‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 Finale: Fatal Attraction

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Speaker 3 Prestige TV podcast. Mallory Rubin's here.
Joanna Robinson's here. We've only seen this episode once just now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, moments ago. Real time.

Speaker 3 Spotify theater. Shit went down.

Speaker 2 Bodies. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Multiple bodies. I don't even know where to start.

Speaker 2 The coconut milk is off.

Speaker 2 We could start there. The coconut milk is off.
The LaCori is okay.

Speaker 3 The coconut milk is off. We have five dead bodies.
I have a lot of questions about your instant reaction.

Speaker 2 We didn't, we didn't even acknowledge each other's left. No, your instant reaction, Joe.
Um,

Speaker 2 I there's like two stories that I really, really love the way they ended, and I really am excited to think about them and talk about them.

Speaker 2 And then there's a lot of other things that happened that I need more time than we have to process, I think. But so, like a thumb sideways, yeah, sideways thumb.
Yeah, yeah, Mal.

Speaker 2 I am processing in real time too. We've only seen it once.
It was extra hefty, a very ample poisoned fruit pod. I liked a few of the storylines quite a bit as well and found them very moving.

Speaker 2 I have questions about a couple of them.

Speaker 2 I really loved the season overall, but I'm excited to talk to you guys about whether we think season three of White Lotus tipped a little too far into mystery first and like let's all chase the theorizing all season and then it's really about that at the end.

Speaker 2 I think the first two seasons were about that a little bit, but mostly about what's going on in here, and that that was a slightly more successful formula than what we got here.

Speaker 2 What do you think, Mike Wake?

Speaker 3 What do you think Mike Wake was trying to do with this? Because

Speaker 3 way more bodies than we've ever had.

Speaker 2 Right. More episode, longer episode counts, more bodies on the ground than ever before.

Speaker 3 More religious and spiritual than we've ever had.

Speaker 2 More ambitious in terms of going out to like big parties, going to a different city entirely. Yes.

Speaker 3 Fate seems to be the number one thing here. You have Belinda basically becoming Tanya in some ways, where she's like

Speaker 3 willingly just ready to stampede over poor porn chai. Yes, she should be.
And be the new Tanya. She basically does it.

Speaker 2 Where's your thumb? Yeah, what's your reaction? Give us the overall take.

Speaker 3 I'd have to see it again.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, same.

Speaker 3 I was left with more questions than answers.

Speaker 3 I hate leading with nitpicks, but that was a lot of commotion to have on a resort And then everybody going, all right, so get on the boat. Your boat's at 10 o'clock.

Speaker 2 The fancy is just starting.

Speaker 2 Getting a lady.

Speaker 2 Do you guys think this one will finally make the news? I was like, the whole time I was like, Mallory is finally going to get her wish. First of all.

Speaker 2 And you want to stay with the White Lotus in season four. Exactly.
I have so many notes for everyone in season four.

Speaker 3 The three ladies are witnesses to a murder.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And it's like, bye.

Speaker 3 The family has the youngest son basically

Speaker 3 almost overdoses on poisoned fruit, and then he's fine.

Speaker 3 He'll be fine on the plane.

Speaker 2 He's on the boat the next day. Yeah.
He seemed like he didn't feel great on the boat, to be fair. You know?

Speaker 3 And everybody just kind of goes off. Belinda just goes off, even though we saw in the first episode Belinda's son is in the water with a dead body floating by him.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Like, all right.
Five million dollars. Tyler Lee.
Maybe that's just one of the bodyguards that floated by him.

Speaker 2 It could be. It could be.
Yeah, it could be either of the bodyguards.

Speaker 2 I think that because Rick and Chelsea were, you know, in the physical manifestation of the thematic yin and yang that Chelsea had previously mentioned, it wasn't them that floated towards Zion because that seemed to be a solid.

Speaker 2 So, where do you think, given where Chelsea's bullet hole was and the yin and yang, where do you think Rick's bullet hole was then? You know, he seemed to catch back shoulder a little bit.

Speaker 2 And, you know, we had heard from Chelsea this yin and yang, this eternal battle, hope, pain, which would win out? Neither wins, I guess. Just a very, this is a very depressing end to the situation.

Speaker 2 A very cynical in terms of what we take with us.

Speaker 2 And White Lotus is always cynical, but this is, I think, one of the most, like, the two storylines that I think are going to stick with me for a long time.

Speaker 2 The two final images, Belinda in the Tanya role, and then Guy Talk in his new bodyguard role.

Speaker 2 He got the girl,

Speaker 2 got the job, but at what cost? You know,

Speaker 2 and his face as he drives away.

Speaker 3 Just as soon as I just go to the house, I would keep going on that, though, because you have Carrie Kuhn as Lori.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I'm interested in that.

Speaker 3 Basically, by the end of the week, is like, you know what? I was just happy to be here. And I don't care if I kind of sold my soul out for the week, but it was a pleasure to be in your company.

Speaker 2 I have a quick question for you. If you're like, I love that you're beautiful.
I love that you have a beautiful life. And then you guys go, that's nice.
That's nice. And say nothing nice to me.

Speaker 2 And I pointed to the beginning when there were compliments. And we're like, and you're

Speaker 2 also here, Lori. Yeah.
And you're here. And you have two arms and two legs and a head.
And you sure are here, Lori.

Speaker 3 So she sells out a little bit because her vacation got paid for. Belinda sells out a little bit.

Speaker 3 Tim is the big one where we had to watch Tim just brooding and kept expecting some sort of resolution.

Speaker 3 Like we theorized, he would theorize he would get the phone and it would find out like, hey, this blew over. We're going to be good.
And said that didn't happen. We don't know.

Speaker 2 Well, Saxon's face looking at his phone seems here's what I would like to believe, that Saxon is not reading fucking shit from Terry Office or anyone else about Tim Ratliff's scandal, and he is instead hopefully reading a note from Chloe, who seems preoccupied looking for the guy to fuck so Greg Garrett can watch.

Speaker 2 But hopefully an update that Chelsea died so that Saxon can go back and mourn her properly. I don't think that's what's going on.

Speaker 2 That's my head cannon. Okay.
That's the old head cannon. That's sweet.

Speaker 3 These resorts aren't that big. If there's like gunshots everywhere and multiple bodies and police and Thailand police, like nobody's leaving that resort for like 12 hours.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And you're like, wait, did we know anybody?

Speaker 2 Who got killed? The guy who owns the hotel?

Speaker 3 Two other people? Some lady. Like what lady? I would just have more fun.

Speaker 2 She changed your life, Saxon. The woman who made you a reader.
Doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 Well, he reads fast, so he went to Duke.

Speaker 2 He went to Duke after all. That killed me.
I was really laughing at that. That was so funny.
There was some great early Rat Lift comedy in this episode. We all,

Speaker 2 we all cracked up at Parker Posey's face when Piper comes back and is like,

Speaker 2 I don't think the food was organic. Right.
And there was like a state on the mattress. Very bland.
And Victoria's trying really hard to just be like,

Speaker 2 just passively take it in and not throw herself a parade. And then she can't help it.
And she's like, let's buy you something from the boutique, babe.

Speaker 2 You're no longer wearing cute little prairie dresses, whole new wardrobe, new Piper. Let's go.
We spent all season debating who was the Emmy frontrunner.

Speaker 2 I think Parker Posey sealed it with the facial expressions alone in this episode. Just absolutely iconic, possibly.

Speaker 3 Probably Parker Posey, Sam Rockwell. I don't know.
Carrie Kuhn made a really strong run in the last couple of episodes.

Speaker 2 I'm excited to talk. I have a slightly, slightly different, but not totally different, but slightly different read on the Larry.

Speaker 3 Well, can we go big picture?

Speaker 3 Because I'm trying to anticipate how this is dissected tonight and tomorrow yeah so i thought i really love season one i thought season two was executed perfectly yeah same and i really thoroughly enjoyed watching season three but i don't think they landed the plane in a lot of the same ways and

Speaker 3 just too many open-ended questions even coming out of this i get what they were trying to do But for eight episodes, the amount of time they spent setting everything up,

Speaker 3 I think they have some loose ends.

Speaker 2 So what are your loose ends that you want to talk about?

Speaker 3 Well, I mean, some of the nitpick stuff.

Speaker 3 Like, so Rick, the last episode, they scoot out of there after he pushes over Jim Hollinger to get away from the bodyguards and then just goes back to the resort. Like, everything's cool.
Deranged.

Speaker 3 Hey, what are we doing for breakfast? Like, he doesn't think there's going to be any repercussions.

Speaker 2 Rick is insane.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this is the no prep con man.

Speaker 3 But how stupid do you have to be, though?

Speaker 2 Obviously, you have to get the fuck out of the

Speaker 2 fuck out of the resort like that day. Hey, honey, we're out.

Speaker 2 I just got into a thing with Jim Hollinger. We're out.
He gets there. Yeah, the night before.
He's like, pack your bag. Like, he shouldn't have even gone back to the resort.
Right.

Speaker 2 But given that he went back to the house.

Speaker 2 At the airport. Meet me at the airport.
630. Famously, those two were calling each other all season long and missing each other's calls.
So quick text. Hey, meet me here.
Why not? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Appalling that he not only went back to the resort, was just sort of like, let's have a leisurely fruit-filled breakfast.

Speaker 2 That contraption with the donuts on the prongs, though. I'm glad you got to see that because tree.

Speaker 2 I would love a donut tree. Is that on offer? I'll get you one.
A donut tree?

Speaker 3 Well, so a couple things we theorized.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Ended up hitting

Speaker 3 the toxic evil fruit.

Speaker 2 Does it feel that one's going to come back? Does it feel good?

Speaker 2 As soon as the fruit went in the blender, did you feel good about it?

Speaker 3 I did. Yeah.
You know, another nitpick is the dad's just going to leave the... poison stuff in the blender.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm going to head to bed. That's when I started yelling at the screen.

Speaker 2 You got to watch the blender. Brings the blender out.

Speaker 2 Yeah, here's my major, I mean, Rick, coming back to the White Lotus.

Speaker 2 I don't mind a one

Speaker 2 mode of death fake out. So, oh no, he's poured poison pina coladas for the whole family, and then he slaps it out of Saxon's hand.
It's genuinely hilarious. Jaomi was laughing his head off.

Speaker 2 Like, it was great. But then to have another death fake out with the same like poison drink.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you're double.

Speaker 2 poison drink faking out the audience that is was not my favorite how about this

Speaker 2 the poison fruit tree a little overrated couldn't get the job done multiple chances to murder the rat lips couldn't do it yeah

Speaker 2 like they all took a sip park a posey took a big swig and a total bust yeah you would think somebody would have at least like some gastrointestinal cramping or something from the just the one-to-two sip crowd but no they're all completely fine i thought they would be up all night shitting themselves yeah exactly

Speaker 2 pam you oversold the tree Oversold it.

Speaker 3 Let's go back to the beginning and then we can

Speaker 2 tackle everybody in groups here.

Speaker 3 Okay. So start of the episode: the Buddha's talking, everyone's looking sad, and the Buddha says, It becomes easier to accept there is no resolution.

Speaker 3 And I was trying to wonder, is Mike White talking to us? There's going to be no resolution in this episode. Well, that turned out to be wrong because five people died.

Speaker 3 Um, the rat lifts, we'll start with them.

Speaker 3 Okay, Piper, nice 180. One night on a cot,

Speaker 3 doesn't want Locky to come with her, says, just let me fuck up my own life, okay? Yep, has the the big hug with the mom.

Speaker 3 So her arc is basically she's full of shit, rich kid who dabbled in the, I'm going to try to save the world and try to find my inner self. And it lasted 24 hours.
So now she's hopeless.

Speaker 2 This is exactly, well, but now she has to go home and find out that she, she's like, oh my God, maybe I am a princess.

Speaker 2 And then Victoria, Victoria gives this epic speech about no one's ever lived as well as we have. Oh my God.
Not even the kings and queens of old, right?

Speaker 2 And we have to enjoy it or else it's insulting if we don't.

Speaker 3 I don't know if that was true, Victoria. No.

Speaker 3 I don't know if you're letting billions of people down by not enjoying it.

Speaker 2 Nope. I don't think that's the case.
But I think

Speaker 2 for Piper to be like, maybe I am just a spoiled princess and I should just embrace it.

Speaker 2 And she starts, again, like wearing different clothing that her mom bought for her for her to then go home to a rude awakening of no money, presumably

Speaker 2 is interesting. Yeah.
Worst case. Saxon is reading.
Sell all your principles and then live without the thing you just sold them for anyway. Saxon was reading.
What was he reading?

Speaker 3 Did you get a look at the book?

Speaker 2 I have slacked our producers to see. He's reading Pima.
He was reading. I wrote it down.
Hold on.

Speaker 2 He was reading. I know that he was reading Pima Start Where You Are by Pima Chodron, who's like a well-known Buddhist writer sort of person.
But I thought the way that like Chelsea was talking about.

Speaker 2 Pima's work earlier in terms of like,

Speaker 2 there are these groups and they're full of people you have met or you haven't met. We could be in the same group or not.
Yes. I thought that was really interesting.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and that's like been part of the theme of the season too, you know, including even like Tim's meeting with the monk at the monastery, this idea of like this drop of water, the return.

Speaker 2 What are you a part of? And that opening note from the first episode in Piper's book. identity is a prison.

Speaker 2 Well, like which characters not only were able or were not able to break out of that, obviously like Rick is not able to ultimately, right? But which characters even wanted to?

Speaker 2 Which characters were even ultimately interested in trying to? It's a really short list this season.

Speaker 2 Well, that's interesting, but I think what's also interesting is like, which are the characters who moved into a new identity, and that identity is the prison? And that's what I think of.

Speaker 2 I think of Guy talk, I think of Belinda. Absolutely.
It's like they've he's like, I am a badass bodyguard now.

Speaker 2 Belinda's like, I am a multi-millionaire now, but that is a prison that they have created for themselves full of moral compromise.

Speaker 3 Pornchai is just a pleaser. Oh, my God.
Locky's just a pleaser.

Speaker 2 That was great that the callback to Locky's corrections.

Speaker 2 Pleaser? People pleaser. You know, you meet people on their plane of reality.

Speaker 3 Well, that was part of the Rat Lev's arc, the Lockheed Saxon,

Speaker 2 a little tense.

Speaker 3 Saxon says, no one's going to make you a man. You got to do it yourself about the thing.
And then

Speaker 2 he made a smoothie.

Speaker 3 Don't worship me.

Speaker 2 Meaning, don't

Speaker 3 worship me.

Speaker 3 And Locky apologized, says I'm a pleaser.

Speaker 2 And Bill, do you want to say that? I saw you lying there and you felt left out. That was very true.
Bill, do you want to share with the audience what you said when he said that inside of the episode?

Speaker 2 Tell me. Locky made some good points.

Speaker 2 You did look left out. Lockie making some good points.
You were left out.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Right there on the bed. The beds are very close to each other in a yacht cabin.

Speaker 3 Is Saxon bummed out if Locky overdoses and dies from the poison blender?

Speaker 2 Yes, I think he carries the guilt with him forever. Okay.
Without question. Locky makes that smoothie on his own because Saxon has been telling him all season, drink these shakes,

Speaker 2 we got to buff in you up, and then like, and then that, no one's going to make a man out of you, you have to do it yourself.

Speaker 2 And like, that's Locky's way of trying to do it himself is to just like mimic the behavior of this other person anyway. I think he would be, but it's torn up.

Speaker 2 Is your question, that's one less person who knows what happened on the yacht?

Speaker 3 Then it's just Chloe and Chelsea. There's only two left.

Speaker 2 Chelsea's gone. Chelsea.

Speaker 2 Does Saxon know? Hard to say. Mel, can I ask you a question since we're heavily into our Last of Us prep.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 When the rat lists are like going to breakfast and Locky's sort of like twitching in the foreground, were you thinking about Nana Adler and the

Speaker 2 cordyceps? Did you have a raisin cookie? Yeah, exactly. Any infected flower? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I didn't get that joke. I'm sorry.
You're missing out, man. You're missing out.

Speaker 3 The dad asked Locky, you think you could live with no money? And he said, yeah, I think I could. He passed the, you don't have to drink the poison blender.

Speaker 2 But then what would the cost of that have been before Tim has his moment of looking at his, into his son's eyes and knocking the glass out of his hand?

Speaker 2 He's going to leave the one child he thinks is prepared and equipped to cope with his failure to mourn all the people.

Speaker 3 Are you saying he might be a bad dad?

Speaker 2 Knit to pick. Christ.
I would like to ask the legal department to weigh in on this. Surely Tim Ratliff has life insurance.

Speaker 2 Does Locky, is that safe from the feds? Oh, I don't know. The life insurance payout on Tim Ratliff? Oh, that's right.
And would Locky be set up?

Speaker 3 I don't know if there's a poison my family life insurance piece. Probably not.
I think the life insurance company's fighting that. We got to see Pam again.
She brought the phones back.

Speaker 2 Wonderful stuff.

Speaker 3 Warned him about the suicide trees because, God forbid, they just got rid of the suicide trees in the Thailand resort.

Speaker 2 Just keep those things around. Turns out, just causes a slight tongue ache.
You throw up a couple times in the pool, you get to commune with God,

Speaker 2 then you go about your day.

Speaker 3 So you think not only overrated, but just completely full of shit?

Speaker 3 Because there was like enough residue left with the drink he made and he drank all of it that according to what she said, he should have died.

Speaker 2 I mean, mean, I don't know the lethality of the of the individual seed. Tim did put a whole lot of seeds in that blender.
Many garlic clothes. But is your but is your

Speaker 2 are you positing that if it had just been that seed without the sort of like piña colada and then the dump out and then the protein powder and then the water, it would have gotten the job done?

Speaker 3 No, because I think it says potent no matter what. If he finished it, he's still finishing the seed.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I was waiting for him to get rushed to the hospital because we had the snake bite and the canonically established distance of the hospital, but no, we just had some extended cradling.

Speaker 3 So when he makes the, he makes everybody some pina coladas. Yep.

Speaker 3 First of all, I would be immediately suspicious if my dad out of nowhere was like, I've made us all pina coladas. It's like, that's weird.
You've never seen you drink one in your life.

Speaker 3 This guy's like a Scotch whiskey dude.

Speaker 2 He is a whiskey wheel.

Speaker 3 Which is just making pina coladas out of nowhere and ordering it to the room.

Speaker 3 When in Thailand, probably that's not the origin of the pina coladas and he says i couldn't ask for a more perfect family then flips it knocks the glass out coconut milk is off my bed

Speaker 3 and vicky says is that it's him have you heard of wine another great vicky another great vicky was on a heater her batting average like 900 sensation

Speaker 3 and once again if you're going nitpicks another nitpick is the family's just

Speaker 3 The dad is acting deranged at this point. And none of the family's like, hey, mom, what's going on with dad?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Dad's fucking crazy.

Speaker 2 That's a tri-lust week. Yeah,

Speaker 3 he's got rid of all of our phones. He's been in a drug stupor for five days.
And he just made us pina colatas and then knocked the glass out of my hand before I finished it. And now he's going to bed.

Speaker 2 I think that I was thinking about that. And I think a problem of this is that they've known him his whole life.
Yes.

Speaker 2 And so he's been acting weird for like four days, but he's been acting weird the entire time we've known him. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 And so it's just like, they're like, okay, dad's having a weird week, but it's four days in the span of the decades that they've known him, you know?

Speaker 3 Yeah, that makes sense. I've definitely been in funks around my family, not

Speaker 3 drug funks where I've tried to murder everybody.

Speaker 2 And not force feeding them pina coladas. Not just letting the bathrobe open in the middle of the

Speaker 2 common area.

Speaker 3 Not my prosthetic.

Speaker 3 So Lockhe makes his own protein drink out of a dirty blender, another nitpick.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a good idea. In the blender.
That's disgusting.

Speaker 3 That's disgusting. In college, you can't.

Speaker 2 In high school, he's a human. In college, you at least rinse it out.
It's disgusting. Yeah, that was.

Speaker 2 My take on that, he sticks his little snout in there and he sniffs it. My take was he was like, ooh, I get

Speaker 2 a little bit of piña colada. And my, you know, dad said I couldn't have it.
But I stuck me with the cook. Yeah.
Now I get a sip. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, then we get the death scene. We get drops.
And we get men waiting on top of the water looking down.

Speaker 2 Looked like monks to me. Sure did.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 You think that's what you see when you die? I always thought. If you're going to hell, you see the shadows like in ghost when the guy.

Speaker 3 That's what I, that's what I think happens with hell. Maybe this is heaven.
You look up and there's just monks.

Speaker 2 And there's just monks.

Speaker 3 In a circle around you.

Speaker 3 In Mallory's case, it would be Cal Ripken Jr., Lamar Jackson. Ah, no.

Speaker 2 Mandy Machado.

Speaker 2 Tenner Henderson. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Who is in for Bill? Who is it? Who is Ford?

Speaker 2 That would be great. Tom Brady.

Speaker 3 Who'd be Witness Harrison Ford? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like specific haircut Harrison Ford. No one's ever looked better than Harrison Ford and Witness specifically in the Sam Cook scene in the barn when he looks over the roof of the car.
That's his peak.

Speaker 2 That's peak.

Speaker 3 So you're going to miss this on the Witness Rewatchables because you're leaving.

Speaker 2 Wow. Wow.
Emotional blackmail. Wow.
Cruel.

Speaker 3 That's what happens when you're a looter. You miss the witness rewatchables.
Brutal.

Speaker 2 If only Mallory had ever had that conversation with me about that one Harrison Ford scene 20 million times.

Speaker 2 Wait, no, yeah. Who are Bill's four people waiting for Bill on the other side of the park?

Speaker 3 I'd like to think it would be family members.

Speaker 2 Well, that was what was interesting about Lockheed not seeing his family and seeing them because he has made that choice. Like, I think when he told Piper last week, hey, I just had this thought.

Speaker 2 What if I stayed? It's this like panic processing in real time what he has had to acknowledge about himself. He has that says to her like, I don't want to give into my dark shit.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't want to make things worse. And then in this episode, you know, the next morning, he's still like, this is what I think I should do.

Speaker 2 And does actually seem to feel the pull and to feel the draw in a way that is actually maybe more sincere than what Piper ultimately felt.

Speaker 2 Like for him to see, okay, this could have been maybe my awakening. This could have been maybe my salvation.
And I'm about to lose it and lose everything else too.

Speaker 2 And not to see his family, not to see chat, will you pick you and see your duke? Like it was none of the stuff that they spent all season arguing about and pulling over him.

Speaker 2 A fair brotherly talk.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 2 Got it.

Speaker 3 I wrote down, wait, Locky isn't dead. He really jerked us around.

Speaker 2 Oh, gets nice.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I thought I wasn't going to acknowledge the jerk off humor, but he was just waiting because he had his own

Speaker 2 jerk joke.

Speaker 2 When he does compete in jerk jokes.

Speaker 2 I'll miss this.

Speaker 2 Before he sees the monks, he's sort of blinking in his long non-death scene. He does see all of them in like the blinks of his eyes as he's like,

Speaker 2 drives off the ocean. Also, people have been, in terms of people predicting who is going to die,

Speaker 2 in the opening credits, Lachlan is like floating in the water. So a lot of people thought Lachlan might die.

Speaker 2 And so we do get this extended floating in the water sequence, but it turns out it's the water of your mind.

Speaker 3 So they say so happy returns.

Speaker 2 You know, they, the, as we also talked about in terms of the opening credits, the very worrying zoom in, like camera jump and zoom in on Amy Lou's name and the bloodied, broken animal carcass. Yep.
So

Speaker 3 you know what else I really liked about the, this whole, like with the, with the,

Speaker 3 what do you call it? The forest? What's that? What's outside? The jungle.

Speaker 2 The wildlife, the pseudo-jungle. Okay.
The jungle.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I liked when the monkeys got all excited during the, when the gunshots, when they started jumping around, I was like, oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Where are we going with the monkeys?

Speaker 2 None of them actually pulled a trigger, though. Thoughts, feelings? Are you in an active state of mourning?

Speaker 2 Are we all monkeys inherently? Well, yeah. The monkey mindset.
Why are you monkey minds? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Got primal for a second.

Speaker 2 What was with, they were like fumigating,

Speaker 2 but never, you know, guy talks like, what's going on? They're like, the Hollanders are back. I was like, no, but what's going on with the very aesthetic smoke that you're putting all around the place?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was an odd kind of transition shot of Google Doom.

Speaker 3 We're done with the rat lift. So any last thoughts before we move to the fancies?

Speaker 3 I don't have a lot of hope for them going forward. I think they're going broke and they don't seem like they're a strong family.

Speaker 2 Who is best equipped, though, to deal with what the reckoning that presumably now awaits? Saxon. Fucking Saxon.
Saxon. Armed with his literature, armed.
And the thing that is literature.

Speaker 2 He had one book.

Speaker 2 He has a soulmate who's already dead.

Speaker 2 She threw a whole library into his lap, goddammit. Now, I think it is actually, this is one of my favorite parts of the season, unsurprisingly.
I've been Team Saxon from day one.

Speaker 2 Great performance, interesting character. We love a character on an arc.

Speaker 2 The fact that Chelsea was not able in those final moments, this is not her fault to be clear, this is Rick's, the tragedy of it, right? That he couldn't break the karmic cycle like Amrita had

Speaker 2 pled with him and begged. Like Chelsea saying, stop thinking about the love you've lost.
Think about the love that's right in front of you and paraphrasing.

Speaker 3 Does Adam say that to you?

Speaker 2 Adam, happy birthday. I'm sorry that I'm at work instead of with you celebrating.
Happy birthday, Ray.

Speaker 3 See that? There it is. That was so great.

Speaker 2 You're a great one.

Speaker 2 The fact that Rick was like, I'm going to go do this anyway, but Saxon's life has actually been changed by just spending one week with me.

Speaker 2 I choose to believe that it has actually been changed.

Speaker 3 I think he was more changed by the jerk-off night.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, also. I think that was where you really look in the mirror and you go, where's the supervillain raising a mirror? Like, where's my life going? What happened?

Speaker 2 People, a lot of people impact you in your life. Joe informed us about the similarities to the journey of the Buddha last episode.
A little high sparrow coded as well, right?

Speaker 2 You know, a night of debauchery and then what?

Speaker 2 Will Saxon ever put a pair of sneakers on again? Who can say? I'm rooting for that guy. That's all I know.

Speaker 3 So going forward, Ratliffs get divorced.

Speaker 2 Tim's disgraced. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Saxon probably tries to get his own startup going which will be tough with the way the stock market's going this week good luck to him anyway um

Speaker 2 piper joins the non-profit lucky comes back to thailand yeah he comes back i mean he has no money for college so yeah he comes back just gonna live there at the very least a gap year probably

Speaker 3 what what money is he using to get on the flight to thailand that's true probably saving up some bonds that he got for birthdays the fancies we can rip through quick oh man everything's fine again we're back to just being super phony with one another

Speaker 2 Disappointing to me, I think. Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 3 It felt like an hour and a half long show, but it felt like there was one good scene missing with them.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I liked that Jacqueline,

Speaker 2 when Jaclyn goes to wake Lori up and she says, I want to be your friend.

Speaker 2 I thought that was a really good moment. I would have loved just like a little, like she talks about, you know, people judge me for my superficial flaws.
You judge me for my profoundly deep flaws.

Speaker 2 You know, I thought that was good, but I just wanted just a little bit more from from Jaclyn. She said, good news.

Speaker 3 I'm in the pit season two.

Speaker 2 I'm punching. I'm on the night shift.

Speaker 3 I joined in episode eight.

Speaker 2 I can't wait to start watching the pit. I know.
I really feel like I'm missing out. You're gonna have a great time.
I'm excited.

Speaker 2 I agree with both of you about this plot line and the storyline overall. I certainly think that given the level that the tension reached last episode, it felt like we were okay.

Speaker 2 We could have stood to have one or two more moments.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I was genuinely, I'm a sucker, maybe, but I was like really moved by what Laurie had to say that. I was going to say, I thought that was the best scene in the show.
When she said the thing about time,

Speaker 2 I thought this was

Speaker 2 lovely. And like, as you get older, you have to justify your life and your choices.
And when I'm with you guys, it's just life transparent what my choices were.

Speaker 2 And I was thinking back to the way that, like,

Speaker 2 at the beginning of the season, that like, you know, when I'm with you guys, it's like looking in a mirror and there's the blonde blob aspect to it, all the similarities, the, shared origin, and then the different branches off of that like tree trunk.

Speaker 2 But when you're looking in a mirror and you're thinking with other people and they remind you of that, it's like you also are, what are you doing? You're seeing yourself, right?

Speaker 2 You're seeing the way that the choices they've made and the places they've gone in life remind you of your own limitations, shortcomings, failings.

Speaker 2 And I thought this was just such a like, when we talk about more broadly over the episode and the season, what are the takeaways? What are the lessons?

Speaker 2 What is like the message about life or relationships or family or

Speaker 2 desire?

Speaker 2 You chase pleasure, you find pain, et cetera. This one was so

Speaker 2 like real, I thought, you know, especially inside of that friend dynamic where the bickering and the fighting and the tearing each other down. I think there's something there with like

Speaker 2 women are pitted against each other in friendships or professional relationships and they're like positioned by society to be inclined to tear each other down and being competitive with each other.

Speaker 2 And so like for just a moment to rise above that and say like, I don't know, you guys remind me that like I'm still here. I thought was really lovely.

Speaker 2 I think part of it is depressing that like we talked about last week, the possibility what's more depressing if they like fracture or they don't actually.

Speaker 2 But there was something I thought really comforting about the idea that you can like work your way back to something that feels like a nucleus in your, in your past. I liked them coming back together.

Speaker 2 And I mentioned this last week when I was like, what do I want them from the finale? I wanted them to come back together in the way that I always wanted the succession kids to hug.

Speaker 2 Like this is what I always want. But I don't know that I I feel like it was 1 million percent earned.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 Lori's epiphany that she got maybe when her pants were falling down and she was trying to crawl out of her.

Speaker 3 I thought it was when she was watching them take selfies. I mean,

Speaker 3 because she's watching from afar when they're in the pool and she's getting sad watching it.

Speaker 3 I thought she was getting sad because she was a part of the group, but I think she was getting sad because she was like, oh, this is like.

Speaker 3 We were doing whatever version of this when we were 12.

Speaker 2 I think it's all part of it, but I think she isn't in a place to absorb absorb that if she doesn't have her adventure with Alexi the night before.

Speaker 3 If she's not asked for $10,000 to save somebody's mother.

Speaker 2 I love that they're like, none of them were looking at Valentin when he comes to the table in that last scene, the last dinner scene. Like, there's like, it's not about you, you do.

Speaker 2 Like, we're trying to connect here. Yeah.
And I think that, I thought the Lori.

Speaker 2 Mike White writing that speech for Lori really felt like something that Mike White himself had worked out for himself in terms of she's like, I tried work as my religion. Yes.

Speaker 2 I tried a of loving, like a romantic relationship as my religion. Being a mother.
Parenthood didn't really work out for me. But me just being here.
Guess what? I'm still here. Totally.

Speaker 2 In the words of Stephen Sondheim. Like, she's like, I'm still here.
And that, that counts for something.

Speaker 3 She says time gives it meaning.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 This is the old Michael Mann theme in all the Michael Mann movies. Our guy from the Rewatch movie.

Speaker 2 I love that you both managed to make that about Sodenheim and Michael Mann. That was Mary Ombre.
That's just waiting for us on the other side of the pool. Sondheim for me, Michael Mann for Bill.

Speaker 2 Well, Michael Mann is a big, time is luck.

Speaker 3 That's what he would always say in his movies about how much luck you need just

Speaker 3 to keep existing. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 There's something here, too, about like because she's able to kind of find that.

Speaker 2 contentment, embrace just like the reality of life, it feels like a

Speaker 2 lesson learned in the face of hard truths. Like they all said really terrible things to each other.
We talk about this a lot when we're covering stuff.

Speaker 2 Like sometimes you have to work through something really deeply unpleasant and see if you can make it to the other side.

Speaker 2 I think we felt it more, certainly more with Laurie than with Jacqueline and Kate, but they all had to receive that.

Speaker 2 The thing that Laurie heard was like, well, the thing you're disappointed about always changes, but the pattern is you're always disappointed.

Speaker 2 And there was like a lot of sorrow behind what she said here, but there was like a certain level of peace that felt for her maybe quite new. And I love that for her.

Speaker 2 And I think that that's important for her to work through internally.

Speaker 2 I still would like for Jacqueline and Kate on their journey to come up the other side of this vacation being like, and you, Lori, have a beautiful something, something, filled up like something.

Speaker 2 I don't care what you say. Sense of humor, personality.
I don't care what you say.

Speaker 3 Do you know what her revenge is going to be when Carrie Kuhn's accepting the Emmy

Speaker 3 for best supporting actress in drama?

Speaker 2 We just gave it to Parker Posey. How many Emmys are we handing out?

Speaker 3 God. They'll put Parker Posey in the lead.

Speaker 2 You know, someone wrote in to let us know that they never put a white lotus actor in the lead Emmy category. They're all always in supporting.

Speaker 3 I don't know. All right, so if you went Carrie Kuhn versus Parker Posey, who do you have?

Speaker 2 Fuck. Versus probably Amy Lou is probably also different vibes.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 If it's me,

Speaker 2 I'm giving it to Parker Posey for this season.

Speaker 2 I'm torn. Every time I try to power rank my favorite performances, I'm like, genuinely thought Patrick Schwarzenegger was a great person.

Speaker 3 That's Kelly Barstring. Pick.

Speaker 2 Amy Lou was great. No.
Carrie Kuhn was great. Parker Posey was great.

Speaker 2 I refuse. I don't have to pick because I don't vote.

Speaker 3 I pick Carrie Kuhn. Great.

Speaker 2 I thought

Speaker 2 Carrie.

Speaker 2 Carrie's incredible.

Speaker 2 And I think Carrie should have a heap of Emmys. But I think in this season.

Speaker 2 I've seen Carrie do incredible things in The Leftovers, in Fargo. I don't watch The Gilded Age, but like...
You're missing out.

Speaker 3 So you're not surprised. You weren't surprised by Carlos.

Speaker 2 The crystal is crushing. I think in terms of like what I want from

Speaker 2 that Jennifer Coolidge

Speaker 2 white lotus performance, it's Parker Posey. I think Parker Posey is most likely certainly to win because of that precedent.
It feels like that. I think Amy Lou, I'm going Amy Lou.

Speaker 2 I'm casting my vote for you officially.

Speaker 3 We ended with a drunk three-lady hug with our fancies.

Speaker 2 A lot of cuddle.

Speaker 3 They took the boat back so that Jacqueline could officially find out her husband has filed for a separation.

Speaker 2 They're addicted to each other.

Speaker 3 And hopefully the pit will work out great for her.

Speaker 2 She deserves to be on the pit season two. And maybe Lori and her kid can come out and like live with Jaclyn for a little while if Jacqueline's kicking her hairs in.
I heard she throws furniture.

Speaker 2 But maybe she won't in LA.

Speaker 3 I just hope Lori didn't catch anything from Alexi.

Speaker 2 I can't say he was.

Speaker 3 He didn't seem like the cleanest guy.

Speaker 2 Remember the dick slap? That was great. The Russians are fine.
Okay. The Russians are fun.

Speaker 2 They seem to have had a fast.

Speaker 3 The last time we see them in this episode, they're partying with a new group from DeFi.

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Speaker 3 Guy talk and Mook. We can go through this quickly.

Speaker 2 Guy Talk is like maybe my least favorite character.

Speaker 3 Mook just fell apart

Speaker 2 in sections. She sucks.
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 Maybe that was the point of Mook.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess.

Speaker 3 I think I would have been more interested in this whole plotline if Guy Talk was a more interesting actor and I just felt like he had two moves and it was pretty underwritten for what it was.

Speaker 3 And it was a lot of time spent just so he could shoot Rick at the end. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Well, this is the point. I think that it goes back to what we were talking about last week in terms of they had only so much story and too many episodes.
Yeah. I think this is a good storyline.

Speaker 2 Like there's this winsome young couple and we're sort of rooting for them. And then she's just sort of like.
Were you rooting for them though? Because I wasn't. For a time in the middle, I was.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 By the last three episodes, I was not.

Speaker 2 No, certainly not. Once it was clear that she was like, but you need to be ambitious and violent.
And he's like, but my religion.

Speaker 3 Hot take. Mook knows what she likes.

Speaker 2 That's, yeah. And that's great.
But what I want for him is to just be like, okay, then you are not for me. Yeah, it's not meant to be.

Speaker 3 She's pretty good looking. Beautiful.

Speaker 2 She's trying to talk about herself. She's absolutely gorgeous.
Absolutely gorgeous. But now he's like got the girl and a great set of sunglasses.

Speaker 2 And the Hollanders need new bodyguards because both of their bodyguards died.

Speaker 3 Well, Valentine goes to him at some point and says, I know you know, if you say something, you're killing me. And then that storyline's just done.

Speaker 3 We've allowed them to rob the resort and we're never going to talk about it again.

Speaker 2 That's part of Guy Talk sacrificing what he genuinely believes to be right, to be good, to be decent, the code that he wanted to live his life by and hoped that he could to get the things that he desires.

Speaker 2 So, desire comes in many forms.

Speaker 2 All of the characters have a version of this, right? Like, Gaitak desires more than one thing. He desires Mook.

Speaker 2 He desires to not be repulsed by the decisions that he's made.

Speaker 2 But those two desires are in conflict with each other. And so he makes the choice.

Speaker 2 And like the moment of, you know, I'm down on my knee and I have the gun out and Sitala is saying, kill him, shoot him. Sita la.
I mean,

Speaker 2 shoot him.

Speaker 2 She was

Speaker 2 clear in her directive. That's for sure.
But like,

Speaker 2 this is part of a theme in the episode two of just like one degree away from making a better choice, right? Because he tells Mook he wants to quit.

Speaker 2 And she's like, once again, I thought you were a different kind of person. I thought you were going to do a different thing.
He flat out tells Pelek, I would, I'm not the right guy for this.

Speaker 2 Like, this is not for me. And he's like, why don't you think about it? Guy Talk does try to extract himself from a circumstance that he knows is not right for him.

Speaker 2 And then he, he can't, and he gets subsumed by it.

Speaker 3 Same thing for the reference center, except spinge mode.

Speaker 2 Same thing.

Speaker 3 She's like, I'm not the right girl for this. I'm saying, no, it's in you, Mallory.

Speaker 2 And it was.

Speaker 3 Podcasting is in you.

Speaker 2 And he's put on those shades and got in that car.

Speaker 2 Brace your beast.

Speaker 2 No, totally.

Speaker 2 To your point, point, Hallie, there's a bunch of moments inside this episode where someone almost

Speaker 2 makes the right decision, right? Rick almost makes the right decision.

Speaker 2 Maybe if Chelsea had just stayed and eaten her donut, that was the right decision for her.

Speaker 3 Listen, she only dropped 37 hints in the first seven episodes that something horrible is going to happen. Let's move to them.
I have Rick, Frank, and Chelsea as my next category.

Speaker 3 We only see Frank quick.

Speaker 2 Leopard, print, banana hammock. Having a great time.
Incredibly memorable. Pulls the banana hammocks out.

Speaker 2 more girls coming forward enough two more in the elevator sensational stuff um

Speaker 3 just uh our guy just just

Speaker 2 go back to the monastery just like he said he would at the end we see him returning to a life of do you think he knows that frank is that

Speaker 2 uh

Speaker 2 i don't know the question about news travels in this in this story is uh deeply you probably read in the bangkok herald that jim hollinger has been shot to death maybe do you think frank reads the Bay College character?

Speaker 2 Probably not. I mean, Citala should be after him, right? He was in on the con.
Sitala made it out alive. So

Speaker 2 Steve, Frank should be relocating. So you're saying White Lotus season four,

Speaker 2 Guy Talk

Speaker 2 and the hunt for Frank.

Speaker 2 Do you think that's actually an interesting question. Do you think we will have any character

Speaker 2 from the prior seasons make it into season four like we have in every other season? Fabian didn't die, right? He just fell in the water.

Speaker 2 I was like, like, oh shit, Fabian's going to get his head and drown. We're going to do a Tanya again, but then he stood up.

Speaker 3 So the only person who's been in every season is Greg Gary.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
Tanya was in two. Belinda's in two.
Greg Gary.

Speaker 3 So Greg Gary is having a great life.

Speaker 3 Cut off the five million of Belinda. Now he's just back trying to have his lady try to have sex with somebody while he watches and eventually breaks out.

Speaker 2 Chloe was actively recruiting candidates. Absolutely.
So his kink is real and it's happening.

Speaker 2 You know whose stock is majorly on the rise for me this episode? Zion.

Speaker 2 Zion was good. He was very funny.
Really good Zion episode. Wait, all right.

Speaker 3 So we got Rick Frank Chelsea. Last dinner, Chelsea says,

Speaker 3 they're going to be together forever. Whatever happens to you happens to me.

Speaker 2 That's when, okay,

Speaker 2 right before the episode started, we had sort of as a group said, Chelsea dies for Rick was our sort of like fear prediction. Yeah.
Yes. When she says, whatever happens to you, happens to me.

Speaker 2 I feel like all three of us in that theater were like, we know. Yeah, you could see it going.
Terrible.

Speaker 2 And also when she fucking said the episode name yeah because i'm more fatty do you know what that means you have to embrace your fate good or bad what will be will be i was like

Speaker 3 yeah see they're pouring it on so rick's at breakfast didn't think he'd see the hollingers they only owned the hotel and he already broke in their house aggravating

Speaker 3 yeah i remember your mother yeah i knew she was a drunk and a slut didn't think she was a liar too those are trigger words for our guy rick but he's talking about mix in by the way i'm your your dad.

Speaker 3 By the way, he says, your father was no saint. You didn't miss out on much, and that's the fucking truth.

Speaker 2 That's a great moment because he's talking about himself. Yes.

Speaker 3 I did not catch that when he said it. Did you?

Speaker 2 I wasn't sure at the end if they were going to go that way.

Speaker 3 But when he said that sentence, did you think he was talking about himself?

Speaker 2 Because I did not. I was genuinely 50-50 on it.
Also 50-50.

Speaker 2 I think watching the season through the, oh, they are doing the OB one through from a certain point of view, Daddy or Anakin thing, it still felt like it was in play even there.

Speaker 2 Obi Toppin?

Speaker 2 It's Star Wars.

Speaker 3 Oh, Star Wars.

Speaker 2 Got it. Got it.
Very tough. That's tough.

Speaker 2 Well, Rick's a dumbass. I have to say, he's quite stupid.

Speaker 2 He's really dumb. If they're going to do the Vader, you know who Darth Vader is.

Speaker 3 I'm just doing this torchio with Sopranos.

Speaker 2 Do you know who Darth Vader is? I'm aware of it.

Speaker 2 I've heard

Speaker 2 you've heard the line, I'm your father, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I was in the theater for it.

Speaker 2 Is that as good as

Speaker 2 Cecila being like, he's your father? He told me.

Speaker 2 That's a little bit more rushed. Yeah, equally meaningful and memorable.
Is that hit just as hard, do you think? They will be talking about that in 50 years still, for sure.

Speaker 2 Flight over here.

Speaker 3 Well, so now that we know what happens, it's hard to forget what it was like when I was actually watching.

Speaker 3 It was pretty exciting when they're taking the photo and Rick sitting on the bench and trying to figure out.

Speaker 3 How we were gonna have a conflict here because he didn't have his gun because he got rid of the gun. Oh, and then I then in my head, this one I did get right.

Speaker 3 I was like, oh, he could easily just grab the gun from the old old man because he showed him.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I think that we can tell why Rick is such a dipshit. He inherited that from his very stupid father.

Speaker 2 I,

Speaker 2 the Rick storyline fell the flattest, I think, for me of everything. I think part of that is we have to be honest that we just brought a lot of expectations to it because Goggins is a shared favorite.

Speaker 2 We did, undeniably. Correct.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 just in terms of only looking at it inside the vacuum of the season, I thought Chelsea was exceptional. I really loved spending time with her as a character.
And I thought Rick was interesting.

Speaker 2 My favorite Rick moment in this finale is when he seeks out Amrita. Like they're that moment where he's like, I actually know that I need this and I need someone to help pull me out of this.

Speaker 2 I'm inclined to say like, my identity, my identity is nothing. Like nothing comes, nothing comes from nothing.

Speaker 2 And then he had a moment still, even after the happy return and the embrace with Chelsea and the hug. Okay, I'm not going to like give up on this yet.
That I liked.

Speaker 2 All of the actual stuff with Rick and Jim Hollinger was just like a real letdown, though. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't know if they,

Speaker 2 like, we,

Speaker 2 if they thought we forgot about Star Wars and, and that that was going to be like a big twist for us at the end of this episode or something like that. I don't know.
But like, yeah, that didn't.

Speaker 3 Can we give special shout out to Jim Hollinger's bodyguards, the worst bodyguards in the history of HBA?

Speaker 2 They just wander around. Just wandering around.

Speaker 2 Let's leave Malone. Just terrible.
How about you stay here and I'll go look look around?

Speaker 3 Like, just they're just leaving him.

Speaker 2 These fuckers had the nerve to mock Guy Talk all season, called him a pussy, called him a turkey. They went outside.

Speaker 2 Jim Hollinger in his own home got pushed down in a chair while they sat outside for a smoke break. Right.
And then got gunned down at his own hotel.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 killed. Rick, pretty good shot.
Sharp shooter. Yeah.

Speaker 3 From what we know from that gunshot scene. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Rick's shot some people.

Speaker 2 I believe so. Yeah.
I believe it.

Speaker 3 I think there's some when he's like, I didn't kill anyone.

Speaker 2 The underlying thing was like, when he's day to this time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Chelsea's like, how'd it go? Didn't kill anyone this time.

Speaker 3 I also was unsatisfied with the Rick ending, but I did really like the end shot of his face in the water and how, however, they shot that.

Speaker 2 Her upside down and him facing up.

Speaker 2 It was good.

Speaker 3 I thought.

Speaker 3 I don't know. That worked for me.

Speaker 2 There was the line like the Chelsea

Speaker 2 Chelsea had at the beginning of the season where

Speaker 2 she said to him, you know, this is just like you to be like the victim of your own decisions. Right.
And was kind of like one of the many attempts to

Speaker 2 coax him forward, indeed, to coax him forward and try to teach him something about himself. And he was very resistant.
And then that, of course, is the end point.

Speaker 2 I think, again, to your note about like the cynical nature of the story, not just this season, but across seasons, it's like, well, that's a fucking bummer, right?

Speaker 2 Like that we watch this character and we spend all season one. And that's part of the point.

Speaker 2 I do think that's very interesting, actually, but we spend all season wondering, can Rick pull himself out of this?

Speaker 2 Can he embrace this lesson of breaking the karmic cycle that you don't have to be subsumed by the grief of your like past?

Speaker 2 And then he can't. And it's not only at the expense of his own life, it's like the person that he actually does care about, but didn't know how to properly love.
is washed away by that too.

Speaker 2 Like at the end of the day, of all the people in the show who were the, who were the, like, the person in in the tsunami video that Locky showed, like, he didn't even try to leave.

Speaker 2 He just stood there. And that's Rick more than anyone else.
Like at the end, when it all came down to it and that wave came crashing in, like he just stood there and let it wash him away.

Speaker 2 And that is like really bleak as a message.

Speaker 2 But it seems to me a bit consistent across the White Lotus in terms of like, when we think about Armand in season one,

Speaker 2 definitely just like a victim of his own actions and Tanya, you know, poor Tanya.

Speaker 2 That operatic, the way in which Mike White thought of Tanya as this sort of doomed operatic figure.

Speaker 2 Rick is definitely Rick and Chelsea are definitely like these doomed lover figures at the end of the day. Yeah.
So we all like to think about white lotus.

Speaker 3 I love feedback from my mom and my wife.

Speaker 2 But is it about the wine? Is it about the pina colados?

Speaker 3 My mom says, other than the three girlfriend storyline, really hated White Lotus, and especially the finale. That was her review.

Speaker 3 My wife said, I meant to tell you that I saw this thing on Instagram today where Amy Lou was wearing a stay gold charm from the poem and The Outsiders. And as we know, Johnny dies.

Speaker 2 She's not a bad man. Stay gold pony boy.
Yeah, that's been going around.

Speaker 2 There's also, there was also a shot of her, I think it was for the THR photo shoot, where they just had Amy Lou lying on the ground. Everyone's like, well, she dies.

Speaker 2 And then everyone was like, but other people are like, no, THR would not do a photo shoot of her looking like a dead body if she was the actually one who dies. But yeah, she had the stay gold.

Speaker 2 So many people died. We forgot that the stay gold pony boy pendant on.

Speaker 3 We forgot to mention when Rick comes back and she's with saxon

Speaker 2 and she runs over and she's so excited to see rick did your heart break it a little bit for saxon it did didn't it deep down yes it did you felt it a little for saxon but tears in his eyes

Speaker 2 tough moment i know mal was i heard better but i heard mal sniffling in the behind me yeah i wasn't like i was actually i was more than anything i was proud of him because he handled it like pretty well yeah because i feel like saxon episode one saxon would have done something really douchey, you know, and like called her a slut or something.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? Like called her something shitty, but he just sort of like took the loss on the chin. I was proud of that.
He just needed to be knocked down a couple pegs.

Speaker 2 And jerked off passports. Jerked off pass for her.

Speaker 2 Belinda and Greg Gary.

Speaker 2 Is that what he said?

Speaker 3 Zion wanted to negotiate.

Speaker 3 Zion wanted to negotiate was probably the highlight of this episode.

Speaker 2 What's going to happen to the University of Hawaii? I'm going to use the business baby.

Speaker 2 University of Hawaii MBA applications going way up after this. Yeah, he handed a nice business.
We were so proud when they were like,

Speaker 2 she was like, this isn't enough. We'll get ask for more.
And all of us were like, that's what we were saying. Yes.
And we were seeing, you were saying a million. Minimum.
And they went five million.

Speaker 3 Especially with the storming app.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
I love the argument of like, it's like a percent of what you've inherited. That has to be worth it for.
I like what I'm saying. Very well argued.

Speaker 3 We're Team Gary.

Speaker 2 This is just 1%.

Speaker 2 That's great.

Speaker 2 But honestly,

Speaker 2 what guarantees does Gray Gary have that they won't come back? None. are they safe who can say I mean they get the

Speaker 2 riding off into the you know into the sunrise like final shot there so I guess it's a happy ending for them but again at the expense of their soul and principles I mean not Zion's soul and principles but Belinda's certainly yeah Belinda becoming Tanya right it's not just right like I uh I Belinda was left to like hold my dream broken in my hands because Tanya promised me this thing that then she took away which is what she just did to porn child I want to push back on that a little bit it's because one good thing happened.

Speaker 2 No, no, no. Tanya meets Greg.
Belinda gets the money and it's like, peace out. I want to push back a little bit.
Belinda was never like, let's open a spa together. It's my idea.
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 He floated and she's like, maybe.

Speaker 2 She was quite distracted.

Speaker 2 She was working, you know, she was just sort of like, huh, that's interesting. She wasn't like, let's do it.
I'll bankroll it. It's a different thing.
He never printed up a business plan like she did.

Speaker 2 Like, I definitely agree with you that it was not to that extent, but still, the like, something has happened in my life. The way she keeps saying, like, change in circumstance.

Speaker 2 Well, that's what happened to tanya too right she met greg she got distracted something was bringing her pleasure and so she didn't care anymore about this other person but i think she does care she's so much more conflicted than tanya was tanya just like threw belinda away and and belinda on the boat is like i've given up this beautiful manifold man but why not have him with her then i know like have a single conversation with him well

Speaker 2 she does say like well maybe you know maybe in the future but here's what i'll say about belinda belinda's like i want to leave and not be near.

Speaker 2 And I would say, Greg Gary, take notes. Yeah, Belinda's like, I want to be hard to find.
And Greg Gary's like, I barely changed my name. I am not another white walking.

Speaker 2 Exactly. So Belinda's like, let's get lost.
And in a few months, I will send a message to porn child to come join us. I like that.
Maybe they will be the connective tissue in season four.

Speaker 2 Maybe they will be running a spa wherever the next season is set. That would be nice.
No, don't be anywhere near a white lotus. Stay safe.

Speaker 3 $14,000 14,000 a night for Greg Gary's place. Right.

Speaker 2 It rained. I was showing around this week.
Yeah. Looked a little further into the listing.
It did look like there were some nights of the year where it was in the 5,000 range per night.

Speaker 2 You get a few friends.

Speaker 2 Possibly.

Speaker 2 It's a sound.

Speaker 2 Possible. Sounds great.
Let's go.

Speaker 2 I floated that we should have recorded this podcast from there and you were like, no.

Speaker 3 It would have taken like 27 hours to get there. I liked, can I just be rich for five fucking minutes? It's funny.

Speaker 2 Anyway, Belinda, now she's a little bit more. Belinda said early of the season.
she can like, can one fucking thing go my way? So, you know what? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm sad for her that she morally compromised herself. Same, but I'm glad for her that she got her bag.
Also, same. So that dissonance is kind of the point of the show, which I enjoy.
I really do.

Speaker 3 We end with the families on the

Speaker 3 Ratliff families on the boat.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Vicki gets the phones. Doesn't seem like they have any idea there was a shootout.
And apparently Lockett didn't have to go to the hospital. And let's go back.

Speaker 3 And hey, there's going to be some stuff that happens. Drops of water bounce in the ocean.
The Ratliffs are done.

Speaker 2 The three fancies fancies are a little shaken on the boat. Bill, would you like to share with the audience what you shouted at Tim Ratliff when he was looking at the ocean on the side of the boat?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I thought it was our last chance for him to have him kill himself.

Speaker 2 Were you proud of him at all? That after all of that, he was like, bam, things are about to change.

Speaker 3 I thought he was a terrible cat.

Speaker 3 We saw Greg Gary having a cocktail. With a horny look on his face as Chloe, yet another transactional person in season three.
Sure. Scouting a new guy.
We saw the the Russians partying.

Speaker 3 We saw Frank Prang. We saw Guy Talk hugging Mook.

Speaker 2 Yep. And then driving Sitala.

Speaker 3 And then Belinda waving as the new Tanya. And that was season three.
MVP of season three, Joanna. Who do you have?

Speaker 2 Man, Parker Posey.

Speaker 2 Patrick Schwarzenegger. Genuinely.
I thought he was the breakout star of the season. Can I do like a top three? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Do gold, silver bronze. Parker Posey, but then in terms of like stock on the rise, Parker Posey's cementing what we always knew that she was great at, right?

Speaker 2 For a new generation is discovering Parker Posey and all the things that she can do. Yeah.
Patter Schwarzenegger and Amy Lou Wood as like breakout stars across the show. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 What about you? You have another candidate?

Speaker 3 Chelsea one.

Speaker 2 Oh, wait, it was Sam Rockwell, obviously.

Speaker 3 Oh, does he count? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, shot his Oscar. I don't know.
Like, he did, you know.

Speaker 3 I think it's four. It's almost four.
Amy Lou, Schwarzenegger, Carrie Kuhn, Parker Posey, and then Rockwell as the wild card.

Speaker 3 I thought those were the five that came out the best.

Speaker 2 I wish we had had more time with Zion because same. He's

Speaker 3 like, his character is terrible to I'm really interested in this guy.

Speaker 2 Gravity fifth in this episode.

Speaker 3 He's like season four.

Speaker 2 I would love that for him. All right.

Speaker 3 Rank the seasons.

Speaker 2 Oh, easy for me.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of people, okay. I will just say for me, it goes number one is the best, number two is number two, and number three is number three.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of people like number two better, but I think number one, just because it came out of nowhere and just really blew me away, is always going to be my favorite. Two is my my favorite.

Speaker 3 I go two, one, three.

Speaker 2 Two, one, three. That's my order.
I think that's like, yeah, more broadly.

Speaker 3 Here's the thing: because people are probably critical, and there's we're used to this show now, we're used to the theme. There's a dead body that, so you, this, we're in the nitpick backlash.

Speaker 3 This is this is it, this is the area. True, I still loved hanging out with the show.
Oh,

Speaker 2 I have a lot of stuff every week.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I thought there was some stuff I was surprised they did, but I had enjoyed every episode. I was riveted tonight, and I'm sad it's gone.

Speaker 2 If you could pick one character to carry over into season four, who are you picking?

Speaker 3 Saxon. Saxon.

Speaker 2 Okay. Saxon goes skiing.
I want cold weather season.

Speaker 2 It's got to be it's time to do a cold weather season. Okay.
It is. I really hope it's a ski lodges.
A newly enlightened Saxon is still going to the white lotus. Yes.

Speaker 2 And at ski lodges, as I understand, having never been to one, they have a lot of fireplaces and he can sit there by the fireplace and read his books as he continues on his journey of enlightenment.

Speaker 3 Well, so we went to Hawaii, Thailand, Italy.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 That makes me think it's like Australia somewhere that way

Speaker 2 first for season. I mean, I think

Speaker 2 they're looking for Cold Lotus, are they not? Or have you?

Speaker 2 I have not heard anything about Cold Lotus. No, I haven't heard anything.

Speaker 2 I thought I read that they like pitched, they were thinking of doing Norway and then decided not to, but that they're maybe on the lookout for Cold Lotus. Fjords.
Yeah, Fjords, baby.

Speaker 3 Interesting.

Speaker 2 Love it.

Speaker 2 Sweden?

Speaker 3 Those crazy Swedes?

Speaker 2 Oh my God. Now, can we just make a pledge and a pact right here that if it is in fact set in Sweden, we will actually do something on location because that is also the home of our parent company?

Speaker 3 It sounds great.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's something. Was that a yes? Was that a yes?

Speaker 2 No, do the rick answer. That's the plan.
That's the plan.

Speaker 2 Sounds good.

Speaker 2 I want to make a drink.

Speaker 3 We'll see. Maybe the stock market plays into season four, the collapse of a world economy.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Maybe it's just.
Isn't this a perfect time

Speaker 2 to talk about White Lotus in Oklahoma City. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Grim stuff.

Speaker 3 My final grade is A minus.

Speaker 2 It was incredibly fun every week to watch.

Speaker 2 A minus B, like B plus at the bottom, but like I think probably A minus.

Speaker 3 I don't think the show can have a basement that's lower than an A minus.

Speaker 2 It's just too well done and that's the best. The cast is incredible.

Speaker 2 And like, and it's just, it's always fun when we're all watching this show together, you know, in the broader culture for the memes, for everything everything else

Speaker 3 in the duke eye dukey yesterday the duke t-shirt meme when duke fell apart the fact that it just flooded the internet even joanna probably knew about it i did see it i did see his final four yesterday right thanks

Speaker 2 so my biggest nitpicks about the season overall how they put it together yeah i just didn't think that tim ratliff i thought it was like seven scenes too many and too grim and i i felt i felt like they could have bounced around with it a little more versus like just put him in a catatonic funk for i think it's a six episode season yeah i'm gonna walk i agree i'm gonna walk back my mid-season like oh because i do think the middle of the season was just incredible and episodes five and six in particular which was like you know the day night split which we got twice i'm like i looked into your eyes and i said give us a 14 episode white lotus season and you said we're different

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 I think that like the this is where I'm a glutton. I want more.
It was so fun to get the day night split.

Speaker 2 But like, this is where the distinction between a two-month real-world experience of consuming something and the premise of one week of these characters lives are actually not compatible at a certain point if it's stretched over too many episodes it's like how much can happen to you in just a few days so i'm back into like six or seven episodes is the sweet spot welcome and what a six or seven episodes it will be with saxon rat lips

Speaker 2 on the ops okay can't wait So that's your dream scenario. I like actually am not prepared to cope with a life where I don't know what happened to him.

Speaker 2 Like seriously. You imprinted on Saxon.

Speaker 2 Is Saxon your answer to you want Saxon in season four?

Speaker 3 Well, we can't get Chelsea.

Speaker 2 I sure can't. Thanks for the reminder.
Sure can't.

Speaker 2 That was fucking sad. Deeply sad.

Speaker 2 And like

Speaker 2 a real tough,

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 I'm glad that I have one more podcast episode to think about and record. Think about which part? The Chelsea of it all and just sort of

Speaker 2 that kind of story, what that means for a character like Chelsea. And, you know, you know what?

Speaker 3 Sometimes you have bad tasted men.

Speaker 2 That's it. I mean, that doom you should that doom you?

Speaker 2 Here's where I will say

Speaker 2 I was wrong to be rooting for Rick and Chelsea this whole time. I was really rooting for them and you were like, Chelsea can do better.
Chelsea should have dumped Rick.

Speaker 3 But they dropped a lot of breadcrumbs that Rick was a fucking loser and he was headed towards.

Speaker 2 And I had Goggins goggles on. I mean, if only.

Speaker 2 talk about a drop ball that we didn't come to the finale with Goggins goggles on. Yeah, the number of times that Chelsea talked about her bad feeling and how worried she was.

Speaker 2 And these things come in threes.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 3 That's it for our little white Lotus season.

Speaker 2 I'm

Speaker 2 sorry.

Speaker 2 It was a blast. This is my last time in LA.

Speaker 3 So we know that Mike White has some big interview talking about

Speaker 3 we got some intel.

Speaker 2 He's going, what was your intel?

Speaker 3 That there's an interview coming. We want to say who, but we'll have a lot of insight.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Fair. More to come.

Speaker 3 And then you will have a deep dive episode with Rob on Prestige TV

Speaker 2 coming up.

Speaker 3 And when do we move into Last of Us range, which will be happening on House of Hours on Prestige?

Speaker 2 Premieres next Sunday night, one week from tonight. So

Speaker 2 we're going to have Monday? Yeah. House of Our Deep Dives on Mondays.
The Midnight Boys will have their Insta Reaction on Mondays.

Speaker 2 Button Mash is going to be doing a Gamer's Guide episode in the middle of the week. Joe and Rob are going to be checking in on Prestige.
I assume Chris and Andy will be partaking on the watch.

Speaker 2 It's a full mushroom

Speaker 2 apocalypse. Everyone but me.
You're watching us. It's not too late for you, Bill.

Speaker 3 I don't remember which episode I just stopped watching, but it just got too bleak for me.

Speaker 2 I watched like five. Oh, well, I like the apocalypse.
Episode five was great.

Speaker 2 Is that your hottest take of the night? I don't like the apocalypse.

Speaker 3 Well, we're going to find out this week when we have the financial apocalypse of the United States of America.

Speaker 2 You're in a real Tim Rattle. I think tomorrow's going to be the space right now.

Speaker 3 One of of my rules in life is when Jeff Chow is scared, I get scared.

Speaker 2 Yeah, fair. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Anyway, good luck to America. Wow.
Thanks to the crew.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Best team there is.

Speaker 3 They showed up on a Sunday night to help us out, and I had a good time watching.

Speaker 2 Legends, Justice Sales, John Ricky.

Speaker 3 It's a pleasure to do this with the two of you for eight weeks.

Speaker 2 January blast.

Speaker 3 All right. Maybe there'll be another show down the road for us.
Maybe.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 3 Thanks for watching.