‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 2 Deep Dive and Theories: The Incest Vibes Are High

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This episode of the Prestige TV podcast is brought to you by Coffee Mate. Coffee Mate has been searching the globe for flavors that pair perfectly with coffee.
So when they heard that the new season of HBO's The White Lotus was set in Thailand,

they were inspired to brew up two new flavors, Thai iced coffee and pina colada flavored creamers.

They're available for a short time only.

So for the love of coffee, go try them now. now hello welcome back to the prestige tv podcast feed i'm joyna robinson i'm rob mahoney and we're here today to talk to you about listening to audiobooks while reading books at the same time.

We sure are.

Rob, have we ever gotten as many emails about a subject matter? I think this massively dwarfs the chicken-washing emails we've gotten from the Severance listenership this week. I am on the right side of history about that.
I feel very confident in my opinion and our listeners who emailed in to uh just to concur really just to to stand with me against you and other chicken washers out there like look i don't think it's against me okay this is a severance we're gonna talk about this in the severance pod i don't think it's against me i think it's out of concern for me yes so i consider that with you you're right you're right they're with me but the important thing if you are out there listening to a book audiobook as you read it immersive reading as we've been told many people We'll call this. We see you.
You're right. They're with me.
But the important thing, if you are out there listening to a book, audio book, as you read it, immersive reading, as we've been told many people call this, we see you, we hear you, we acknowledge everything that you're doing out there. Clearly, there is an incredible market for this that we did not realize, Joe.
there's a lot of reasons why people do it this is something we brought up in last week's discussion of white lotus we were noting that piper was listening to an audiobook and reading

at the same time um and rob and i were asking hey is this something people do and we got a resounding

yes Last week's discussion of White Lotus, we were noting that Piper was listening to an audiobook and reading at the same time. And Rob and I were asking, hey, is this something people do? And we got a resounding yes, this is something people do.
A lot of it has to do. Some of it has to do with like neurodivergence or like, you know, ADHD and stuff like that.
But there's a million different reasons to do it. And I should have known that the great multitaskers of the world, the podcast listeners out there would have this skill on lockdown.
So thank you for all of your emails about that. So that's what the whole pod's about today, right? We're just going to do an immersive reading exercise together? Yeah, get out your texts.
We'll be starting on page 12. I guess ostensibly we are covering White Lotus Season 3 Episode 2.
That is a thing that we are technically here to do. Correct.
We are here to talk to you about season three, episode two of White Lotus. And this is, I guess what we're calling kind of the deep dive where Rob and I, a couple of days after the immediate aftermath pods that Mallory, Bill, and I are doing on Sunday nights, where we're just sort of vibing and talking about things we liked and Mallory's baffling and enduring crush on Patrick Schwarzenegger's character.
All of that sort of stuff is in the mix. Then a couple days later, Rob and I get your emails.
We look at Reddit. We read interviews with people.
And we dig into some corners of the episode. So, yeah, we got a lot of emails to Rob.
Where can folks contact us for this episode? I'm so glad you asked. Joe, they can email us at monkeyshootout at gmail.com or as always prestige tv at spotify.com but we all know the monkey shootout is coming it has been foreshadowed it has been foretold it is monkeys are in every interstitial in this entire episode somehow the monkeys are here and they will be shooting out soon so please email us at monkey shootout at gmail.com we did get an uh an email from our listener, Rachel, who asks, under the umbrella of the monkeys did it.
Does it have to be a monkey literally picks up a gun or can it be a monkey spooks, startles, attack someone and the ensuing shootout is sort of incited by a monkey? In other words, if a monkey is involved in the shootout. A monkey related shooting.
Yeah. Monkey involved shooting.
Does it do we still always still feel vindicated in the monkey theory? I'm going to say this. If a monkey is even in the background of the scene, we're going to claim victory on this.
So what about a monkey statue or a monkey mural? I think it's got to be a live monkey. Unless someone with a gun turns a corner and sees a monkey statue and gets startled and shoots somebody thinking it's a real monkey, then I will still claim victory.
So yeah, the gun doesn't have to be in the monkey's hands. I think the monkey needs to be driving the action in some way, two shots being fired.
And in that case, it will indeed be a monkey shootout by definition. Definitiously, I completely agree.
So double dipping on White Lotus is something we're doing on this feed. And then Rob and I are also covering Severance, a tremendous show.
Those podcasts come out at the end of the week. We've got a very special guest this week.
We I because Rob was not here in studio, got to have a chat with Damon Lindelelof the co-creator of lost and watchmen and leftovers and uh that conversation about severance about his severance theories about the lost references on severance all that sort of stuff so that episode will be up on youtube in full so you can watch a video of that um we recorded in studio and then an edited version of that conversation will be on our episode seven severance podcast that's coming out at the end of the week so you can hear bits and pieces of it on on friday with the severance podcast or you can watch the youtube version which should be up in the middle of this week so either today wednesday or tomorrow thursday so uh fun fun things in the prestige tv podcast feed okay monkeys i have another thing to talk to you oh okay rob why not let's take another lap i mean monkey shit i was one thing and the monkey interstitials as you pointed out something that mallory pointed out on the other podcast was that in season two all the a lot of the interstitials were those vases with the heads on them that were related to this like folklore story that really had nothing at the end of the day to do with Tanya's death in season two of White Lotus. So thematically was related, but was not someone was killed by a vase.
So or a vase grabbed a gun or anything like that. So it could be that the monkeys are just here thematically.
And if the monkeys are here thematically, something we might want to keep in mind as we talk about spirituality and buddhism uh is this concept of the monkey mind uh that is part of buddhist practice and the monkey mind is quote a state of restlessness capriciousness and lack of control in one's thoughts um which is uh you know a a smear on monkeys uh you know to be clear but rest, capriciousness, and lack of control in one's thoughts. Is there a single character that you would most put under the monkey mind definition inside of this episode? Oh, my God.
I mean, are all three members of the Blonde Blob slash Fancy Cougars have very active minds, very active neuroses. As you bring up the monkey mind, Joe, it calls to mind something for me, which is in the captioning for White Lotus.
You get a lot of these animal noises during the interstitials. And sometimes I feel like the monkeys are described as chittering and sometimes they're described as chattering.
Do you have a good handle on what separates a chitter from a chatter i do i do know what separates a chitter from a chatter thank you so much for asking me chittering uh is a higher register i would say okay faster cadence than a chatter makes sense so maybe it's more chittering cicadas than it is chittering monkeys chittering is usually has to do with with bugs but like they chitter and they skitter that sort of thing but um you're a dog guy i'm a cat person i will let you know that cats chitter when they're hunting if like you see a cat sees a bird out the window it'll make this like little like chitter noise uh on the hunt oh that's just very disconcerting. It's terrifying.
I love cats.

Okay.

Monkey minded people.

I will say this.

Tim Ratliff in his desperation.

Yep.

Is reading a bit monkey mind.

The man needs a lorazepam so bad.

Yeah.

His brain is chittering and chattering at the same time. And it's a lot for him to handle.

Okay.

And then on the spirituality sort of blanket around this show um we got multiple emails from one listener um the first time he sent it through max he sent through turquoise watch he then updated it to teal watch and once he updated it to teal watch it's on our radar i was in because if folks have been listening to us podcasts on this feed for a while you might remember that when we did true detective we were on hardcore teal watch so the reason that our listener max is on teal not turquoise watch in terms of like um let's see what were some of the examples like a bathing suit or a suitcase or this that and other. He was just like, this color keeps coming up associated with a lot of characters.
And he pointed out that in several religions, this color is believed to symbolize clarity and insight as it is a reminder of the sky and the sea, which are vast and expansive, representing the infinite nature of God's uppercase G or lowercase G if you prefer wisdom and creation so uh i just i would like to fully induct all of us to teal watch 2025 white lotus edition we're out here we're out here looking for teal in every corner and and is always kind of looking for which characters that teal is associated with i feel like it's also very important that's that's exactly it so sort of like who's wearing the teal and does does or something as teal or wrapped as something as teal. And does that color at that time indicate some kind of clarity, I guess, would be the idea behind Teal Watch.
Accent corner. Rob, you got a lot of accent emails.
We did. Perhaps more than immersive reading emails.
I don't know. Well, maybe.
But more divisively. The immersive reading emails were consistently, as requested on my part, explaining to us why you might do this.
The accent emails, we have people from the Carolinas feeling very strongly on both sides of the divide, brother against brother. It's tough times out here.
It's a lot. I will say this.
the most compelling argument i've seen in the these accents are fine actually camp uh is that mike white gave an interview talking about how the bravo series southern charm which i've never seen is an inspiration for the ratliff family and that uh and then we got several emails from people saying tommy ravenal specifically on that show the look the tan the polos the everything the teeth is is a close comp to jason isaac's character and this guy was also a disgraced public figure so you know whom amongst us has not been disgraced by something in their time but yes we are we are a uh an audience divided on accent corner i would say i don't find it distracting i don't think it's no like i don't think anything is offensively bad i think some vowels here and there are squidgy but like jason isaacs is and parker posey are two of my favorite performers uh on the show and in general in life and so it's not a complaint and i think it's been an interesting conversation from people not a complaint simply commentary but joe i'm curious of your expert opinion on this because as someone who has recently over committed to doing a southern accent for a very long dnd campaign i'm curious if that experience brought anything new out for you in terms of the work of not just trying to nail the accent a la jason isaacs which he clearly is at some points but maintaining it the the overall marathon of maintaining the accent okay rob is referring to this thing we did on on the ringer verse feed called ringer quest where we did a dnd campaign we've we filmed that back in like november is when we did that um i did not know it was going to drop right in the middle of me critiquing professional actors and their southern accents let's be very clear my southern accent is a way worse than anything that isaacs and posy have ever dreamed of um but i'm not a professional actor. Ring request.
A D&D campaign. If you want to hear my terrible southern accent.
Thanks for bringing that up, Rob. I've enjoyed it a lot.
Okay, great. Mini beers.
No. Regularized beers in a mini fridge.
People seem to think they're all included in the resort experience. Could the spa is a la carte but your meals and your in room treats are all inclusive so eat all the melon you want to eat at breakfast while you're bizarrely snubbing someone who you met in Austin at a birthday shower love a sn thing you didn't think that was a snub oh no it was absolutely a snub i mean it was a squinty wall that she was giving in response to the oh hey girl energy like you can't do that um do you feel like you've encountered a squinty wall in your time uh growing up in the south is this a normal thing that you've seen? Not that I've encountered.
No, me neither. But maybe in retrospect, there was one and I was just oblivious to it.
Or I was thinking somebody was rude, but in fact, they were just blitzed out of their fucking gourd. Like, you know, I think there's many explanations for these.
So you feel like it's the lorazepam. It's like that is what's going on.
I feel like she is comfortably numb every second of every day and also probably does not remember however many years ago this was because she was also then comfortably numb and has no grasp of what happened when or why or with whom i feel like and and i talked to bill mallory about this but i really read to me as someone who doesn't remember it and is like slightly embarrassed that she doesn't remember so it's covering it with rudeness um okay and then the staircase connection we got a lot of emails about this but i'll just uh read from one we got from cara um the staircase is is a you know true crime documentary and then uh fictional series about uh the peterson family and the reason that i brought it up to bill and mallory before was there was part one of the theories about um what happened to the matriarch of the peterson family when she fell down a bunch of stairs is that an owl did it and so i was like an owl did it a monkey did it let's just all talk about that in the family but a lot of people have pointed out that um this the peterson family lived in durham north carolina that you know they went to duke blah blah and that they were they had um adopted daughters uh margaret and martha ratliff the name ratliff is associated with the peterson family um and also that patrick schwarzenegger and parker posey were in the staircase so there's just like a lot of staircase connections going on um but this was durham this was like i think a the most compelling comp is that this was like durham's biggest true crime case that ever happened and so the question is if we're talking about a north carolina family based on southern charm or not do you believe there's a version of this story where tim ratliff unraveling as he is under the pressure of of this looming scandal um does something to himself for his family like is he someone you have your eyeball on in that way maybe himself more than his family we we got multiple emails of people worried about tim ratliff becoming a and this is a direct quote from both family annihilator a new phrase for me i learned from our emails the synchronicity of that concerned me a little bit but i would say that's not usually what White Lotus is. It's not a show where I expect, like, I expect comic shootout with a bunch of criminals involving Jennifer Coolidge, sure.
A man murdering his entire family before committing suicide, I'm going to say that's not going to happen. Now, could he disappear? Could he, you know, this is a man who does not seem to have a lot of cards to play uh could he fake his own death could he kill himself i think those things are in play but i'm not i i don't think tim ratliff is gonna gun down or poison his children i just don't see that do you feel like tim is going to go the greg gary uh route and change his name tom and disappear just.
Just go the next White Lotus over.

But the problem with that is it doesn't seem like our guy is going to have a lot of disposable

funds to do that with.

So it's easier to go Gary when you can just live up the hill in splendor.

Off Tanya's millions.

That's the thing.

Pop down to the restaurant for a quick bite.

Maybe that's an argument against the a la carte distinction.

He's coming here to eat at the restaurant as a non-guest've never heard of that at like an all inclusive situation. Yeah, that's a good point.
You make a good point. I feel like you can either like charge it to the room or charge it to your card is sort of a thing.
So like this. OK, good question.
Let's let's keep the emails going. If you were in the hotel industry, if you went to Cornell, let us know what the deal is.
Here's the sort of big bucket that I want to put our character-by-character analysis in, and it is this question of identity. To go back to the immersive reading moment with Piper, what she was reading about this idea of identity as a prison, as a concept inside of think that's you know if if we're thinking about this show as um a potential for spiritual awakening for these ridiculous people they're ridiculous people but some of them might have a spiritual awakening of some kind rick certainly seems like you know to get something question mark out of his therapy session inside of this episode so you can agree or disagree we can talk about that in a second but something that you know you mentioned what we've seen in other seasons of white lotus this idea of identity as a prison i feel like there's two outcomes from your state three outcomes from your stay white lotus one is you go home in a body bag um okay the other two are you break free from something you have a you have a transcendent experience that she radically changes your relationship your family dynamics and like that and then the other one and the one we've seen a couple times that is the hardest for me to watch is almost like a cementing of yourself inside of something tough.

I think about I'll be in season two inside of that family where he was like

the different one differently could break the,

the,

the sort of generational philandering thing that was happening in his

family.

But in the final,

final sequence in white Lotus season two,

we see grandfather,

father,

son all turn their head to ogle woman as she walks by.

And the implication is just like, Albie's just going gonna be just like his dad and his grandfather certainly Rachel in season one Rachel uh is played by Alexander Daddario and we're like leave Shane he's the worst there she is just cozy it up with Shane at the end of of uh the season so this idea of like can you break out of this identity bucket that you've been put in or are you just gonna sort of further nestle yourself into um the role that's been designed for you so how does this apply in your view when you're thinking about the rat lifts and you're thinking about like lachlan on the verge of trying to make a decision pi Piper sort of exploring something else, Saxon wanting to be just like his dad, but not knowing that this thing is coming for his dad. How do you think of this idea of identity as it pertains to those characters? I mean, I think it's very notable for one that we don't really talk about Victoria in this way, because she is almost consciously running from whatever sense of identity she has other than mother and part of this family and advice giver as far as like, don't trust anyone you're not related to.
And also everyone is trying to scam you at all times. Like her identity feels a little bit more muddled in a way that makes sense for that character.
Everyone else is mostly reaching for something, grasping for something um tim clearly like defines a lot of who he is based on this kind of provider mentality yeah as like a very clear patriarch figure he enjoys being the guy who comes into the room says y'all have a good day i'm going this way while you all do your treatments job done here like he seems to have a lot of satisfaction i have provided for you he made he made the plan vis-a-vis pam and now everyone gets to be happy and do their thing um and yeah clearly saxon wants to be his dad so bad or at least wants daddy's approval so bad to the point that he'll basically say anything to agree with him across a table that's fine we kind of know who that character is but it's telling that Lachlan is the battleground for so many of these other characters. You can tell from his interactions with Piper that she wants him to be spiritual in the way that she is.
She wants him to have these gratifying meditative experiences or praying experiences like when he's in the float tank. And he's clearly not there.
And I find what's so interesting about Lachlan is that when he's with saxon he has more piper energy in some ways and when he's with piper he has more saxon energy in a lot of ways and you you feel that tug between them yeah it's such an interesting gender split inside of that family you've got like the women the the unc women and the the duke men and locky sort of like in the middle between the two um and you're right sort of like posturing more masculine by rigid definitions posturing more masculine when he's with piper and then more submissive feminine if you want to say it that way uh when he's around um saxon i did think uh we got an email that people thought it was interesting that uh piper and saxon and lachlan don't have any trace of an accent generationally to me that does not ping very strange they were like wouldn't they have the faintest whiff of like a tobacco road uh sort of accent um i don't know i don't know how in our in our constantly online monoculture state how accents are being handed down regionally and generationally um i have i have a valley girl california accent so i i can't speak to that but uh monkey shootout at gmail.com yeah i think they do mute over time my parents certainly have much more of a twang than i do for me, it comes out more on the y'alls. It comes out more with like specific words and things like that.
But I think that's pretty natural, especially for kids who have like if you've been to depending on where you grew up, if you're growing up in like more urban versus rural areas where those accents might be like a little more hardened. if you're going away for school versus staying close by for school, like all those things are variables, but I think it's pretty natural for kids to grow up with a,

um,

um, Those accents might be like a little more hardened if you're going away for school versus staying close by for school. Like all those things are variables.
But I think it's pretty natural for kids to grow up with a much less significant version of the same accent, if not lose it altogether. I've never been around drunk, Rob.
Does your accent come out when you have had some free beverages from the minibar? I don't think so. Okay.
Yeah. How about when you go back home? A little bit.
There's that kind of echoing effect that happens. Absolutely.
But ultimately, I think it just doesn't come out that much at all. I have a friend from Arkansas who you would not know is from Arkansas until he gets four drinks in.
It's wild. Okay.
Let's talk about Rick. Our our guy rick um so we got an email from i i got baited in the email and um i could not resist taking the bait blake wrote in on shakespeare corner um and he pointed out that rick says uh nothing comes from nothing which is a pretty famous and important line from king lear said by lear to his daughter cordelia when she refuses to lather him with praise like her other two sisters could this be a little clue to suggest that jim hollinger is in fact rick's dad and then he potentially cut rick out of some kind of inheritance after an act of quote disrespect much like lear did to cordelia love a shakespeare corner thanks so much blake um i to me i will say inside of the session when rick is is talking to amarita about his dad that sounded genuine to me whether whatever is true about jim hollinger i believe that rick thinks his dad is dead and not in the like anakin skywalker died so darthamander could live from a view, Joe.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. What do you think about Rick's dad and Jim Hollinger and what we've learned so far? I still think he's here for professional reasons.
Okay, you don't think this is personal vengeance? I don't think this is personal vengeance. I think a lot of that backstory is more, my read on it to this point, is more to illustrate Rick as sort of this empty vessel, this person who is devoid of identity, who has tried to take away every shred of identity that he ever thought he had for maybe these reasons he lays out, which is that his mom overdosed and his dad was murdered.
I also don't know if we're supposed to take those things at 100 percent face value or not, or if that's just a guy who does not want to be in this meditative session, not wanting to talk. Yeah, I just, I watched that.
I watched that interaction through a few times. And to me, it rings as true to him, though I agree with you that he does not want to be there I believe that he believes what he's saying there

whether or not he's saying it in an intentionally provocative

way to try to get out of that session

you know is its own

thing but in terms of like that identity

bigger identity question

you think is professional

I still tend to think it's personal

vengeance of some kind and the thing that I'm

focused on with Rick is he

seems like he's on a path like that Chelsea is pulling him to do one thing which is like have fun work on yourself be a human being be more than nothing really be here now be present uh you have issues please work through them please be here with me so that's like force pulling on him. And then there's this other thing pulling on him.

And, you know, from your point of view, it's professional.

From my point of view, it's personal and vengeful.

But either way, it feels like to me the Chelsea path is the better path, is the right path.

Yes.

And it's up in the air to me at this point whether Rick is going to be one of those characters where we are disappointed that he couldn't break out of either his professional uh gig as a hitman question is that what you're saying professional i think hitman hitman feels the most likely but it also could be he just needs to meet this man for some sort of clandestine reason like it could be a a delivery. It could be information.
I don't know exactly. It doesn't seem good, right? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem like, okay.
I mean, look, I think Walton Goggins is a great hang. I think Hollinger would be so lucky for Rick to chase him down to Bangkok.
You just love him as an outlaw. I understand.
I really do understand. And I love him as a philosopher.
And I'm glad we get this sequence with Amrita because, frankly, I don't think like Rick thinks so little of Chelsea in certain ways that he would never have this kind of conversation with her. I don't think about the like the the what he contains in his soul is not really what their relationship is at this stage.
maybe someday it will be. He does not like bear to her in that, that very specific way.
And I look, I think they are an incredible pair. And I think that there is a push and pull on a chemical level that makes a lot of sense.
And I think you nailed it in that she is really good for him in a lot of ways. Like she is pushing him out of his comfort zone.
She is like calling him on his bullshit. And clearly he provides a kind of security for Chelsea that she needs.
Like he gives her a comfort and a safety. Like she, even when she's like basically begging him to be held and protected, like there is a dynamic here that makes a lot of sense.
And one that I think is, is so expertly deployed opposite Chloe and Greg, where as we are told many times in this episode, basically the same people, young woman, grumpy older man. The parallels are obvious, but Chloe hates Greg by every indication we have in the show.
They have a purely transactional relationship where she is a sex worker, it seems of some kind, or at least Rick is very quick to this chelsea and rick could not be more different in their way like i think they are both benefiting from each other in some ways like chelsea may not be on this kind of trip if not for rick and rick may benefit for whatever his purposes are personal or professional from having a partner to travel with for cover or otherwise but they have an actual functional relationship it's it's weird but it kind of works in its way there's genuine affection and connection there when she runs to him after the robbery uh the connection that they have in bed like all of that stuff feels genuine like there is affection there there is a potential there for rick to make a choice it seems like to me yeah and i don't know which way he's gonna go and can he can he the identity of chelsea's boyfriend is much better to me than whatever else he's facing in terms of like you know uh son a child of tragedy or all these other things that are hanging over him that truly did happen to him but can you escape whatever you know trap that is for yourself and choose something else yes i also think like i never would have in my very limited casting wisdom thought to put walton goggins opposite amy lou wood and say that is a pairing that should work as a couple who is traveling abroad. Yeah.
There is more charge in like a four word exchange between them when she tells him he's so mysterious and he just says, I'm not. Then basically like any supposedly steamy show on television now or in the recent past, like, and that's before they start the proper foreplay.
Like there is just something between them that absolutely works in that way.

And once you have that, you can sell a lot of the rest and you can understand the emotional

beats and you can figure out like who these people are to each other and what they can

mean.

But you're right.

Like it terrifies me to hear you lay it out in the way of Rick as somebody who is going

to probably have to make a choice at some point, specifically as far as his identity.

When we just talked about all the White Lotus characters who just crystallize in their worst

Thank you. as somebody who is going to probably have to make a choice at some point, specifically as far as his identity, when we just talked about all the White Lotus characters who just crystallize in their worst instincts by the end of the season.
But some break out. Some do.
So it's like, so what's going to happen here? And the way I see it is like, you know, there's, do I go, it seems like there's a, do I go to Bangkok and pursue Jim Hollinger there? Or do I stay here at the White Lotus with Chelsea? He's definitely going to Bangkok, right? Yep. I think so.
Yeah. I'm worried for you, Rick.
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Let's talk about,

someone objected to us calling them the blonde blob, But again, that is what my wife called them. You can go with fancy cougars, which is Bill's or Bill has started calling them just the fancies if you prefer.
The fancies is not softened a little bit. Yeah, exactly.
Along the blonde blob line, though, we got an email from you already mentioned one Kara who emailed in a different kara emailed us in to point out that it's not often in tv that you get stories that it's like one insulated storyline with people of the same gender the same age bracket the same hair color and it feels very telling in that way that they are allowed to be the blonde blob and written to be the blonde blob because usually in these exact scenarios one has to be brunette one has to wear glasses one has to be in a different like age set or have a dramatically different style these are three women who are styled pretty similarly at the end of the day and the fact that they are constructed as as a like one unit to be considered and also to pull apart from itself i think is where the fun comes. I think that's so true.
In Kara's email, she pointed out certain cases like the fact that Leighton Meester had to dye her hair brunette to play opposite Blake Lively and stuff like that. So yeah, there's often a, we can't have two blondes, we can't have three brunettes, something like that.
How could we possibly tell them apart? Couldn't possibly do it. Okay, so on the one hand, that is true.
And I love that point. I'm glad you brought that up.
On the other hand, inside of their blonde blobliness, I was thinking about this is, you know, you're slightly younger than me. There's, there's this like early era of internet.
Did you ever watch teen girl squad? Is that ever something that came across your transom no joe those words mean nothing to me what is teen girl squad it's like early early internet uh like cartoon sketchery but teen girl squad which is genuinely great and i think about all the time if the intro would be like the pretty one the ugly one what's her face so and so um and so um this idea that like the blonde blob despite their blobliness have these set roles that perhaps they played jacqueline was always the face is something that they talked about earlier right like there are distinct roles inside of their friendships that they've always had and what is challenged inside of this episode when valentine does his thing uh which is tell the women the same thing what does that do to jacqueline well devastates her nothing nothing gets between friends like data joe like metrics like body fat percentage so like jacqueline having to consider that Laurie could be compared to her yeah is as you said devastating to Jacqueline so these identities inside of their same demo Jacqueline's power as the pretty one yeah the face is so important to her and it is personally devastating to her to have that challenge and it makes me think about like when you think about tim ratliff or jacklyn lemon here they're the power that protects them i'm the rich provider i'm the hot tv star yeah also the provider who's paying for this trip for the most part. Exactly.
It's so brittle. It's so fragile.
And like what happens when it cracks or is exploded? You know, let me tell you, we'll be cracking imminently within episodes if it isn't already. Yeah.
But you're absolutely right about Jacqueline. And I think it's tied to into her standing in the broader world.
Right. There is who she is in this friend group.
And it feels increasingly as we learn more about her, like this is a bit of a retreat. This is a bit of a circling the wagons for somebody who's going through a lot, who has a lot of neuroses, who has this husband who she's obsessed with healthily.
And there's definitely nothing weird going on there at all. And she's definitely not insecure about the fact that he's 10 years younger than her and clearly very, very, very hot.
And so you see a lot, I feel like, among the fancies, the fancy cougars, the blonde blob, whatever you prefer, of these women kind of speaking to their insecurities both directly and indirectly. And for Jacqueline, it is a lot of like, am I hot enough or good enough for this relationship that I'm in is one of the insecurities she's talking about.

But you can transpose it on her friends, too, where it's like if she's not even hot enough to be the hottest in this group, how is she going to be hot enough to fend off everyone who's making advances on her hot husband? Right. And I feel like in Kate, the insecurity that you hear is a lot more like it's played for last with the Parker Posey scene in terms of like the non-recognition.

But she comes away from it like she seems genuinely a little bothered. And her thought is, am I that forgettable? Am I boring? Am I that boring? And the answer might be yes.
Like the most interesting thing this woman has to say is about beans, which we can circle back to if you like. But that seems like where seems like where she is she's trying to figure like she wants to be notable beyond more just than just being like a rich guy's wife yeah um there's also a question i don't know the answer to it but there's the question i think we got some emails about this i've seen floating around this idea of like new money versus old money oh yeah like it's kate new money and victoria is definitely old money so there's just sort of like this and jacklyn's new money too and oh hence why she's a prostitute yeah i think you get this kind of really hammered home by the end when tim is on the phone talking about the light to media money laundering that he seems to have done for only 10 million dollars it's like just a drop you barely made me any money just 10 Vers you know like even for someone like Jacqueline 10 million dollars is probably a lot of money yeah um okay so something I want to say about that breakfast scene um when Piper is doing her devastating this is Disneyland from for you know women from Malibu and their lulu lemon yoga pants and then the ladies walk by and their lulu lemons um that was the closest she's gotten to sydney sweeney era white lotus so far just like she has it in her and i wonder if we're gonna see more and more of it get them piper um okay so here's the thing um my best friend uh diana helmeth wrote a book called 50 places to practice yoga before you die uh she she works on this 50 places um friend book franchise and um i the the hard time she had in calling around you know investigating these like really cool places you can go to do yoga around the world a lot of them in asia southeast asia etc um trying to find non-white women to talk to because most of these retreats are run by white women who have gone to find themselves in asia uh and it you know my best friend a white woman but it was like driving her up the wall she's like i don't want to keep talking to all these white women who have gone to india to find themselves um but it was like making me think about that and she she you know she eventually found them it's a great book but it was just like it was just like the struggle was real in terms of how much white women have taken over this scene uh inside of of southeast asia and i was just thinking about jacqueline and kate when i was thinking about that something our listener joanna wrote in about not me another Joanna um she was like let's not put Lori in the shrinking violet bucket like she is a hard-hitting successful maybe did not get the latest promotion but successful lawyer in New York so at apparently a top firm so like we've been waiting for like what's the carrie coon explosion like whatever's gonna come inside of the fracturing of this friend group or something like that let's not expect that laurie the lawyer is gonna take it lying down right is that uh something that's on your radar wait frankly it was good to see the claws come out a little bit as far as her place in this relationship that she can talk some shit to.
She can gossip with the best of them, like the dynamics shift depending on which two women are in the room. Yeah.
And we get some hints at a backstory as far as like, you know, the potential like pursuit of Valentin, for example. Like, oh, this is Cancun all over again.
Like, Laurie's been out here getting after it. All right like she's she's lived a life she's had a pretty successful career if not as you said in the way that she may have wanted as far as making a partner but i love the developing relationship and the rounding out or i guess hardening edge of the triangle between these three women the trust triangle yeah this is my mathematical proof joe and please check my work here okay kate will talk shit about laurie but she kind of needs to be nudged to talk shit about jacqueline like she feels like she's a little more hesitant to talk shit about jacqueline and in some ways maybe wants to be jacqueline or have jacqueline's face or whatever you prefer uh jacqueline will hear gossip about la Lori, but honestly mostly seems to pity her and her circumstances in ways where she doesn't want to pile on too much.
Lori will talk shit about Jacqueline. And that's, I think, our new development in this episode.
She's coming in hot. It just might take her like a bottle, bottle and half of Sauvignon Blanc to get there.
And once she does, she has arrived. Yeah.
I, what do you think Jacqueline and Lori will find to talk shit about Kate? Will it be the beans? Will it be like, Oh, the bean conversation. Can you believe that? She brings the beans one more time.
I'm need episode seven yeah to just eat be eating a big old plate of beans like we we don't need to call it out but we need forget the melon it's it's bean time the real ones need to know and we need to see it in action but honestly i wonder if we're gonna get that i wonder if this is the case where it is a triangle technically but kate is kind of the hinge point and Okay. Because we're already told that Jacqueline and Laurie haven't seen each other in four years, I think is what Jacqueline says.
Like maybe they're just not as close. Maybe Kate's role in this friend group has always been that she's sort of the middle ground for both of them and the way that everything makes sense.
So I honestly don't know if we're going to get that, but it would fit the monkey see no evil hear no evil theme yeah because i thought it was kind of interesting that when their friends are gossiping about them laurie sees her friends through the window but can't hear them jacqueline hears her friends from downstairs but can't see them maybe we do get you know the the trifecta far. I don't even know what it would be at that point.

To speak your friends.

Are you writing bullshit about that? Are you tech?

Well, they don't have their phones, I guess.

At least we don't think they have their phones, but it's got to be some version of the written word.

One thing that I love that Mike White has said over the course of three seasons of this show is when people are like, hey, which of these characters do you most closely identify with?

And he's like, I'm all of them. Yeah, that's the point.
How Mike which which of these characters do you most closely identify with and he's like i'm all of them yeah that's the point how mike white thinks about these characters so um we got an email from listener alex who was saying was re-watching season one you brought up uh our our pal sydney sweeney um alex pointed out that in season one sydney sweeney and her friend are making up personas for all the guests and. And they mentioned something about how Jennifer Coolidge's character is a rich woman waiting for her friends who just, quote, tolerate her because she pays for everything.
Interesting how Mike White seated this even then. Curious if this inspired the blondies.
Cute. Or if he has been plotting this all along.
Either way, just appreciate the attention to detail always. So I do think there's always a version inside of white lotus of the have and the have not inside of these uh an unbalance of power like if you think of like porsche in season two working for tanya like the only reason porsche is there is because she's in tanya's employ and stuff like that yes um if mike white an incredibly successful and rich yet deeply insecure uh person is someone who has gone around the world thinking, are these people just hanging out with me because I'm rich, because I'm successful, because I'm famous.
And like Jacqueline Lemon. Why are Kate and Laurie there? Because they really care about Jacqueline.
Are Kate and Laurie there? Because it's an all inclusive cool trip to Thailand with their famous, they can draft off the fame a bit of Jacqueline maybe a little of all of the above and I this is what I love about this friend group is there is so much being critical of each other in the in the under the guise of care under the guise of like oh I'm so concerned about their well-being I'm so concerned about their life but. But they always double back to like, oh, but she's so great.
Oh, but she's so beautiful.

On the one hand, that could be very superficial. I also think it can kind of be true of the people

that you're closest with and who you have the longest lasting connections with is you can be

critical of them and wonder what the hell they're doing, but also care about them. I don't know that

that's the case here. And maybe it's not.
Maybe this is a long lasting friendship that should

Thank you. them and wonder what the hell they're doing, but also care about them.
I don't know that that's the case here. And maybe it's not.
Maybe this is a long lasting friendship that should have petered out years and years ago. And these women are kind of holding on to.
But I think there's something true in that, or at least something true in the way people try to act, which is they want to be close, even if they aren't. Yeah.
And I've definitely done that with friends of uh you know out of concern also veered into shit talking territory um that is i'm merely a human i like to think i don't do it very much anymore but definitely when i was younger that was the thing that i did um i want to talk to you about the robbery. Yes.
And our guy, Valentin, who is not just our guy. He's not my guy.
Your guy. He is not my guy.
I just want to say Valentin, not my guy. Who is not only causing strife with the biometrics, but also it seems like is involved in the boutique robbery, right? A hundred percent.
What do you know about the Russian population in Thailand? Not enough. Can you take me on a journey? I sure can.
I read some articles about it because Mike White was talking in interviews about how when they spent time there, there so many russians he felt like it would be weird to not include a russian storyline it would not genuinely reflect what's happening in thailand right now to not include a russian storyline so it's like news to me what can you tell me so there's a great time a magazine article i think from last year about this quoting from that article while many western nations have shut out russian air travel in response to vladimir to Vladimir Putin's full scale invasion of Ukraine, Thailand sees Russian arrivals as key to reviving its pandemic ravaged tourism industry.

In October, Thai Prime Minister extended 90 day visas upon arrival for Russian passports, insisting in a February interview, we're not part of the Ukraine conflict. We're neutral.

In 2023, Russians ranked top for tourist arrivals in Thailand from the outside of Asia with 1.4 million visitors. It's a way to avoid the draft.
If you go to Thailand and just stay there, you can not get drafted into the war. Wow.
And so that's a thing that you can do. So it's like going to Canada for Americans during Vietnam.
And then um in phuket the laguna beachfront complex of villas ornamental lake etc an 18-hole golf course is now dubbed little moscow for the sheer influx of moneyed russians who have just come to sort of shelter in thailand so that is a thing we've got valentine but like what else is to come on the russian uh storyline front what do you want to say about i don't know this is a a sort of thing that's happening in thailand or the robbery or anything else pertaining to your guy valentine i mean certainly makes it all the more understandable why sutala would point out oh he's russian when they show up like how it would be useful yeah from you know the perspective of working at a hotel to have a fluent russian speaker somebody to work with russian guests like that makes all the sense in the world also would help us understand why these other two robbers might be potentially russian um the fact that valentine is so clearly involved to me and this has been easily the funniest thing as far as from a theory standpoint. The number of people who I have seen suggested as potentially behind the masks executing this robbery.
Let me tell you, Greg is not robbing this hotel. My guy's not spry.
He is not a spry guy. That tells me you have never seen a man ofreg's age move like the hip the hip mobility he's not swiveling like that like it's just not happening i'm sorry he's not moving in that way um and so i think you can very easily go through the list of like people it could not be under any circumstances or people who narratively probably would not make sense okay but then there's valentine who is stopping not just to distract guy talk at the

gate but parking his bike underneath the gate itself and preventing it from closing as he is

soft pitching the idea of going to these fights together i want to see if those tickets come

through by the way he better at least deliver for our guy guy talk uh the muay thai fights uh i

really am hoping is part of the storyline in this in the show um you said our guy guy talk okay i

I don't know. fights uh i really am hoping is part of the storyline in this in the show um you said our guy guy talk okay i i walked that one back too he's also not my guy last week you were on nice guy watch nice guy talk uh watch yep where are you after this i mean more even more on that corner i love that like this is i this is a slight role reversal for us because like we got a lot of emails from people being like we love that rob is rob is an ally rob is the best like rob is in on this and i'm like i don't know i'm all in on guy talk i really like him his idea of a chill first date is like a marriage proposal like he's coming in way way way too hot they've known each other forever though his pitch is like your family likes me and i can maybe like hang a picture frame that's his pitch okay listen don't underestimate someone who can hang a picture frame but also like i i agree that there are moves here that feel classically capital n capital g nice Yep.
I think it all depends on his reaction to Mook. And I don't feel like his reaction to her rejection was shitty.
Do you know? No, no. Disappointed? Not yet.
But she also has only, to this point, affirmed him with attention. Does that, okay.
but does that mean that she's somewhat interested in him it what that what it requires for guy talk to not be in capital n capital g nice guy territory is reciprocity right the nice guy is pursuing without any measure of interest from the girl In fact, turning a blind eye to her discomfort and disinterest. And while Mook is sort of like, hey, man, we haven't even been on a date.
Why are you proposing marriage to me? She's not reading as uncomfortable to me when she's around him. Not uncomfortable.
There is a shy sweetness to them that I do enjoy watching. I disagree though, that the reciprocity is sort of what, what punctures the idea.
Cause you can be in a relationship with a guy and find out into the relationship with interest and with care and with love that they are actually a nice guy at heart and want to be controlling and want to kind of make these strictures around your life. I think the test is going to be when, you know, Hollinger's bodyguards come calling again.
When someone else shows interest. When Mook veers away from nursing him and holding his ice pack, what happens? Like, what is left of our guy-guy talk? Sorry, your guy-guy talk.
My guy. Because, yeah, right now his only move is basically marry me.
And it feels and yes she is kind of laughing it off does not seem entirely uncomfortable with his advances yeah but i'm i'm worried okay i think it's good to keep an eye on guy talk uh or any nice guy uh that we meet capital and capital g but i i'm leaning because i feel like oftentimes actually that's not true season one i was just thinking that there was like the the front desk couple in season two that were like hotel staff um that you know we're quite background but we're like kind of rooting for um i don't know good to keep an eye on it uh our our my guy guy talk is a hero for the moment, even though he didn't really do anything, but that's okay.

Well, he took a pistol whip, and ultimately he got the most powerful medicine that there is, which is the sweet, sweet affection of the person that you're interested in. So he's doing all right at this point.
i want to call out our guy our guy fabian uh who's the who's the resort manager who like

in comparison to the two resort managers that we've seen the previous seasons has a much smaller role um but we did get a couple emails from people pointing out that christian friedel who plays fabian uh or friedel who plays fabian um was a a scary ass nazi in the zone of interest a tremendous film that came out two years ago so um is there something coming for fabian like uh as we were waiting for carrie coon to have her big moment should we be waiting for fabian's big moment and is it going to be performing uh at at at dinner some night or something else well he could not be more tightly wound So it would not surprise me to see him break at some point. The way he is just like a living, breathing anxiety spiral who eventually will talk himself into a fugue state if you let him go long enough.
I love in this show. Love everything that Fabian has bring to the table.
Love the lip syncing with Srutala's performance. Oh my God.
I think he's going to be more comedic effect moving some plot lines along i don't see like a tragic fate becoming him but i'm i am so happy he's here he's so great they're like the the trying to tell someone not to clear the plate in the most inefficient way possible i don't know how he got this job but uh good for him. Do you think the biggest threat to...

You mentioned the Hollinger bodyguards,

but do you think the biggest threat to the Guy Talk-Mook romance

could be if Pornchai takes his shirt off in front of Mook?

You think Mook wants some of those special treatments too?

I'm just saying.

No, no.

Pornchai, in my view, belongs to Belinda.

Belongs. Guy takes off his shirt one time, and now they are betrothed there's energy there there isn't look she she is into the milk soap she is into the salt scrub like she's having a great time and i support belinda in her pursuits uh doggins is also not skipping arm day i'm just saying it's a great it was a great episode everyone knew they were coming to thailand and they're gonna be taking their shirts off they knew there were gonna be some open flowing garments and everyone everyone is really ready what else do you want to talk about joanna i don't know what's going on with the rat lift kids uh but at this point i'm very worried uh-huh that somebody's something is gonna end up in someone and i I don't know who or which or what the incest vibes are just incredibly strong.
Tough. It's tough.
Between everybody. Everybody's in each other's business.
I really hate the way you just phrased that. But I can't find my, I didn't need to disagree with you.
It's not good. If you had to pick a pairing.
Oh, boy. Where do you feel we're most likely to land? I have a very bad feeling that there is a Piper Saxon situation happening.
Actively happening. I don't know if actively happening, but like.
On something did happen something is weird i i want to i want to go through specifically when locky and piper are out in the ocean hammocks and he brings we press pause can we press pause on somebody something is going to go into somebody else's something else and just admire the ocean hammocks you're a hammock guy rob you love a hammock i love a hammock i would love an ocean oh my god are you kidding what this is an ideal setup this is where you want to be i think the only issue with the ocean hammock and this is only a problem if you are an adult 2025 person like i am it's hard to bring things out to the hammock if you're having to swim to it like you could have the waterproof bag bag with your book in it or your music in it, like what your headphones, whatever it is that you want to bring.

But look, very good for presence.

Very good for tranquility.

I would love to be in that hammock.

What if it's like a waiting, you're waiting out scenario?

You're waiting out to the thing and you're just holding your book.

Definitely works.

But like Piper's going full like freestyle. Like she's's swimming out there so it's at least a little bit deep she's she's a talented individual all right so um if you guys are listening to this it's great and we love when you listen if you're watching i just want to let you know that i've been podcasting how long we've been podcasting now over a year yeah year and a half we've had a good run i've never seen you make as an uncomfortable a face as you just made earlier when you were describing the rat lift siblings so would you like to return to that i thought we would take a brief respite into ocean hammock but let's go back to uh to incest uh corner incest road with that's not a rat lift it's not a corner you want to be in it's not legal in many states thank but yeah thank you all of them right all of them i i hope i i almost am scared to know at this point okay uh so locky brings up to piper by the way saxon says that you've never had sex before yeah totally normal what sarah Sarah Catherine hook is giving us as Piper in this scene is a whole ass crisis of something.
And I don't know what it is or what it means. Like she gets to the, what the fuck she starts with.
Like she has her eyes closed as Lockie is saying this, her eyes jut open. You can see the gears turning as she's figuring out like, what do I possibly say to this? Her first response is to scoff and to kind of grasp at something and to project like she's above it like he doesn't know what i do right that is her first response when she finally does respond then she tries to kind of quiet down then she sits up agitated asking how the hell would this even come up and that's where lock tells her oh actually no.
He was actually saying, you're so hot. So it's weird that you've never had sex before.
Very normal. Cool family.
This is where you get the mouth. What the fuck? Piper gets frustrated and weirded out.
She tries to settle down again. And that's when Locke prompts her in a very Saxon way to ask, well, is it true? And that's when she bolts off.
And so it's like there's so much happening here between them and so much specifically in what piper is is kind of carrying on her face and internally in this scene yeah i would be shocked if there's not something behind it and it may not be the kind of thing we ever get into but it's it's hinting at a very rich sibling history and i pray not incestuous sibling history but at this point god knows we talked earlier about rick being a character that i see is like having a choice to make lachlan is even more identified as someone who has to be like they have explicitly said it i have a big choice to make between duke and unc but like between which side which sibling am i more going to ally myself with which side am i going to more identify with

am i going to go with piper who i think we all agree at least you and i agree is the more palatable uh option here right i mean saxon is like if a shit-eating grin was a person so yeah like the the bar is pretty low it feels like schwarzenegger who's again they're all doing a job. Wonderful.
Schwarzenegger has more teeth than a human usually does in his mouth. He's like a shark.
Yeah, very sharky. Or is he going to lie himself with Saxon? And again, to go back to that whole like.
People often end up disappointing us on White Lotus. I am fully braced lachlan to disappoint me and you know just sort of embrace the the you gotta build up your muscles and hunt chicks and live your life that way success pussy etc that's that's the life path for you i mean at minimum lock is a little freak who wants to stare at his brother's ass and ask her sister about her sexual up like sexual escapades like he's not it's not great the early signs i should not infantilize lock you're right he is he's he's doing some stuff all right can i say one thing in saxon's defense just just one one quick note hold.
Yes. You know, we laughed at the time about this when the rooming arrangements were being proposed.
And he said something to the effect of like, you can't do that when you have fully grown genitals. It is what he says, yeah.
Knowing everything that we think we know now or suspect now about the rat lifts, maybe he was was right These three people need three separate rooms And need their fully grown genitals Very far away from each other There's a very luxurious front room With many couches Someone should be sleeping on the couch In an ordinary family I would say This is not an issue In this family let's just separate sleeping Seems like a great idea. Sleeping nude with your brother in the room is deranged behavior.
Just truly deranged behavior. I mean, but like enjoying yourself to porn in the other in a room that is like barely insulated is also deranged behavior nothing but deranged behavior from saxon um

here's something we should say let's let's run down so we've got like to to reiterate

our threats our potential threats okay monkeys always question mark uh the hollinger bodyguards

have guns so let me think about you know gun involved in the in the robbery etc um