‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 1 Deep Dive and Theories

This episode of the Prestige TV podcast is brought to you by Coffee Mate.

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So for the love of coffee, go try them now. Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed.
I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm still in the void.
That's Rob Mahoney. Hey, Rob.
How are you doing? Hi, Joe. I'm doing great.
I'm excited to take my first venture to Thailand spiritually, but you're second. You've been around.
You know the grounds of covering White Lotus. You've already done it on this feed.
But I look forward to you kind of guiding me and showing me, oh, you know what? This is actually the place where you want to go to avoid all the crowds. This is the pool where the children aren't allowed to be so you can luxuriate in peace.
That's kind of what I'm looking for from my White Lotus experience. I can be your wellness guide as we go through this journey.
Absolutely. Okay.
Sounds great. Rob, why are we doing two White Lotus pods on this feed? What are you and I doing that's different from what bill and mal and i are doing on sunday night it's a great question do you know the answer to this question i can come up with an answer my answer is i love covering tv shows with you joe and i would love to cover white loads i know why i'm doing it you so graciously are as i said coming back for another bite of the apple another bite of the poisonous fruit you're right back in and i appreciate it for one i think one thing we want to do so bill and mal and i are gonna we have the video pods that are well and you can also just listen to them that are going up on sunday nights directly after the show we want to do a show a couple days later to get uh to get in on the theories that people are are going through to get emails from you all um and just to sort of marinate with the episode and and perhaps dive a little bit deeper uh into white lotus rob mahoney yes if folks want to email us we have not decided whether or not we're going to go with any of the emails that we come up with today because you aren't feeling like 100% confident you have nailed it yet.
But what are your early ideas for a special deep dive White Lotus podcast that people can email? Well, first, let's make it clear that anyone can email us at any time at PrestigeTV at Spotify.com. That's available.
And they already have for Whiteed. They're excited.
The people are jazzed, as are we. Yeah.
This is a tough one. I have to say there weren't particular lines of dialogue, although I was cackling throughout this episode.
I was really enjoying it. But as far as a signature email line, I didn't think anything really jumped out at me.
And so I'm thinking more conceptual. After listening to your pod with Mal and Bill, monkeyshootout at gmail.com could be right there for the taking.
And similarly, this is a spelling nightmare. Chekhovsmacaque at gmail.com, I think could hint at something to come, but I'm not going to ask anyone out there to spell Chekhovsmacaque for an email.
So I think we're still searching, Jo. Okay.
What about the monkeys did it at gmail.com? I like the monkeys did it. If that's available, we should jump on the monkeys did it.
Monkeys done it is available. Can we tolerate that? I don't think we can do monkeys.
What about monkey shootout? Is monkey shootout available? Monkey shootout is available. I mean, I don't hate it.
I'm doing monkey shootout. Okay.
All mean i'm not i don't hate it i'm doing monkey shootout okay um all right we have through the magic of editing figured out that monkey shootout is available the monkeys did it is not available no but monkey shootout gmail.com is available so if you have questions comments or concerns for us you can find us at monkey shootout at gmail.com or press hdb at spotify.com. Or if you want to email whoever does own the monkeysdidit at gmail.com and get them to surrender their email address to us, we will accept it.
Yeah, but surrender only. No bartering.
No bartering. No bartering.
No promising. Just surrender.
Just soft pressure. Okay.
So let's talk about some emails that we got okay at prestigetv at spotify.com though again uh monkeyshootout at gmail.com is here for your enjoyment emily and everyone else but in this case specifically emily wanted to get in on accent corner mal and bill and i talked a bit about the fact that parker posey and jason isaacs are doing two strong accent choices on the show jason isaacs being someone who is not even from the united states of america so and we have to say his character does not need to be from the united states of america he could be could he not be a native brit who studied abroad at duke is that not a thing that could have happened i mean you tell me um this is what emily wrote hi i just wanted to weigh in on the ratliff accent convo i've spent my whole life in mississippi and tennessee so i feel somewhat qualified to offer an opinion parker posey's accent bothered me more i know jason isaacs is british so maybe i don't expect as much from him. But Parker spent a good bit of her childhood in Mississippi.
Her accent feels way more forced than necessary. Maybe the exaggerated accent is just television shorthand to indicate southern to a broader untrained audience ear.
But southern accents have a lot more nuance than anything she or Jason is doing. However, and my best friend and I spent a lot of time talking about this today the whole dynamic in that family felt eerily familiar anyone who knows an old money white family in the south would recognize the clothes even piper's prairie dress that y'all pointed out the uncomfortable closeness of any of the siblings sibling slash parent slash sibling relationships the obsession with state school allegiances slash rivalries all that felt so authentic i'm willing to ignore the sketchy accent work so rob mahoney you are not from any of the carolinas i am not no you're a texan but a child of the south a child of the south welcome to accent corner i texted you in advance i was like rob you you gave me the brief something wild is coming i can't wait for you to hear it and talk to me about it take me an accent corner with you rob mahoney how are you feeling about it they're both pretty out there as far as isaac's and parker posey i it's fascinating that it's hitting people so differently if i have to profess a theory as to why that might be the case i would say it's this isaacs to me does at some point like reed is carolinian to me like he does hit it at some points but he's so all over the map that you're getting australian you're getting new zealand vowel sounds at some point which is quite a far away from the carolinas uh linguistically speaking to say the least he's just all over the place and he feels like the accent might slip out from under him at any point in time mid-sentence anything could happen i mean similar to tim ratflitz ratliff's uh grasp on you know his own life it was certainly his personal finances or at least what's going on inside his company yes standing uh parker family standing.
Parker Posey. So she is much broader.
And for me, it's working. I appreciate the broad approach that she's taking to this character.
And I might have more forgiveness for it than some of our listeners do. And I will say it's because of this.
White Lotus, to me, has always been a show about the specificity of character. It's always like you nail these very specific details and all of a sudden everything clicks into place yeah and as someone who has grown up and spent a majority of his life in the south there are things about that parker posey is doing that are so particular that from the first time she opens her mouth i know this woman and i might even be related to this woman uh if we're totally honest about it uh like i just started laughing and it look there's a very good storytelling mechanism here because there is no better vehicle for exposition than a southern mom like it she will come in guns a-blazing telling you the entire life story of every single person that she's traveling with does she have to be on lorazepam when she does it or does is that just a bonus i think that's optional i.
I think that's just for the vibes. And also another reason why I'm a little more forgiving on the accent work.
She's in a slurry zone and a very pleasant wave that, frankly, may we all have what she's having. That's my take on the excessive drawl from Parker is that this is a drug-induced sort of slur.
She's barely awake for most of this first episode. Her eyes are like at half-mast at all times.
To be clear, I love Jason Isaacs on this show, and I love Parker Posey on this show. They are actors I love.
I think they're really well cast. The accent corner is fun to talk about, but I just want to make it clear.
I think they're phenomenal and i think what isaacs is doing especially in the way that tim ratliff manages someone like pam uh that like really like yep bolstering but condescending sort of approach that he has jesus christ i know that guy like i know that guy and yeah jason isaacs is perfect casting not just for that guy but for potentially shady businessman with a perpetually like puffed out chest who is i would say like most influenced by how other people see him and it's like deeply insecure in spite of that so it's like i it's great casting the accent work is really all over the place it's not bothering me i'm i'm along for the ride yeah i curious to see if like week to week, it sort of fades in the background and we don't even notice it anymore or if it becomes more hilarious. We shall see.
And then the other, another theory that I've seen floating around that Mal and Bill and I didn't talk about because it honestly hadn't occurred to me, but I've seen it in a couple of different places. And our listener, Ellen wrote in to say, I feel like one theory you folks didn't cover on the excellent pod this week is that it definitely strong words ellen definitely seems like carrie coon is being set up to be the mother of portia aka hayley lou richardson from season two um i this is not this did not occur to me at all um she was just talking about sort of she thinks their hair is similar blah blah carrie coot is playing laurie one of the three uh you know blonde friends um who are together on this trip they do mention that she has a daughter what what do you think of this theory how does how is this sitting for you i would say it doesn't check out for me timeline wise because the pors show we know from season two I would guess at the point of that season was what 22 23 years old mid-20s and like that and we're assuming this is maybe two-ish years later after season two just based on some circumstantial things that happen in the first episode and are said yeah would you describe a 25 year old as turning into a really cool girl like that I like I, like I would, I would think you'd get more into young woman territory.
If you're, if you're going to describe someone in their twenties, like cool girl is not how I would think that an older woman would describe a woman in her twenties. Yeah.
I will say the thing that's appealing to this about me, I don't, I don't think it's true, but you know, I'm, you know, I love a theory, so I'm willing to entertain all theories.

But, like, I wouldn't mind a future installation of White Lotus where Carrie Coon and Haley Lou Richardson.

Oh, sure.

Mother daughter who go visit another White Lotus location, though, given that Portia, I would say, given that Portia is, like, pretty sure what happened to her boss.

Yep.

Thank you. Portia, I would say, given that Portia is like pretty sure what happened to her boss.
Yep. Do you not think she would say to her mom, he maybe don't go to a White Lotus? I do think that she would indeed say that.
Per the conversation that the three of you had on the other pod about like, would you be aware if murders were happening at a hotel before you stayed there? I would think, broadly speaking, no.

And we've all stayed in hotels where people have died. People have been murdered.
I don't want to say it's not a big deal, but it's not something that you're consciously conscious of unless it's a very particular point of obsession for you. Which, who am I to step on your we interests? Follow your bliss.
If you want to know about the murders in your hotels, please do. But yeah, there's no way that a mother to daughter relationship, if there's any consistent communication whatsoever, would not include, by the way, the last time I went to a White Lotus, many, many people were murdered.
Yeah, there was a lot of death. Okay.
So the Kate Laurie Jacqueline trio, I kind of want to start there with you.

Do you have a name for them other than the aforementioned cougars because cougars is canonical fancy fancy cougars is i believe what bill wanted to call them the fancy is not a bad touch and i don't have a better suggestion unfortunately well i was so i was listening to the official podcast it's um pretty good actually i will say i don't always love an official podcast this is a pretty good one uh and they were interviewing michelle monahan and she said that mike white wanted them to look like quote one blonde blob that they all three sort of like looked the same ish yeah uh so maybe the blonde blob is another uh blonde blob is solid how do you think the blonde blob started? If you were to trace the chain of events. Yeah.
Who goes blonde first? Oh, Leslie did. You think she's blonde first, even before Michelle Monaghan? Yeah, I think Kate goes blonde first.
And then Jacqueline and then Lori. Lori last.
Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot lot of lasts for Laurie it's tough scenes out here as as uh you know number one Carrie Coon fans uh I all this slander will not stand um okay um Mike White also Michelle Monaghan also says that Mike White refused to confirm what kind of show Jacqueline was on yeah i had guessed the walking dead did you have any any sort of like thoughts or theories about what show jacqueline lemon is on i love that idea i was thinking more kind of broadly popular more four quadrant entertainment the first thing that jumped to me was like she is on a subplot or one of the stories one of the stories of like a, this is us bootleg type show.
Oh, okay. You know, like a domestic drama of some kind where if, if you are someone like Saxon, like you can't quite put your finger on where, you know, this person from, but they're out in the ether.
So I don't know if it's, I was trying to think like, is it a, is it, they were them? Is it, we were they some, some other, this is usleg. The you you are perhaps finally come to the small screen.
But I don't, yeah, I feel like it might be something that you might not have actually seen, but you know she is famous. So I was thinking The Walking Dead, The Walking Dead like at its height, because like at its height, it was everywhere.
And she's globally famous. So, you know, it's like a huge show.

So anyway, the point is there is no answer because not only would Mike White not confirm,

but he insisted that Michelle Monaghan not like one for herself.

So the answer is we'll never know.

But guesses are welcome.

The UUR is a fun one. Again, monkeyshootoutofgmail.com if you have any theories.
Hit us up. I wanted to, you know, as I mentioned, we wanted to sort of like poke around subreddit, see what theories are floating around there.
LCE, I don't know quite how to. I always have a hard time reporting uh reddit usernames on a on a podcast put up a photo of the three of the blonde blob cheersing each other with their white wine with a tarot card of the three of cups wow um and i just wanted to read to you what this reddit user linked the meaning of theot card, the Three of Cups.
Please. When the Three of Cups is reversed, it means that you may have no time to socialize or go out with friends.
You may be too busy with school or work that you can't spare some time to have fun. Three of Cups reversed can also mean losing touch with some of your friends.
As time passes, you may find that you're growing apart from one another. When we grow older, we must put in effort to make sure that our friendships are not neglected.

Alternatively, the three of cups reversed can mean that there's a lack of balance and harmony within your social circle.

Gossip and scandal can rear their ugly heads.

Perhaps there is envy hidden within the circle.

And as a result, you are feeling isolated.

Well, holy shit.

Well, holy shit, Rob.

That's pretty good.

What do you want to say about, I mean, I'm not, I would happily try to match any character on this show to a tarot card. It is not my area of expertise.
But what do you think of the dynamic that they put together with the blob blob here and whether or not you want to apply it to tarot or not? I love the tarot call. And honestly, I think fits within the vague sort of spiritualism that we're delving into with the season of White Lotus in general.
This is my favorite section of characters so far. I just find something about their relationship to be so vivid and so particular.
And I'm a little torn onto whether these three women hate each other or not or if they're just so far apart that they are insisting that they're closer than they are for, you know, not in the way as you just described with the Three of Cups, like the way that relationships get strung out over time and you find yourself clinging to them and pretending that there's something beyond what they really are to you in the present tense. Right.
But specifically this sort of like chain reaction between them of clearly the balance of power has been upset by Jacqueline becoming quite famous and Leslie Bibb's character, Kate, having just a complete Jacqueline complex in every possible way and wants to be her so bad. But my heart always goes out to Carrie Coon, who in this case is so distinct distinctly the third friend and if we're gonna if we're gonna fudge the math on the three of cups i mean carrie coon has had three cups herself she is she is racking them up she's throwing them back those are some heavy heavy pours yes and by the end of the episode she seems pretty well sloshed uh but i love her in her three cups it well into her three cups yeah uh but i love that character character I love everything that Carrie Coon is bringing to it all like the random little things the way she's like after she spots the monkeys for the first time does this like creep down the patio deck to come tell her friends about this thing she just saw it's like I I fucking love all I love all of these actresses as performers and I'm really loving the places that they're putting in the things that they're giving them to do i would say leslie bibb like first and foremost who as far as i can tell has just not been granted a lot of very fulfilling parts in the things that i have seen her in but she always pops and she's always interesting and so it finally looks like she's going to be given you know some uh some runway here i can't yeah carrie coon is a longtime favorite of mine um michelle monaghan fantastic but my eye is drawn to leslie bibb as kate i feel like of all these women and i recognize all of them sure kate is the one i think i recognize the most and to your point about i love your point that you made about specificity of character i think what i love about white lotus and i was i was thinking about this as I was trolling through the subreddit this morning and stuff like that, is that HBO put up an image of all the characters sort of in a grid on their social media.
And I forget what the caption is, but it's something like, who do you think? Or something like that, right? Interesting. So they're stoking theory corner.
um and that's the genius of white lotus is that it is it is just a comedy of manners show yeah that's what it is wrapped in the candy coated package here's a body uh there's a body or bodies or perhaps you know like this is a there it's a theory show a whodunit show but really that's not at all i think what mike white is interested in it's just like that's the hook that gets people guessing and talking about it but really it's just these little digs and quirks and nonsense that that are so human yes you know completely and within archetypes that may not be us exactly but the hyper rich that are put into these incredible circumstances and beautiful locales. And this is why, to be honest, Joe, I was a little surprised to see that some of the initial critical response of this season was a lot of like, oh, it starts out as kind of a remix of the things that you've already known of previous seasons, like very familiar.
And it's like, yes, that is true in the same way that we're going to a luxury resort. It's going to be very wealthy people.
There are going to be these archetypes. But what makes White Lotus White Lotus to me is that the textures are always so different.
And it may be another son who is inheriting incredible wealth, working for his father, but the personality type is just different enough. And again, it's just specific enough that I'm completely into it.
and so true to the name of this episode same spirits new forms like that's that's what white lotus always feels like to me i kind of feel like mike so mike white uh writer and director of every single episode i feel like he's sort of lampshading that critique by calling it same spirits new forms you know what i mean like it is in the one hand engaging in the specific you know if we're in thailand we have to be thinking about in terms of spirituality we have to be thinking about buddhism but like he's also like sort of like yeah yeah i know i know you think it's like third verse same as the first like but guess what it's working yep also guess what have a little faith like mike white has proven to be one of the most surprising writers working in television or like basically whatever he puts his pen to so i don't anticipate that this will end up in the same place as it does and frankly i don't know how you could watch previous seasons of white lotus and think oh yep i knew exactly what was going to happen at the end of season two that's just how i predicted it exactly well some you know something that they were talking about the official podcast and i don't know whether or not i agree because we'll have to see how it all plays out is they were pointing in that the deaths in the first two seasons are accidental yes and the shootout that we hear in the cold open feels more purposeful maybe maybe unless a monkey did it i think it's also very plausible that some people with guns freak out because of some monkeys or anything else and wind up killing someone who is completely unrelated to anything that may have caused the scare in the first place yeah um i want to talk to you about the opening credits a little bit um there's this idea of okay let me let me let me rewind a bit and say this sort of animalistic theme, which has been true of every season of White Lotus, but maybe. Yeah, this one in particular, I would think.
Particularly, we've got monkeys everywhere. Monitor lizards.
Let's go. Snakes and trees, whatever.
But this idea animals we are we are we have packs that we are in whether it's like a blonde blob or a biological family or a couple like we run we have these various like packs that we run in we've got the fancy cougars we've got the monkeys everywhere we've got patrick schwarzenegger in the water like a crocodile like a predator like a hippo like something like that right um we've got this like terrier energy coming off of chelsea and a sleepy cat energy coming off of vicky uh and one of my favorites in the opening credits which is like a lot of people a lot of monkeys a lot of monkeys overrunning people yep a lot of uh various floor and fauna the area the the opening credits card for parker posey is of two monkeys getting absolutely zooted they're just like smoking pipes just sitting there getting absolutely bla um but you see a lot of these scenarios where like animals that you think of as predators become prey uh inside of some of these scenarios in the opening credits and i think that's interesting because if you think about someone like tim ratliff who starts the show as this sort of like alpha male apex predator sort of figure um and then is being

hunted if you want to put it that way by uh i wouldn't the media come to justice perhaps

consequences of his own actions yes uh but he is he is in you know at least mentally emotionally

on the run yes uh from from what is coming for him uh saxon on the hunt rick is on the hunt

Let's go. in you know at least mentally emotionally on the run yes uh from from what is coming for him uh saxon on the hunt rick is on the hunt for something walton goggins characters on the hunt for something very much um you've got alpha males versus beta males when you think about um guy talk our our security guard who we love and the like posturing security guys with the guns etc etc and like who is mook interested in among those options i want to push back a little on we love guy talk okay are you worried he has um incel sort of tendencies so a little little nice guy energy coming off him that i'm worried about the like my princess thing and he's clearly already flexing kind of a jealous like inclination over like even talking to other men and now it may come from a very sweet and sincere place of these guys seem dangerous they seem whatever right i i can understand both ways i just have my eye on him and frankly if we're picking characters who could wind up in circumstances that get unexpectedly violent i have my eye on guy talk as a love struck guy who's seems like he's about to do something very very stupid like i just have i have that kind of course laid out for him and i hope he doesn't take it you're not wrong in some of your assessment here um i feel very tenderly towards him uh let's see if we want to keep that nice guy uh appellation capital n capital g nice guy or if he gets to earn the lowercase n nice guy um on the on the mook front and this is something that bill and mal and i didn't mention uh but we definitely got emails about um the actress playing mook is an extremely famous the most famous globally famous person who has been on white look not even close um what is your what is your i feel like you know more about k-pop than

i do what do you want to say about lisa from blackpink i mean i'm mostly k-pop adjacent

personally so not a passion project of mine but absolutely have people in my life for whom

blackpink is a huge deal they're a huge deal for a lot of the world just one of the biggest

Thank you. adjacent personally so not a passion project of mine but absolutely have people in my life for whom blackpink is a huge deal they're a huge deal for a lot of the world just one of the biggest musical groups in the world period and especially within k-pop i would say by a wide margin the most popular girl group um and so lisa's like the is native thai is the sort of like rapper front dancer of that group.
And so, yes, is a level of celebrity that for people like us, Walton Goggins is a statue of a man and very important. But for a wider swath of people, Lisa from Blackpink is a huge fucking deal.
Yeah. I think she's great.
I think she's doing a great job. She's been really good so far.
And I think her casting in this role and frankly, the amount of screen time that Mook gets in the first episode, certainly portending like a level of significance for a member of the staff. And, you know, I think we're trying to figure out who is actually going to wind up central to these plots or those plots who are the crossover characters.
And I think by nature of working for the White Lotus, she's going to be bouncing between all these stories in a way that gives her a lot of relevance and a lot of time.

So my apologies to the K-pop stands for us not mentioning it. Not a group you want to get on the bad side of.
I do not. Do not organize against me.
I think she's wonderful. And I think, you know, the sense that I got from people writing in or people talking about it is that, like, when she was cast, there was concern.

She's not acted before.

And there was concern if this was stunt casting of a story or if this would, you know, if we heard, I don't know, Britney Spears is going to be in White Lotus. She's not Britney Spears, I know.
But, like, you know, was going to Sabrina Carpenter. A pop star of whatever variety.
Actually, Sabrina Carpenter is an actress. Anyway, someone, a pop star is going to be in season four of White Lotus.
And we're like, oh, brother. The problem with the American pop star comp whatever variety actually sabrina carpenter is an actress anyway someone a pop star is going to be in season four of white lotus and we're like oh this is the problem with with the like american pop star comps is half of them were on the disney channel growing up it's like what are you supposed to do with this now i'm like sabrina carpenter can do anything welcome to the white lotus sabrina carpenter but um but this is a pretty naturalistic performance for a first time actor and a very natural look that i think even like fans of blackpink or fans of lisa's would say oh this is this is something very different for her yeah to go back to the sort of like animal comp though I the that idea of the pack mentality has always been evident in White Lotus who is in your pack where are you the alpha where are you the beta that sort of stuff.
Yeah. But I wanted to drill down on this quote that we hear from Piper's audio book, right? Identity is a prison.
Listening to a monk's book as an audio book just feels disrespectful for some reason. While also reading it and highlighting it at the same time.
Is that what's happening? Okay. I didn't realize that was a thing that people did.
It's not, as far as I know. Maybe while you're studying, perhaps.
If you do this, please email us at prestigetv at spotify.com or at monkeyshootout at gmail.com. I would love to know the explanation for why you would both listen to an audiobook and read the physical version at the same time.
I've done plenty of times I will bounce back and forth. That's fine.
You know what I mean? I'll listen to the audiobook while I'm doing something and then if I have time to sit down I will read yep but uh or I'll listen let's say it's for work so that's similar to studying and I'll listen I'll hear a passage I might want to go back and read it physically definitely but not at the same time I feel like that would cross my wires a bit um anyway seems to work for Piper perhaps she says. She says, this is the quote, identity is a prison.
No one is spared this prison. Rich man, poor man, success or failure.
We build the prison, lock ourselves inside, then throw away the key. How did this hit with you, Joe, now that you are sitting in a void prison of your own making that you cannot escape from? Success or failure, who's to say? I don't know know doing your third podcast of the day oh from the void um great question um i i am so fascinated by the way in which sort of eastern spirituality white white people looking for meaning inside of eastern spirituality yes is gonna work this season um but this idea i want to broaden it out too to not just white people though,

because I think it was such a white lotus articulation of spirituality to me

in the cold open with Zion, a character named Zion,

who begs a Buddha statue to save his mom,

then begs Jesus for forgiveness, then snaps back at Buddha.

That is white lotus spirituality to me.

Yeah, you're right. western approach distinctly to eastern uh religion um this as far as i can tell is a made-up quote for the show as far as i can tell this is not the teachings of any specific actual real-life monk but i think this idea the way that mike white likes to craft the cocktail of a particular season via these various archetypes uh something that he learned not just from his study of like film and television literature but his fascination with reality television like survivor um these these reality tv archetypes what happens when you mash these kinds of personalities together what delicious fireworks can you expect from of that? But this idea that like when you're talking about archetypes, you're talking about identity then.
So like what about identity for any of these characters do you want to point out as a potential prison? Oh, man. I mean, I think the whole Ratliff family is stuck in their distinctive prisons.
or I think some of them are joint prisons. Maybe the best lens to look at this stuff is through Locke, the youngest son, who is being pulled in all these different directions.
Seems to have no idea what he himself wants in the world, which not uncommon for someone his age, but a fascinating place to put a character like that in this sort of lion's den where in particular, Tim seems like such a nag of a father and seems just basically disappointed at all of his kids for various reasons, but is like constantly on his kids, whether it's about their posture, whether it's about their interview practices, what it's like, he always wants something more of them. And so to find yourself in Locke's position with your mom, more pharmaceutical than woman, with your nag father, with your sister who you might share a bed with, but your brother who you seemingly definitely want to watch jerk off.
He's in some kind of prison. I don't know what it is yet.
And I think he's maybe he's choosing his own prison in a way tough times for lucky i think the ratliff family with with the sort of scandal in the media and uh you know this this jockeying for favor sort of thing yes feels very succession comes to succession comes to white lotus um with with piper being, so Shiv Roy coded, like all this.

Like, what are you, what are you getting from that? From Piper? Yeah. Cause I feel like she didn't get a lot to do in this episode other than be sort of timid at the idea of actually going into the temple that she's supposed to visit.
Well, sort of like slightly, slightly removed from the core of the nonsense of her family. Yeah, that's true.
and um but yeah but also impractical inside of that removal um is sort of my read so far okay something that uh i i texted you about this morning that's been going around the internet is the opening image of the rat lift kids which is saxon patrick schorzenegger piper sarah kathen hook and lachlan locky sam nivola um with sunglasses on headphones on and then like a coke bottle up to the mouth as the sort of see no evil hear no evil speak no evil monkeys uh how do you feel about that i mean mike white is fucking diabolical he's so he's so good at this stuff and and frankly like so many of the filmmaking choices in general whether it's in service of character whether it's in service of just like flow and transition like i yes this is a character piece yes this is a story about like man's incursion into nature and i just want to see some fucking like droplets on a lily pad sometimes and everything feels so cohesive because all of these edges are papered over and because ultimately like you get these really vivid ideas about who these characters are without them having to do anything or say anything or be anything you just see them kind of exist in a space and it's like oh i get a vibe from this family as far as what the power dynamics are like i i understand why a character like lock would feel so torn between the temple and the pool um like everything happens so quickly and the efficiency of character in white lotus is just on a different level than almost everything else that's on television something that mallory texted both of us before you and either of us had had a chance to watch any episodes was to promise you rob Rob Mahoney, a chance to talk about the Duke versus UNC rivalry. What do you want to inform our listeners who may not know anything about basketball, college basketball, what the context here is? This is a heavy responsibility.
I honestly don't think this is a case where I can give you specifics that would put it in detail. It is just one of the biggest sports rivalries in the world and certainly within American sports.
And it is not just, oh, we hate each other's team. There is a deep existential hatred between, hilariously, two collegiate institutions.
And so there's just something extra in the water here. And in particular, Jason Isaacs could not be more Duke-coded than he is.
Tell me why. Tell me why.
Now you're actually just going to get me in trouble. There is a pompousness to him that checks out Duke for sure.
And there is a eternal frat bro turned maybe like finance bro element to Saxon that absolutely reads Duke to me. And honestly, Parker Posey also reads UNC to me.
So I think they're actually hitting some pretty specific marks here. And some ones I think serve the characters quite well, even if it is just like a family trying to lobby their son over which school to go to, when ultimately just pick wake dude like pick a different like

tobacco road school spite both sides of your family like set your own path lock please uh seems like lucky has never made a decision for himself in his life will he before the season is over time will tell um i got shot down with this idea though i've since uh received some support outside of Bill and Mallory.

Will you entertain my

is Saxon a virgin question? It seems possible. Like, I mean, anytime a character is obsessed with sex, you have to ask the question.
Just ask the questions. And in the spirit of characters projecting their own issues onto other people.
Him being so concerned that his hot, question mark, sister might have never had sex before. Like, my guy.
Like, maybe check yourself. Maybe look in the mirror.
He is uncommonly obsessed with porn and uncommonly horny coming off of a commercial flight. That's a weird look.
yeah not a commercial flight um the rat lifts do strike me as like one tennessee williams play uh away from just absolute absolute wreckage but more but more incest than usual tennessee williams yeah occasionally you have that in tennessee william, so literature corner, speaking of Tennessee Williams as we are, I'm here to take you to fiction corner, Rob, and I believe you'll have a good time here. Okay.
Victoria Ratliff is reading a copy of The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, of course, famously wrote The Great Gatsby, among other things.
and if folks aren't as familiar with the great gatsby i will just note that like bodies floating in pools and green lights out on the bay both of which we see in this episode are classic gatsby moments the beautiful and the damned and this is just from old wikipedia.com, quote, the work focuses on the swinish behavior and glittering excesses of the American idol rich. Wow.
Does that sound right to you? If Fitzgerald had a point of fixation, it was sad. It does check out, certainly.
My question to you, is this a book club book for her or not? Is this a book she picked up of her own volition? Or is it like, I need to read this so that I can discuss it over a glass of wine in two weeks? Yeah. You think the girls aren't reading Fourth Wing in her book club? Every other book.
I think they've already been there, done that, honestly. They've ripped through it.
I wanted to read a couple quotes from The Beautiful and the Damned for you and see if

you can figure out which character I'm thinking of on White Lotus when I read it to you.

And these are characters from this season?

This season of White Lotus.

Got it.

From The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Quote, here's to alcohol, the rose-colored glasses of life.

Let me stop you.

That's Laurie.

Yeah, that's Carrie Coon.

Okay. This one's probably the hardest okay quote tired with everything tired with the world's weight he had never chosen to bear hmm i could see tim ratliff for that it could be and that's probably better but uh i was just thinking of rick walton goggins as he rolls up to the beach and he just looks so bedraggled like no one has ever looked looked more wilted in his life he's so grumpy grumpy goggins is a very particular flavor that we don't get that often it's true uh i'm enjoying it and i i can't wait to see we haven't even barely even touched the rick and chelsea elements of uh this first episode so far there's a lot going on i i would never deprive you the opportunity to talk about walt and goggins it means a lot to me okay two more quotes and then we're out of here in crowded rooms they would form words with their lips for each other's eyes oh okay i think there's a couple answers for this one yeah i could see kate and jacqueline i could also see piper and lock because they seem to have a particular connection and there's like a there's like an actual intimacy to piper and lock that i think is is worth watching and worth charting and i'm curious to see like exactly what their relationship is but there's a closeness there for sure is it a wholesome closeness time will tell who knows uh i was thinking of at least at any given time two members of the blonde blob yeah rolling their eyes about the third member and i feel like they all sort of take their turn in doing so so you see it as like a of true triangle because to me it feels like there are to me it feels like what has happened is there's jacqueline and there's kate who wants to be jacqueline and they have a particular connection i'm guessing maybe originally their dynamic was a little flipped and it's become kind of muddled over time and then there's la Lori, who was the third friend who is not taking a victory tour.

And then Lori, who is also there.

She is also there.

Oh, and you.

I just think, like,

you're completely right that there are all these moments

where Jacqueline and Kate

are complimenting each other

and then they, like,

remember to acknowledge

that Lori's in the room.

Yes.

And it's terribly awkward.

I think there were just a few times

that Jacqueline was like, I would sleep in a tree that I feel like Lori and Kate looked at each other. That is true.
You know what I mean? Oh, so generous. Oh, so nice.
So I just feel like, I feel like it's sort of at any given moment, the looks can go in any given direction. I love, I love the blob.
I love, I love the fancy cougars. They're a delight.
They're great. Okay.
This is the last one. It's not to any character.
This is just what I think the whole show is about. All right.
From The Beautiful in the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Quote, things are sweeter when they're lost. I know because I once wanted something and got it.
It was the only thing I ever wanted badly. And when I got it, it turned to dust in my hand.
But I was told by Saxon that life is all about getting the things you want. Is it not? Respect? Pussy? Success? All I know is that is the guy that I want to take life advice from.
He seems like he's got it all figured out. He's got the shirt tucked in.
He's got the little band on his sunglasses. He refuses to surrender his cell phone.
Like that guy's got it together. the way the women actively turn away from him when he talks to them he does but i i will say chelsea is not not checking him out um yeah there's a little there's a little side eye between the two of them happening well i mean he's not gonna let the opportunity to towel off towel off in front of a woman go by him and so like he's making it a point to be seen but it does seem like she's at least kind of clocking the peripheral i want to talk about chelsea and rick in a second because obviously i need you to get your goggins takes off but uh before we we leave this i just want to say that last quote when you think about and they talked about this in the official pod when you think about they did not talk about f scott for jerald at all but when you talk about, and they talked about this in the official pod, when you think about, they did not talk about F.
Scott Fitzgerald at all, but when you talk about Thailand and Buddhism, this core tenet of Buddhism that is suffering is caused by needs, attachment, desire.

Yeah.

Which is white lotus.

It is white lotus.

It's also, I will say, quite astute of Saxon to even broach these ideas as he's talking about what life is all about. I mean, he clearly inverts a lot of it and gets it quite wrong.
But the fact that he even has these touchstones to understand the differences between him and his sister, I think is more than I gave him credit for. Let's talk about Rick and Chelsea.
What a pair. Two main theories floating around Rick right now.
I mean, we'll get to the sort of like, what does he want with Scott Glenn question that Bill and Mal and I entertained. Before we get there, I'm going to I'm going to pose these these two theories to you.
OK. Is Rick a grifter? Who can't go to Australia? Hmm.
Or is he a secret agent of some kind oh okay undercover fbi cia something like that i think grungier than that to me a lot of what's happening with rick and a lot of the things that chelsea is saying about him read more uh hitman or read more bounty hunter like specifically this idea that they were supposed to go one place and then plans change dramatically and he they now have to go to thailand and there's no arguing out like out of it like he has some kind of job to do here that feels more work-based not personal i think this is work-based i think like something came up and he found he found out that hollinger was going to be at this place at this time release was supposed to be and is showing up with some intention of talk i don't know if it's talking to him i don't know if it's capturing him i don't know if it's killing him i don't maybe it's like a drug mule like i think it's something more on the other side of the law but maybe that's just goggins pulling the wool over my eyes yet again as i am inclined to see him as such a scamp he is he's an outlaw famously uh you know okay so jim hollinger uh you know i'm gonna assume that people not every single person listening to this episode necessarily heard bill and mal and i talk about this but jim hollinger um owner of i don't know if it's just this white lotus or all white low tie unclear um unclear if it's a franchise or not um played by the great actor scott glenn yeah a leftovers reunion reunion with carrie let me do that again yeah a leftovers reunion with carrie coon and a bad monkey reunion joe with michelle monaghan like all all of our people are coming together here i didn't think we'd ever talk about bad here here we are in the in the baddest of monkeys oh you mean a show with some mystical animal involvement about man and nature and how they interact and how perhaps we've overstepped will michelle have another moment with a hippo time will tell let's i think it was a manatee thank you scott glenn great actor we see him in the photo only but he is playing jim hollinger clearly scott glenn who rick has clearly is disappointed to find is not here at the white lotus and you think this is a job as a hit yeah an assignation or something like that i think something like that and that and that would be the reason he potentially can't go to Australia as he's in some kind of legal trouble there. Right.
Whereas Bill and Mal and I were pretty firmly on like, we think this is his dad. His dad.
I mean, again, I get it from the physical resemblance element that you guys talked about. Like I would not buy it, but this feels more business than personal or pleasure to me.
And I think the Chelsea element, while I i'm sure fun for rick in some ways is also just good cover right to travel as a couple versus like a solo weirdo who's very upset that this one random businessman was not there like that's it's not a good look because what else i mean he just does not seem to like her in this episode so why else would he be i mean and i don't know why yeah exactly yeah exactly amy lee would are you a sex education watcher i have seen the i've seen a couple seasons i'm mixed on the show overall but she is consistently a delight a delight absolutely and is that here too like she's the most well-adjusted person at this whole freaking resort yeah um absolutely uh i heard someone identify themselves as a chelsea and i'm like we all hope we're the aspirationally i'm not sure we are um and yeah so anything else you want to say about chelsea or amy lee wood in general and her performance yeah i think ultimately like it's not surprising to me that she can make fast friends with chloe this other woman at the bar and we you know if we want to dive into the the greg parts oh i'm ready to talk about greg anytime perfectly uh you know open to lots of theories on that front uh but but i think she strikes me as a character who could bounce out of her little her little clique right her little family her little den of people i think we're starting to see the ways in which the rat lifts and, you know, wait, oh, sorry. We're starting to see the ways in which the rat lifts and Rick and Chelsea and the blonde blob all might bump up against each other.
And some of those are like straight young guy being horny vibes. And some of them are potentially the fact that like Chelsea just seems like a social butterfly of a character who i would not be surprised if she makes friends with any number of the people who are on this show absolutely uh and and it seems like might have some time to kill you know i don't know what rick's up to but it's not getting it's not engaging in tantric activities with her and that's a miss uh okay chloe and greg um this is something i raised with bill and mal and i i have no i don't

know what to say about it i just think it's interesting that the the character of chloe

is originally cast as a tie actress and then they recast her as a white actress and i don't know why

but that feels not not important or something yeah you know what i mean like that feels

Let's do this. a white actress and i don't know why but that feels not not important or something yeah you know what i mean like that feels not not intentional um well especially for a show that historically has a lot of attention paid to the way that like wealthy white tourists in particular have these relationships with the people who are working at these resorts the indigenous communities around them like the the people who are native to that region exactly and how these like apparently a bunch of bald white dudes kind of parachute into thailand especially and shots fired at bald white dudes but shots fired at walton goggins who has been balled it up as far as i can tell just to have just to take a bullet for a joke it's not not necessary at all like everyone we were we were talking this a little bit off mike uh mal and bill and i but like everyone i kind of feel like mike white did this to everyone like he he drew attention to amy lou's teeth distinctive teeth yeah uh he had leslie bibb and michelle monahan talk about surgery steve zahn's testicles previously like look there's a lot going on there's a humbling that needs to happen early in a season of White Lotus or late as well let's talk about Greg what do you want to say I'm a little torn on how much I like the through lines for White Lotus I think it's a show that overall has a lot of discretion as far as how much it wants to have characters bouncing between seasons we have Belinda here clearly, clearly who's going to be another through line for us.
I'm assuming she and Greg are going to bump into each other sooner than later. They're already in the same restaurant.
It would be deeply weird if they did it. It would be very strange.
And that seems like a natural collision for their respective plot lines and kind of how, how and why Greg would be involved in the story to this point. But yeah, I have no idea what to expect or like how quickly or if Belinda would start putting pieces together at all or exactly like why she would take a driving interest in him and his activities beyond everything else she has going on, which is seeming like a three month stay at this luxury resort to learn some wellness practices.
Like she's got a lot to do. And here's a guy who is like tangentially related to someone she knew a couple years ago who she does she even know that tanya's dead i don't know and did she like did she never want to think about tanya again after she walked out the door given the way that she was treated yeah yeah yeah um i want to go back to yeah i don't have anything else to say about greg at the moment i am curious how much he's in this it like a fun surprise to a certain degree because I think you know we all knew that Belinda was in the season but yes we were not expecting that John Grease would be the recurring actor in every season of White Lotus but it is nice to think that for a show that has as sprawling a cast as this and very splashy announcements when those casts come together there are are still surprises.
There's still room for whether it's a recurring character, whether it's a surprise guest star. There's room for stuff to just happen in White Lotus in ways that we would never expect.
I'm excited by the prospect of that. If there's like, as we had with last season, the Tom Hollander character and as a fellow Hannah Stan, I know you were excited to see him like checks in late in the week like who who could be showing up that they perhaps haven't even announced i know how are the monkeys gonna get the guns like who knows what's gonna happen joe gonna happen last question for you uh i gave my sort of checkoffs list to bill and mal of the monkeys the poisonous fruit the guys with the gun um i want to but one that i didn't sort of dial in on but but sort of going over the opening credits of the fine tooth comb i had a question will we get a tsunami there's like a lot of storm imagery in the opening credits and a lot of like people being swallowed by sea creatures images in the opening credits is do you think you know and Mike White has said in interviews again I'm not reading a ton of interviews because I'm trying to keep myself as pure as possible but like also Mike White as we've said is only going to give you so much it's true but he keeps talking about and maybe he's overplaying his hand I don't know but he's talking about the season is like the biggest thing they've ever done the darkest the like wildest that it's all been a lead up to like this sort of thing is classic sort of well done about a season but like Mike White doesn't seem like a guy who's gonna like overblow so I think we are gonna see a leveling up of some kind yes so could we see in addition to whatever the monkey shootout is in the final episode could we see a sort of natural disaster of some kind hit the white lotus in tightlands very much seems possible and i think it's not completely separate from what mike white has done in other forms of storytelling like enlightened is a show that levels up and changes dramatically very very quickly to a point that i think for some viewers myself included was like i had a little bit of whiplash from that and it wasn't always what i wanted it to be by the end uh but like he he has proven that he will scrap an idea that he will turn a show on its head that he will introduce a dramatic literal force of nature if that's what the show calls for you know if that's what the character dynamics need to really shake them loose in like a force majeure kind of way.
Yeah. I think that could be a wonderful addition to the season.
Force majeure is like the greatest White Lotus comp I could think of. Anything else you want to mention? We have not talked about Valentin or Pornchai or very little about Pam, my fave, Amarita, Fabian.
I mean, P mean poncho seems like a great hang he seems like a a delightful fellow um no no notes at all great great hospitality style i'm really digging his vibe completely agree fabian the the the hapless bumbling anxious manager how are we feeling about him not in favor i'm a big fan of him not like I want to hang out with him, just like in terms of really fun to watch. Absolutely.
And Valentin, he's from Russia. Anything you want to say about him? He is certainly from Russia.
I love that the blonde blob has no response to that. None whatsoever.
In fact, Jacqueline was sort of like, huh. I don't know.
Yeah, it was an odd moment. I loved that.
I did the theorizing on who who was going to wind up sleeping with whom of the blonde blob what do you got i mean valentine's right there clearly for some first and foremost i just don't know that carrie coon's lori is going to be as successful as as you guys seem to wow you don't believe in carrie coon i believe i believe in carrie coon i believe in the real carrie coon they are really trying to must her up here and throw her under the bus and frankly i'm i'm more i have my eye to on my wall zero days since laurie last had a breakdown and it's just going to be that all season i think i'm just going to be constantly resetting the clock as she goes back into her room and screams in agony over something that happened and like like here, we're thinking she's going to romance like Russian massage therapist.

I don't,

I don't know that he's going to romance her.

Well,

that's very possible.

Here's my question.

As a preeminent Carrie Coon scholar,

Coonologist.

I don't like it.

What did you,

what did you make of this kind of crying versus the work we've seen her do in The Leftovers, etc.? I mean, it's more pathetic on purpose. Yeah.
You know, like the crying in The Leftovers is a moment of incredible catharsis that we have spent seasons building up to. I have to say, just a character, it is impossible to watch The Leftovers and not feel a great deal of affection for Nora Durst.
Whatever you may think of the decisions she makes like as a character you come to really care about this is someone i already kind of care about in lori uh but she's having a tough time what if justin thoreau checks into the white lotus on wednesday i will ascend great well that's something we can look forward to anything else you want to talk about that we haven't had a chance to mention, Rob? I have one thing to ask you, Joe, which is this is not plot related. Okay.
But after Rick- Is it about my LaCroix choices today, Rob? It might be indirectly. After Rick finds out that his Mark or whoever Hollinger is to him is not, in fact, on the premises, on the grounds.
Gets very upset. Storms out, cursing.

Goes immediately to the minibar.

Pulls out a beer and just starts going to work on it.

I, for one, cannot think of a force on Earth that would make me pull a beer out of the minibar

and pay a minibar price for a bottle of beer.

I'm curious about what your relationship is to a minibar.

Do you have these same strict lines that I do?

The question of if you're at a White Lotus, is it not all inclusive?

I don't think it's all inclusive oh god because they're paying for spa packages i assume they're paying for all of the gluten-free rice balls you know everything i would never touch a white lotus mini bar can you imagine the most expensive mini bar of all time uh the only time I will ever touch a mini bar and it is infrequent is at my old job when uh they didn't make us itemize our hotel receipts and so just on the bill just on the bill well maybe this is the strongest argument yet that he is in fact a government plant a fed of some kind he's he's on the clock because he's going to be expensing that beer that's not his concern anymore spotify if you're listening i don't do that in your system it doesn't allow for that but connie nass if you're listening i definitely used to do that to you okay um so that is white lotus it is season three episode one rob and i will be back on friday talk about severance um i'm having a little bit of brain bleed with all the shows that we're covering right now but the pineapples are not helping i think this will be fine um i am i i feel some kinship with mark on uh severance right now but we'll be back um thanks everyone who worked on this episode, Johnny Eacham, John Richter,

Justin Sales.

Y'all are the best and we will see you soon.

Bye.