension. This face is like the healing chicken soup she prepared with Asian culture and religion. It is obviously very strange, but like the emperor's new clothes, no one wears it.
Female Boss
Monkeys are the theme of White Lotus. In the first season, the father who was worried about his cancer expressed his views on monkeys and himself: "We are just monkeys, living in a little monkey world, driven by instinct to establish a class system and mate with each other."
There are many monkeys in the hotel in season 3
There are often inverted vision shots, the notes of the soundtrack jump restlessly, tsunamis, venomous snakes, and lizards staring at the camera. If you are as sensitive as Tanya, you will find that omens/omen are everywhere. Whether it is a good omen or a bad omen depends on your heart.
In White Lotus, everyone is uneasy. When shaping the portrait of the rich, screenwriter Mike White deliberately made most of the characters closely follow the public's stereotype of this group. First of all, every adult among them has a frown that even Botox can't loosen. Driven by anxiety, they talk and laugh loudly, flatter each other, and perform their built-in programs hard. They are sophisticated and arrogant, and are used to dividing people into different levels to facilitate themselves to deal with human affairs efficiently and ensure that their position remains unchanged. Men are keen on fitness and supplements, and women love facials and spas. When night falls, lorazepam sends them to sleep. But all this has limited effect, and the whispers of their companions can still wake people up in the moonlight.
There is also a deep gap between family members and close friends. When three middle-aged besties reunited after a long separation, the best moment was not the three of them chatting, but two of them secretly gossiping about her to comfort themselves for their frustration in life (see, she is not living a happy life either). It is difficult for wealthy middle-aged couples to share their sorrows. When their father encountered a crisis, his three children were immersed in their own troubles, unaware that a catastrophe was brewing for the family.
The three middle-aged plastic flower sisters
A seemingly happy family of five
The richer the house is, the more transparent it is. During the day, the holiday house with large glass areas blends into the sea and sky, making people feel that everything is hopeful. It is different at night. Such a house goes against the human instinct to avoid danger. The glass house in the jungle at night represents insecurity.
The first shot of the first episode comes from the dark sea near the coast, aiming at this brightly lit paradise on earth, reminding the audience that danger is approaching. Even if the distinguished guests in the house temporarily forget the threats from the outside world in the light, they will suddenly feel their hair stand on end and panic in their hearts at some point. They will be awakened by strange noises in their sleep, wake up from nightmares, find subtle changes in the room when they open the door when they return home at night, or be scared by the knocks on the glass door by their companions outside.
During the day, everyone was indoctrinated with the true meaning of health in their respective healing programs. The handsome guy from Vladivostok used "qigong" to transmit energy to you remotely, and the Thai therapist analyzed the relationship between your defensive posture and poor posture. Even your brother couldn't wait to make you understand the adverse effects of abstinence on physical and mental health. These were far from enough to offset the terror of the night.
So, while we join the screenwriters in mocking these healing products that are popular all over the world, we also empathize with the anxiety straitjacket that is impossible to take off.
In this environment, Chelsea, who is neither anxious nor ambitious, stands out. Chelsea is the young girlfriend of the dangerous Rick. After Tanya's death, Chelsea takes her place and becomes the most unpredictable and reasonable character among all the characters.
Chelsea
In the White Lotus world created by Mike White, the rich are the objects of ridicule and amusement for the audience. Their behavior is stereotyped and their thoughts are shallow. Except for being richer, they are actually the same as us. They are almost exhausted, powerless to change, confused, and they desire and fear the same things - they desire wealth and fear losing their stable position and falling down the social ladder.
Tanya in the first two seasons was an exception to the stereotype. She was as slow as a walrus, as changeable as the moon, a trembling jelly, more confused and desperate than the teenage characters in the show, but her desires were stronger than those of the animalistic men.
After Tanya died, it was Chelsea's turn to take her place. Chelsea, who simply loved Rick, had two big buck teeth. Her unwavering and simple values were so rare, shining like a coin in the sun. She and Tanya were completely different, one was super determined, the other was confused to death, but both were lovely souls in this show, reflecting all kinds of people.
In the adult world, there are still almost transparent teenagers floating around. In the first season, the boy from a rich family finally decided to stay in Hawaii for rafting. In this season, the same skinny boy character reappears. He is obedient, gentle, and the most inconspicuous person in the family. He is asked by his parents and brothers to go to college, stand up straight, gain muscle, and lose his virginity. But no one asked him, what do you want?
Youngest son of a family of five
During this week, the good boy also wants to make a decision, and a gentle storm is brewing. His sister's role is also soft and unformed. The whole family came here with her to complete her research project on Buddhism. Like her brother, the sister rebelled against the standard rich life followed by her parents. But in her conversation, she seemed to be bound by another set of rules. In other words, she yearns for ideal spiritual activities and has never seen the real world of black humor.
White Lotus is always a standard black comedy. Everyone in it is on edge. In the safest and most orderly environment, their animal nature gradually awakens and they begin to perceive the crisis lurking around them. In addition to the old villains who are planning bad things, the fuse is looming in every luxury holiday home. These people who were originally strangers will officially get to know each other. Their trajectories will converge until the final rain of bullets.
The tension is so intense that even Lisa's smile can't dispel it. Lisa, who plays the resort employee Pearl, has a beautiful smile when she first appears, like a slowly blooming flower. In the second episode, her smile fades. In the third episode, she is overwhelmed by the anxiety of everyone around her, and people wonder if she is also an ambitious person and part of the danger maker?
Lisa plays Pearl, a resort employee
The other two wise and compassionate female characters in the show are an Indian therapist and a therapist on Maui in the first season. They are like the incarnation of the stone Bodhisattva statues in the resort, with insight, smiles, and uses white to balance the seven-color spectrum of the white lotus.
Although it is a black humor, the White Lotus series is still comforting. The people who just landed on the island were either too nervous or too conceited to feel sorry for themselves, let alone others. After a week, the friends saw their own situation through each other's eyes. Some people had to face themselves in the sudden change of circumstances.
Even if he could escape from Bai Lianhua unscathed, the changes had already taken place. Didn't the strong father who only worked out and never relaxed, and was full of confidence, swallow his wife's lorazepam, fall into sleep, and finally feel sorry for himself?
