Ep. 5: “Full Moon Party” with Carrie Coon and Parker Posey

Speaker 1 I started wondering, where am I going with this?

Speaker 1 Why do I feel this need to fuck all these women? What is desire, the form of this cute Asian girl? Why does it have such a grip on me? Because she's the opposite of me.

Speaker 1 Is she going to complete me in some way? I realized I could fuck a million women, I'd still never be satisfied. Maybe,

Speaker 1 maybe, what I really want is to be one of these Asian girls.

Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to the White Lotus Official Podcast Companion to Season 3. I'm Gia Talentino.

Speaker 1 And I'm Josh Bearman.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 wow.

Speaker 2 What an episode.

Speaker 2 We knew that stuff was going to happen in the full moon party, but before we start talking about the episode, I have a question for you. I feel like this is a valuable opportunity for us.

Speaker 2 I'm an Asian woman in front of a white man.

Speaker 2 This is, I want to give you a safe space to say, like, if you have always, if you believe that on the inside, you too are an Asian woman, you could say it now.

Speaker 1 Right. Everybody's, there's a new permission structure.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanted to make sure we had that in this room.
But yeah, my real question for you was, are you sad that you didn't show up in the full moon party?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I was.

Speaker 2 For people that maybe missed earlier episodes, Josh was on set, bragging, bragging, having been on set for the full moon party.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I was an extra, was dancing around, but I did not get a glimpse of myself.

Speaker 2 So I was very disappointed. I didn't see you either.

Speaker 1 I was.

Speaker 1 gripping the table.

Speaker 1 But no. We'll have to watch it again.
Yeah, we'll watch it again just for you. Yeah.
Yeah, just to see.

Speaker 2 All right. So this episode is called Full Moon Party.
It is written and directed by Mike White. There is sort of two tracks happening on it.

Speaker 2 There is quieter stuff happening at the hotel with three of the rat lifts, Belinda, Mook and Guy Talk, et cetera. And then everyone else is letting loose.

Speaker 2 And later in this episode, we get to talk to two queens, Carrie Koon and Parker Posey.

Speaker 1 A big part of this episode is our three gals

Speaker 1 and Chloe, Chelsea, Lachlan, and Zaxon on the party boat. I mean, we're at episode five.
It's kind of like the midpoint of the story.

Speaker 1 And it's also that part, like if you're at camp or you're on vacation, there's the moment when

Speaker 1 you're skinny dipping in the pool on ecstasy, right? This is what is happening in this episode. Everybody has just, like, the inhibitions have been shed.

Speaker 1 They've surveyed the social landscape, felt present, and now they're ready.

Speaker 1 They're going for it.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's montaged together, right? You're seeing kind of these dual images of the both parties, right? And so they're sort of on the boat,

Speaker 1 it's in stages. They're like, there's the approach to the party.
It's almost kind of like the mythical passage making, right?

Speaker 1 They're crossing the water, they're talking about what to expect, and then they get to the party.

Speaker 2 Right. You know what? I was saying last time that Saxon needs to confront, you know, the unassimilatable other or whatever.
And it's like he goes in the zone at the end of the party, right?

Speaker 2 Like he's, I was waiting for something like this moment for Saxon when he can't, you know, he says, he's like, I don't do drugs. I am the drug because he can't handle drugs.

Speaker 1 I know. He says Saxon doesn't do drugs, so it's like a classic, like third person.

Speaker 1 But Lachlan does. He goes right to him.

Speaker 1 Saxon is shocked. And then I guess Saxon does do drugs because he felt the peer pressure and he does it.

Speaker 1 And I like how he's almost immediately seems like on the verge of epiphany, right, when they get to the full moon party, since he's like never,

Speaker 1 you know, not in control, right, of his own self.

Speaker 3 Confidence lock.

Speaker 2 That's how you get people to do what you want.

Speaker 2 Because most people don't know what they want, and a lot of them.

Speaker 1 Here's a little secret:

Speaker 1 they just want to be used.

Speaker 1 He's always like at the gym, getting his pump, drinking his protein powder. And so to be kind of like

Speaker 1 intoxicated in a real way is something new to him.

Speaker 2 Right. And he's also constantly articulating more than anyone his framework of how the world is and how the world works.
And it seems like Lachlan was like, you know what? Like, don't talk about it.

Speaker 2 Just be about it. You know, like, it's like Saxon is, it's as if he's living within this sort of fortress of mantras about strength and domination.
Right. Right.

Speaker 2 But he is constantly constructing this by like advising other people about how he knows everything.

Speaker 2 And then the drug renders him nonverbal.

Speaker 2 And the drug does what these drugs do, which is a layer is removed and you have nothing but your deepest inner resources and instincts because you can't talk and have no idea what's happening.

Speaker 2 And Saxon is finding that he's kind of in awe, you know, like he actually is left with kind of a gentle and profoundly vulnerable

Speaker 2 like Lachlan is actually like his inner self is much more in command when stripped away than Saxon's is and I love to see that.

Speaker 1 They're having their little like boys chat and then Lachlan says, one day

Speaker 4 I'm going to take you down.

Speaker 1 Yeah? Come here. Come on.

Speaker 1 And then Saxon is, I think he knows, oh,

Speaker 1 that's what I want to hear. That's what I want to hear from this kid.
But he doesn't know what that is about to mean because then when he is the one person who's afraid to take the drugs and does.

Speaker 1 And you get the sense even that he's not even necessarily a big drinker. He doesn't get drunk.
And he says even like, you slow down because you got to get the ladies drunk.

Speaker 1 So he's like, he, you know, like, tosses back a few frosty ones, but he's not out there getting drunk. So to be

Speaker 2 like a diet beer type. You know what I mean? Like he's doing, he's doing Miller High Life and alternating, you know, too.
Yeah. And my girls, my girls, Chelsea and Chloe, are like, yeah, whatever.

Speaker 1 Like, I'll do this on a Tuesday, you know? Right. There's like, okay,

Speaker 2 it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 Chloe and Chelsea's conversation when they are girl talking on the yacht. And she, and Chelsea's like, he's like my child Right, right.

Speaker 1 Well, and she says you can't spend your life trying to rescue people

Speaker 2 But that is exactly what she's gonna do and she's on a yacht and she's going to a full moon party and she's in this beautiful place and all she can do is think about her 50-year-old boyfriend who might be about to murder someone right

Speaker 2 The foursome at the full moon party, they're not aggressive there. You know, they're kind of

Speaker 1 feeling out

Speaker 2 what's going to happen later. They're sitting on the beach beholding the fireworks.

Speaker 1 Right. They're in a little bit more of a

Speaker 1 contemplative state.

Speaker 2 Because they're all thinking about existence, kind of, right? It sort of feels like all four of them are in a space of

Speaker 2 not quite discontentment, but sort of existential transition in a little bit, in a little bit of a way where Chloe is like.

Speaker 2 I got into this business for like money and constant attention from this man.

Speaker 1 Relationships run its course.

Speaker 2 Relationships run its course. And Chelsea is wondering if hers has too.
Like, why am I just on the hook for this guy? And

Speaker 2 Lachlan is like, what will become of me? What is the form my power will take? And do I have any?

Speaker 2 And can I exert it over my brother? And is he right about everything or is he not?

Speaker 2 And, you know, and my sister is about to leave me. And like, what does that mean?

Speaker 2 And Saxon is like, I know exactly what the world is. And he takes this drug and he's like, whoa.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Right, right, right. He would have been the person that if you'd asked him, he'd be like, no, no, no, I don't question anything.
And then

Speaker 1 now, well, now he does. Yes.

Speaker 1 But what's interesting, this might have been some kind of sense memory for me because I had kind of a similar experience while I happened to be there when the full moon party was shooting.

Speaker 1 And it's 50,000 people. It's this ridiculous scene.
It is not my scene. It's not where I ever would have wound up going.
And neither was it really for most of the cast.

Speaker 1 So everybody had this amped up, weird energy, like, we're going to the full moon.

Speaker 2 And what there's been crowd is sort of like loose at heel backpackers that are on month seven. Yes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there's a lot of that. Like white people in dentavas.
Yes. There's people getting like black light painting, you know, and like butterflies on their face and girls wearing like fairy wings.

Speaker 1 Right, right, right. Dudes like with a backpack and no shirt on.
Right.

Speaker 1 It really is just sort of like spring break Daytona Beach, but Thai beach style. Right, right.
And so, and it's ridiculous, and there's dudes breathing fire, and you get these like buckets of boots.

Speaker 1 You get like a drink, it's in a bucket. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, and I just did have this experience where at a certain point we were like making fun of the party kind of observing the party and then there just was a moment we're like now i'm at this party yeah it's unironic and then i'm not there's no irony anymore we're dancing and then that went on for hours i had like dropped in which is what happens in the episode right like they all kind of like drop into this experience so like okay let's go for it and you did it just through the experience rather than through

Speaker 1 candies sweet tarts or whatever yeah exactly right yeah i don't even need a drugs i'm high on life man i did it and then swap over to the girls and the party is just getting crazy.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's like the lights are flashing, the music is pounding, and

Speaker 1 they get onto the dance floor with the three Russians. This was thrilling.
I found this.

Speaker 2 I adored it.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 I adored it for so many reasons. I was thinking back to when we talked to Michelle Monaghan, and she was saying Jaclyn is very interested in sort of control, but also letting loose.

Speaker 2 And this was the episode. Like Jaclyn is on an unarticulated journey that's nonetheless extremely clear to the viewer, right? Like we see her at the club.

Speaker 2 She's finally, she's found the party she wanted to get to the whole time.

Speaker 1 She has engineered the perfect party.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Like she's found the place where she, yeah, where she can look at herself as if someone else is looking at her, which is what she, this character kind of wants, right?

Speaker 2 Like she wants to be looking hot, to be looking young, to have younger hot men all around her. She wants

Speaker 2 to be honest. And, and then, and we literally get her audience that there are these like other three hot girls who are looking at her with great animosity.

Speaker 2 And the more they look at her with animosity and jealousy, the more she is just lusciously loving it.

Speaker 1 Oh my God, it's so good. And they're each reacting to the party in a different way.

Speaker 2 The three actresses were so good. Like the entire time, you can see that Leslie Bibb is uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 Even when the other girls are dancing absolutely free of inhibition, she is conscious that she's sweaty. She's conscious that she's a little tired.

Speaker 2 You can see immediately that she's already hoping the night will be over. She's checking her watch.
She's like, okay, maybe another hour. Then we can just go to bed.

Speaker 1 Now the party is the mirror.

Speaker 2 Right. Well, and unfortunately, Kate got assigned to Vlad, the guy with the live, laugh, love mural on his chest, the silver music.

Speaker 1 He had a tough life.

Speaker 2 He had such a tough life, but he can't, he simply can't stop talking about it. They're all like, they're all like, yeah, like, what a fun party.
You're so hot.

Speaker 2 And he's like, my mother died when I was 12.

Speaker 1 Right, that's true. So we can, you know, sympathize with Kate a little bit.
She got kind of the dud. She's got the dud.
But she kind of assigned herself the dud, right?

Speaker 1 Because she's the dud between the three of them, right?

Speaker 2 Yes, in this context. And she's hating to be the dud.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Kate does not consider herself a dud. No.
You know, like, she's like, I'm prettier than Lori. Why do I have flat?

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. Right.
But there's like a great satisfaction for Lori and Jacqueline. Like,

Speaker 1 I feel like I got like, I was shed a tear in the party scene, watching those girls dance. Really?

Speaker 1 I'm really feeling it for them.

Speaker 2 So Belinda has her lovely romantic moment. I love that for her.
I really felt so happy for her.

Speaker 1 She's having her quiet courtship with porn child.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's like, do you guys have consent in Thailand?

Speaker 1 So funny.

Speaker 4 But just so you know, I'm just, I'm, this is consent. That is, did you guys do that here? We just started, so there's,

Speaker 2 I may okay with, it's like, it's whatever.

Speaker 1 It's whatever you. That's a beautifully comic scene.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I thought it was so

Speaker 1 performance was great. She was like, there's room in this bed.
I know, it could be this bed, it could be that bed. They face an external threat, the monitor lizard, and then that brings them together.

Speaker 1 The tonal tension in the show is so effective by the way that it's

Speaker 1 ratcheting up at the party between the two different party scenes, and then every so often flashing back to the sort of quiet of the hotel and what's going on there, which is Belinda's careful sleuthing.

Speaker 2 She suggests calling all the police.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. Let's call all the police.

Speaker 2 And then Fabian goes into full Swiss banker mode whenever she's she's like, like someone here might be a killer. And he's like, that's none of my business.

Speaker 3 It's bad form to talk about a guest in this way.

Speaker 1 Some people here have colorful pasts.

Speaker 3 It's really not wise to steer anything up.

Speaker 1 Exactly. You don't want to know who the killers are.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Ratliff parents and Piper are having their reduced Ratliff family dinner.

Speaker 2 Parker Posey is really giving us so much. She's really on a Lorazapam come down.
She's like,

Speaker 2 you're going to be a Nexium.

Speaker 2 You could return with a completely different set of values and piper's like that's the point but piper also says that she feels that she needs to do this because she needs to understand what's gonna make her happy

Speaker 1 right i mean it is it's funny it's like she's articulating the explicit it's almost like the schoolgirl's version of the search the thematic idea of the show of searching, right?

Speaker 1 She's expressing out loud in this well-articulated way what everybody else can't really figure out how to say for themselves.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's a lot in here about like virtue structures and ideas of pleasure and an idea of

Speaker 2 what everyone's personal code of ethics are and how that flings them onto this kind of mad evening.

Speaker 2 But I just thought it was really funny that Enlightened Piper, ostensibly the voice of the purest version of the show's thematic searching, is, I think, quite tellingly, she's saying, I want to know what is going to make me happy, not, I mean, maybe the closest that anyone gets to saying it here is Lachlan.

Speaker 4 But what if this life is just a test, like, to see if we can become better people?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Whereas Piper is studying it in school and

Speaker 1 wants to go spend

Speaker 1 a year at a monastery to try to even figure out what the question that Lachlan just spontaneously presented to his brother is. Listen, I admire

Speaker 1 her sort of like a student

Speaker 1 earnest approach to learning about this other culture that is clearly going to be more meaningful to her than the world she grew up.

Speaker 2 Right. She understands the falsity in her parents, you know, values with a capital V.

Speaker 1 But Piper's like, I got to go to this place for a year to even figure out what I might want to understand about myself. Whereas everybody else is at the party and they're finding out

Speaker 2 testing it and realizing it's not.

Speaker 1 It's like, yes, another completely different form of its own transcendence, right? Is what's happening at that party or on the dance floor. And she's doing all this work to figure it out.

Speaker 2 She's like, what is pleasure? What is it?

Speaker 3 Sitting alone in your hotel.

Speaker 2 Like, what is it? And then the other, everyone else is just like, well,

Speaker 1 let's try it out.

Speaker 2 Let's find out. Well, yeah, it's like everyone is approaching this episode with like a very clear idea of like what will make me happy.

Speaker 2 And they're either aligning with or totally at odds with the circumstances in which they find themselves.

Speaker 2 One suspects that if Piper had just gone with her siblings and done some drugs and sat on the edge of the ocean and looked at the fireworks, she would feel the feeling that she seeks when she prays and feels that presence.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? Like it's sort of like you, you, I, I kind of, I want that for her.

Speaker 2 I was so happy for Lori in a lot of this episode, you know, until the very end, where she is getting, you know, to hear from Valentin that she's a sexy dancer. She's whipping her hair around.

Speaker 2 She's taking the shot. She's like, I'm the girl that takes the shots.
She's getting to feel

Speaker 2 cool and reckless and desired.

Speaker 1 Her top comes off.

Speaker 2 Like she gets, she gets one of my favorite situations in the world, which is when you're in a pool and someone outside the pool gives you a new drink. I'm like, wow, that's just, that's living.

Speaker 2 When that happens, you're living. And

Speaker 2 it's four in the morning.

Speaker 2 You're doing it right. And yeah, Leslie Babb is in her full button-up PJs, like,

Speaker 4 you know what, guys? I think the night's over.

Speaker 4 We need our beauty sleep. I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry, bro.

Speaker 1 Kate throws a wet blanket on the party.

Speaker 2 Right. Well, as the party breaks up, Lori has a moment with Valentine, right? Like she's kind of cuddling and like they have this sort of

Speaker 2 close goodbye. And Lori, it's coherent with her character that she's not making a move.
And instead, she's just in this glow of having felt desirable. And she's doing her little moves.

Speaker 2 You know, she's like doing her little moves by the pool.

Speaker 2 Second only to when Saxon, totally out of his depth, is doing like Saturday night fever hands at the full moon party. And I was like, not Saturday night fever hands at the full moon party.

Speaker 2 But then Jacqueline is back in her room. She gets a text.

Speaker 2 I actually thought, you know, my dumbass, I was like, oh my God, Harrison finally texts back and they're going to like have FaceTime sex or something. But it's Valentine

Speaker 2 and she has been plotting behind Laurie's back the whole time. And the alliances are about to switch again.

Speaker 2 But maybe we have been saving the most shocking sexual revelation of all for last,

Speaker 2 which is that Lachlan asserts dominance over

Speaker 1 Suxin. Right.
He makes good on his promise. He's going to be out with him by giving him.

Speaker 1 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 Your incest.

Speaker 1 It arrived.

Speaker 2 But it arrived in the, like, I was not what you were expecting. I never expected it to be Lachlan.
I mean, we knew there was going to be incest from

Speaker 2 something, you know, the psychosexual dynamics there, too. Yeah.
But I loved,

Speaker 2 you know, despite, you know, the impulse perhaps being toxic, asserting dominance over your sibling sibling by sexually aggressing upon them, like they got the guy that Chelsea in particular has been feeling antagonistic to do something that will kind of horrify himself the next day.

Speaker 2 And when he takes the joke, he's like, now no one take advantage of me.

Speaker 1 Oh, right. It's so

Speaker 1 good. What do you think? The charitable view is that it's, you know, some surprise intimacy.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 I also, well, I didn't expect it.

Speaker 1 So at the beginning, when they walk into the villa and they have to decide on the bedrooms and Saxon talks about adult genitals and you were like, ooh, the promise of incest lurks.

Speaker 1 And I was like, yeah, no, I don't think so. Like, that's not going to happen.
And then

Speaker 2 you thought it wasn't?

Speaker 1 No, I didn't believe it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Lachlan has, Lachlan is, to me, he's the winner of this episode. Yeah.
Hugely.

Speaker 1 Hugely.

Speaker 2 We should talk, though, about the reason why I asked you, Josh, a white man, if actually you felt that you were an Asian girl on the inside is because of Sam Rockwell's, as Frank, his monologue in the bar to Walton Goggins.

Speaker 2 I mean, Walton Goggins is giving his face as it shifts between like, you're kidding me, and then it goes to like, whoa, you're not kidding me.

Speaker 2 And then by the end, in his mind, he's like, damn, everyone's got problems. You know, he's like, damn, I'm not the only one that's like, actually, you might be more fucked up than me.

Speaker 1 Sex is a poetic act. It's a metaphor, metaphor for what? Are we our forms? Am I a middle-aged white guy on the inside, too?

Speaker 1 Or inside?

Speaker 1 Could I be an Asian girl? Right.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 This is just an astonishing sequence or scene, even just the one, it's just one scene, and it's one conversation. And it's this incredible monologue.

Speaker 1 And so, it's, yeah, it's like a monologue in the mode of like classic. It's like Olivier, and like, it is an incredible

Speaker 1 story that he tells, and the, and the way he tells it. And then on the look on Rick Weltengoga's face as he's assimilating this knowledge is this new story is incredible.

Speaker 1 I also love what's funny about it is they're old friends and they haven't seen each other in a while. And there's kind of like always, you see old friends like, I wonder what's different.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, the first line is

Speaker 2 quite a lot. And it's like he's drinking chamomile tea.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And that's the setup for like, oh, we're going to learn something. He's sober now.
And you always think like, oh, yeah, okay, my friend got sober. I know what that story is.
Nope. No.

Speaker 1 Don't know what that story is.

Speaker 2 And Frank is still enough in the life or whatever it is that he can be a fixer. He can be a purveyor of, you know, some whatever.
We don't know what he gives Rick exactly, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, we can't, yes.

Speaker 2 We can assume, but we don't, we don't know at all. And I was wondering if and when and probably when this show was going to deal, because it's kind of obliquely dealt with this,

Speaker 2 you know, the subtext of setting the show in Thailand, which, I mean, it is like a place of profound sexual exploitation by Westerners, you know, whatever.

Speaker 2 And it was like, how are we going to get that square in the face at some point? Because it feels like we have to and we will.

Speaker 2 And we did in the wildest, the wildest way where, where Sam Rockwell starts talking in the mode of all of the other guys that we've met in the show, which is just like, yeah, like, I like Asian girls.

Speaker 2 So I came here and I'm here to fuck Asian girls. And then

Speaker 2 the screw turns about seven more times all the way around. The delivery of it is amazing.
Like, how would we even describe the way he delivers it? It's not deadpan.

Speaker 2 It's almost like there is definitely some connection to the way that people who are sober and Al-Anon or whatever it is are accustomed to delivering.

Speaker 1 Right. He's sharing.
It's a short time. He's sharing.

Speaker 2 He's accustomed to, you know, absolutely bonkers years-long periods of people's life being boiled down to 45 seconds and delivered with a completely straight face and unblinking eye contact.

Speaker 2 And he's doing it here.

Speaker 1 He's also, I mean, his delivery is very matter-of-fact, right?

Speaker 1 And he's telling them the story, but he's also so self-assured of where he is and who he is that he betrays no trace of fear about telling his friend what he tells him, which is like

Speaker 1 such a funny way to invert what his, like your Asian fetish

Speaker 1 turns out to be different.

Speaker 1 Right. He says that he starts like, oh, I have an Asian fetish.
That fetish turns out to be something else entirely.

Speaker 2 Right. It turns out that I need to put on lingerie and perfume and pretend I am an Asian girl, and also I have to pay an Asian girl to sit in the corner of the room and stare at us.

Speaker 1 To be like another facet of my sort of projected self. Right.
This is what I thought was just astonishing about this because it's like Frank is like blowing Rick's mind, right?

Speaker 1 He's sitting there kind of like with his doers, like, oh, wow.

Speaker 1 And it's not even like, what did I get myself into? He is just accepting this new information about his friend. And it's like.

Speaker 1 This incredible monologue about his kink, which turns out to actually be this profound idea about decoupling your identity, right? Which is what the show is about. Right, identity.

Speaker 2 Actually, Frank has found out, Frank has a very particular angle on the idea of identity being a prison. Yes, right.
And he's found a very particular solution.

Speaker 2 And it is one that it's like, oh, this man has more access to the deepest, darkest, truest parts of himself. Right.
You know, but also.

Speaker 2 You can't look at Frank and say, oh, he's enlightened. You know, it's like he's still giving like every other person is an instrument to me, right?

Speaker 2 Like it's like the way that he conceives of this profound truth of his sexual identity is only reached through blunt force, mass scale instrumentalization of other people's identities and bodies.

Speaker 2 Right. So it's like he's transcended and yet he's deeper in the shit than anyone else, too.

Speaker 1 It's embedded in a context. It requires some external factors.
It's not completely internal, even though it is about his identity and actually coming to some

Speaker 1 self-realization, I think, that the others have not had, right? There is something going on where, I mean, he says, oh, wow, well, sex is a poetic act.

Speaker 1 It's like he uses carnality as a mode of seeking.

Speaker 1 And so it's like trying to discover the infinite by getting close to death via sex while not being yourself and trying to understand yourself through other people and all this. I was like,

Speaker 2 this is...

Speaker 1 This is a new idea.

Speaker 1 I had not thought of this before. And I was sure as fuck not prepared for Frank, the guy who's going to help get our guy Rick tomorrow calling in the final to like deliver this new idea.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and there's a way in which it's this very funny

Speaker 2 perversion of this Buddhist idea of reincarnation and different souls and different bodies, and that in a past life we could have been this other thing.

Speaker 1 Right, it's true, and also just

Speaker 1 the egolessness in the throes of like pure sexual reverie, right? So, that's another kind of way to try to get towards this

Speaker 1 glimpse of the absolute, right?

Speaker 1 Which like Piper's seeking one way, they're seeking a different way over at the full moon party, and then Frank comes

Speaker 1 the door off the hinges with his way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The episode ends on

Speaker 1 Tim Ratliff with the gun. Katak's been trying to get the gun back the whole time.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he's writing a suicide note and he is, he's going to kill himself, but he's interrupted by his wife. And so then

Speaker 1 he reveals a little bit obliquely about here's what's wrong is all the expectations. Do you know what I've been ever since I was a kid? And then again, like the identity is a prison.

Speaker 1 Like those expectations are what made him into the person that he is that did the favor for the $10 million to be a pillar of the community, to be in the country club, to have the beautiful family where everybody can go to Duke.

Speaker 1 And then now the agony he must be in to not be able to.

Speaker 2 Oh, he's so good this episode. This, like,

Speaker 2 the shift from

Speaker 2 swaggering business dad to broken sack of Play-Doh.

Speaker 1 Sorry, sorry.

Speaker 1 It's not.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 It's just stress.

Speaker 2 We had learned earlier in the episode that he was an altar boy. He prays

Speaker 2 for deliverance. Right.
He actually humbles himself for the first time in this entire plot arc. Like every other tactic that he has taken is one of evasion or confrontation.

Speaker 2 And here he prostrates himself existentially and it's like, I can't find my way out on my own.

Speaker 2 And it's like, can he be saved is the question. Right.

Speaker 1 This being the mid-point of the show, it's the point at which all the characters have accepted where they are are and they're also making choices and like crossing the Rubicon, right?

Speaker 1 So there is some kind of built-in sense of like they're all now making these choices and how is it going to play out for the rest of the season?

Speaker 2 Right. It's like everyone has come in with a very fixed, verbalized, clear idea of who they are and what they are about and what value system they abide by.

Speaker 2 And these things have all been externalized in conversation. And we have watched these characters say who they are and what they believe in.

Speaker 2 You know, the girls through gossiping, the Ratloves through this overt conversation, Chelsea and Rick through their interaction with each other. And now this has all been tested in various ways.

Speaker 2 Even Chelsea's commitment to love and connection and this eternally recurring partnership she believes she has, all of these things are tested.

Speaker 2 And the question for me is like, which characters will end the season

Speaker 2 with this thing that has been exposed just instantly recovered with the exact same facade that was there before? And which are going to stay cracked open?

Speaker 1 Right, right.

Speaker 2 And I think that's the thing. that will be transformed, basically, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I think that this season is opening up to that possibility of transformation more so than other ones, like inherently because of the themes that are emerging.

Speaker 2 And it's dangling the possibility of actual transformation. I mean, even in the like the conversations that Rick is having with the therapist, right?

Speaker 2 Like, there's a who will be converted to something else and who will not.

Speaker 1 And I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's,

Speaker 1 it's also interesting. It is kind of like a meta, the show is making a commentary, which is travel in the modern age, was about sort of vacation and like piña coladas, right?

Speaker 1 It's about reading your summer read and your Mai Tai. Whereas travel before, I don't know, the 19th century was dangerous or magical, right?

Speaker 1 All the mythical stories are like, you're going to go somewhere and acquire knowledge. Yeah, acquire knowledge, learn something about yourself, be transformed, or die in glory or whatever.

Speaker 1 That's not what travel is about anymore.

Speaker 1 And so what it's saying is, like, maybe it is, right? You maybe you will go to a foreign place and discover something exotic, not in the colonial sense, but outside of yourself,

Speaker 1 and come back a different person if you come back at all, because of course, somebody's not going to make it back.

Speaker 1 And now, we'll be speaking to Carrie Kuhn.

Speaker 1 Welcome, Carrie Kuhn, to the official White Lotus Season 3 podcast.

Speaker 3 It's so exciting. We get to do all these companion things now to TV shows.
It's not just a TV show anymore.

Speaker 4 It's a podcast.

Speaker 1 It's a content suite. Yes.

Speaker 2 Okay, so the dynamic between the three girlies is longstanding. They've been friends forever.

Speaker 2 How conscious is Lori of the power dynamic between them and how does she think about it sort of coming into the vacation?

Speaker 3 Oh, it's just like any, I mean, old friends are like family. So as soon as you're reunited, you default to your position in the dynamic, don't you? And I think what Lori is starting to question,

Speaker 3 what it's forced into relief is Lori's own choices about her life.

Speaker 3 You know, she's,

Speaker 3 there's always the presumption that other people are judging you, even if they're not actually thinking about you. But Lori, I think, feels that they must all be judging and thinking about her.

Speaker 3 And she's not feeling great about her life right now.

Speaker 2 And in this case, though, she's correct, right? As she finds out at the end of, you know, it's like not just you think it, but she sees them gossiping about her.

Speaker 2 And that's when she has this great, we have that great moment at the end of the first episode.

Speaker 3 Right. And she, but she's also participating in that system, right? She's, as soon as somebody walks away, we're talking about them.

Speaker 3 And of course, she has the weird pressure of having a famous friend, which is a strange,

Speaker 3 when you've known someone your whole life and then suddenly they're catapulted into the public eye. You sort of start to observe them as an outsider in a way.

Speaker 3 So she has that relationship, of course, with Jacqueline. And then, you know, her other friend is pulling away away from her ideologically, I would say, which is its own kind of

Speaker 3 shock for her. And I think she feels righteous in her positions, you know, having wrestling with what she's wrestling with at home.

Speaker 3 And she's not really been open with her friends about how hard it's been for her in that, in her personal life, because she's pretending everything's fine, which we all are doing.

Speaker 1 We were sort of intrigued as we were watching the show how the sort of each two sets of the women get a chance to talk to each other. Yes.
And so

Speaker 1 super relatable, I think. Yes.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 And so, and sort of, and everywhere, and Gio's like, oh yeah, sure, every woman is going to be able to recognize themselves and their sets of friends and this.

Speaker 1 So we were wondering, did you know a Jacqueline in high school?

Speaker 1 I am the Jaclyn from high school.

Speaker 3 I mean, honestly, right? I'm the person from my high school who's now living in the public eye, right?

Speaker 3 And so what I have, what I've received, you know, my life is lived. I don't get recognized on the street or anything.
So I'm not living that life. It's all happening on the internet.

Speaker 3 But the thing that I've actually been conscious of is that the people from my childhood are actually quite warm and loving.

Speaker 3 You know, they'll reach out on Facebook and sort of celebrate my success because I think everybody feels a little hometown pride, right?

Speaker 3 If you come from a small town like I come from, when somebody gets out and is sort of doing well, there's something there to celebrate and you feel like you're participating in something positive.

Speaker 3 I have not received a lot of negative energy.

Speaker 3 And maybe it's because I'm from the Midwest and people aren't, you know, as jaded as they would would be like from New York when everybody went to Juilliard and only one of you got out, you know, so I don't have that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, so I guess I'm Jacqueline, right?

Speaker 2 But if you're not, you know, sniping people's love interests on vacation, then you're not really the job, you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 Which I also, you know, did. Yeah.
No, I was definitely not a good friend

Speaker 1 to women for a long time.

Speaker 3 I didn't understand female friendship until really late in my life.

Speaker 3 And so in some ways, this storyline is pretty far from me because I actually found friendship with women very challenging when I was a young woman just because of the way that I was taught.

Speaker 3 I just didn't have a relationship to what female friendship was. And so in some ways,

Speaker 3 that was the most underexplored part for me in jumping into this friendship with these women because I don't actually have a lot of old friends from my past like that.

Speaker 3 I don't have these holdover relationships in the same way.

Speaker 2 I think what the dynamic shows, though, that even in the most natural, long-standing, old, you know, long-founded relationships, it's still complicated. Like, it's still

Speaker 1 naive.

Speaker 3 And wherever wherever you go, there you are. I mean, the point that Lori is making is how little they've actually changed in so many ways.
And also because,

Speaker 3 you know, ostensibly because they're the same age, they're supposed to be occupying similar positions in their life in terms of their home lives or their success.

Speaker 3 And so inevitably you start to compare yourself. That's the world we're living in.

Speaker 3 And when those women are gossiping about each other, it's all about insecurity and it's all about justifying the choices they've made and making them feel better about themselves, about where they are, you know,

Speaker 3 finding something to cherry-pick that they've done better. It's just human nature.
It's the curse.

Speaker 3 It's the curse of being a human being, you know, it's just, you can go to Thailand, but like all your stuff is there with you and you're carrying it. and unpacking it.

Speaker 1 Your character is the one at the beginning who says, oh, we're all mirrors of each other.

Speaker 1 And we all, like when we were kids, we all saw each other in ourselves.

Speaker 1 But as you get older, that becomes the mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all, right? And it's a dangerous mirror to look at. It sure is.

Speaker 3 And, you know, Lori's, Lori struggling with her, we think, some alcoholism, right? She's looking a little old and a little tired.

Speaker 2 They're like, your doctor is not as good as ours.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 3 And I think she's, you know, she's not doing work. And she's, we, we also made the choice.

Speaker 3 Rebecca Hickey and I and Michelle, my other makeup artist, we decided that Lori would also have the wrong nail color. So like Lori's stuff is intentionally just a little bit off.
Yeah. Right.

Speaker 3 She didn't have time to go shopping. She didn't pack very well.

Speaker 2 She's a new yorker she doesn't spend a lot of time in the resort life so she's like it's not quite right and she feels it she feels how it's just not quite right you know she does she feels like the odd man out i have a question for you playing bertha and then playing lori and also being the jacqueline of your high school friend group i wonder if you could talk about you know playing the alpha being an alpha and and and then

Speaker 2 the the fun, the particular fun and the nuance of playing a character like Lori that's at the bottom of the pecking order.

Speaker 3 Oh, that's so interesting. You know, I'm a middle child.
I'm a middle child of five. And so I've always been a linchpin, a harmonizer.
I'm not, I don't feel myself as an alpha. Now, that's not true.

Speaker 3 That's not an, I can't be entirely objective about my way in the world because I was also captain of my soccer team and class president.

Speaker 3 So clearly I am an alpha and would express myself very forcefully, but that's not the way I saw myself. And so for me, playing somebody like Bertha feels far from me.

Speaker 3 Like I feel, I'm like, no, no, I'm the, I'm the, you know, the harmonizer. I'm the, I'm the person who's bringing balance to these relationships.

Speaker 3 I'm not dominating, but that's not the way I occur to other people, I think.

Speaker 3 And so it's an interesting act of like, oh, actually, I have to sort of be willing to recognize and embrace these parts of myself that I don't actually see.

Speaker 3 That's not how I see myself. It's not part of my self-concept.
But it's really fun to lean into. In that regard, Lori actually feels much closer to who I am.

Speaker 3 I feel that in my life, I always felt like for whatever reason, the way I grew up and being in the middle, I've always felt like a little bit left out. I always felt like left out waiting to happen.

Speaker 3 And even as an feeling like an interloper in Hollywood, you know, I come from a small town in Ohio and I always felt like everybody knew things I didn't know on a set in fashion, like every space I go in, I'm at a deficit.

Speaker 3 I'm operating with some deficit and I'm pretending, right? That's the imposter syndrome, kind of classic. And I think

Speaker 3 for me, that part of Lori, I feel such tenderness for her. And I, like I say, because I struggled in my life with female friendship, because of the way I grew up, I feel like

Speaker 3 I just feel so much love for her. Whereas Bertha always feels like I'm kind of putting on something, but it's something really delicious to put on.

Speaker 3 And to be asked to walk into a room with that kind of confidence was very instructive to me as a woman coming up in this industry. Like putting that skin on is actually really,

Speaker 3 it teaches you something about walking into any room as the person that you are.

Speaker 1 I will say, I personally was disappointed that Lori did not take home Valentin.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right, exactly, right, exactly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, should we just go for both? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, she kind of doesn't go far enough, does she?

Speaker 3 But she's really having a good time. I'm glad to see that she has that moment before.
you know, we go full white lotus in the end of the season.

Speaker 3 Well, I will also say that that was the first day on set for all those guys. The pool scene was their first day.

Speaker 3 Now, Valentin had been with us, you know, Arnas had been with us, but the two gentlemen who popped in, they just, they hadn't actually, so they just kind of came in, guns blazing, and they were so much fun.

Speaker 3 We had such a great time in the pool that night. So I want to give them a lot of credit.
They're both very accomplished actors in their own countries, but they,

Speaker 3 but they, but that was like their first day was to have to like jump into a pool naked in a show that had been already running for several months. So I have to give those actors so much credit.

Speaker 3 They were so playful and so much fun, and they made that a lot easier. But I do love that Mike gives Lori this

Speaker 3 real moment where she gets to embrace the nostalgia, right? She does feel like finally the girls' trip she wanted is happening before things start to fall apart.

Speaker 3 And yeah, I was disappointed for her too. She didn't get to

Speaker 1 she has that little triumphant walk when they leave. Yes, feeling that she's a tribute to my mother, a little dance.

Speaker 3 Oh, that's a dance tribute to my mom. It's just a little off rhythmically.

Speaker 3 But yeah,

Speaker 3 it was such a fun night. It's really a hoot.
And it's very white lotus, right? To kind of be that irreverent and hedonistic. It's great.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much for talking to us.

Speaker 1 Thank you. It's good to see you.

Speaker 2 Of course she's the Jaclyn.

Speaker 1 Right. That was, I was a little surprised she was right away.

Speaker 2 But then she was like, I'm the nice Jacqueline. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Right. And I'm not the Jaclyn you see on screen, but I am the Jaclyn in my in the environment of my small town setting.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And now we're going to talk to Parker Posey.

Speaker 1 There is no thesis. There's no thesis.

Speaker 3 We're here to check out this meditation center because I'm going to live there for at least the next year.

Speaker 4 You want to live in Taiwan?

Speaker 1 Welcome, Parker Posey, to the official White Lotus Season 3 podcast. Thank you.
Nice to have you.

Speaker 4 Thank you. Nice to be here.

Speaker 2 We're really excited to talk to you. And my number one question is: Does Victoria Ratliff know that she's in Thailand?

Speaker 4 I think it sounds familiar to her.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Somewhere around. She could be reminded about it, you know.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Exactly.

Speaker 4 Yeah, she

Speaker 4 imagine that person who doesn't know where they're going, you know, landing there. But she's had the help of her pills.

Speaker 4 And she's very strong-willed, you know, she wants to be close to her family, which is just staying in her room, getting some massage, going back to the room, ordering in, in, and

Speaker 4 being as cozy as she can be with her perfect family.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I was wondering, was there, you know, thinking about how Jennifer Coolidge had sort of done some improv in the first couple of seasons, was there room for improv with Victoria, the sort of scratch my arm moment?

Speaker 1 Oh, right. Yeah.

Speaker 4 You know, Mike White is like, he's an actor too. You know, he's an actor.
He's a very strong writer. And on set, he felt like an acting buddy.

Speaker 4 And a lot of the actors talked about this where he kind of takes over, he takes what you're giving him and he'll mirror it back to you and then play a little as the camera's rolling and

Speaker 4 yeah, just add whatever.

Speaker 4 So that was fun to be able to create and to work like that.

Speaker 4 I have no idea what's in what has been edited or what has been used because I haven't seen it and I I don't like to watch myself, but I've heard that I could trust Mike and just like a crazy quilt, right?

Speaker 4 Like, this is how he works. He gets a lot of material, and then in the editing, it becomes the white lotus thing that it's supposed to be.

Speaker 4 So it was a really fun way to work, and it was like an extreme sport, actually. It was

Speaker 4 kind of improvisational, but also very,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 4 it was extreme. We traveled a lot, right?

Speaker 4 But we also got to play. And I was so blown away just to be in another country like Thailand.
I'd never been to Asia.

Speaker 1 At this point in the show, the sort of chickens are coming home to roost for Tim, this bad deal with Kenny, and it's not yet clear to Victoria,

Speaker 1 but he's obviously acting different and sort of the family is under threat. But the whole time, Victoria's saying, talking about the family's values.

Speaker 1 We have these good values, and those people with the boat, do they have good values? And so we were wondering, thinking about that, is Victoria's like recitation always of like what our families are?

Speaker 1 Is that like a

Speaker 1 true belief or almost like a spell trying to ward off what she knows is actually a rot underneath the families?

Speaker 4 I feel like she's living in a man's world in these conditions that are so opposed to her as a woman. Like men and women are so different.

Speaker 4 Like this this is a dopamine-dominated family of achieving and being something that's really important,

Speaker 4 but it's not authentic. And I think she's really kind of, she's so distorted in how she's looking at her family.
She's doesn't, she's a fragmented person, spoiled, rotten. I think she came.

Speaker 4 from a lot of money and was allowed to

Speaker 4 create the reality, you know, around her. But I don't think it's hers.
That's a great question.

Speaker 4 I think,

Speaker 4 you know, southern women, the archetypal, like Tennessee Williams character, you know, for me, I thought a lot about that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 And as a performer, being able to finally do something like that, which I love.

Speaker 4 But this, you know, Maggie the Cat, you know, like a cat on a hot tin roof and just like this passion and this like it's so human and it's so female and the southern drama of

Speaker 4 you know being able to live with your feelings and your needs and your passion

Speaker 4 is is just so great for TV.

Speaker 4 It's great when you travel around the world and people go, where are you from? And you say America and they come up with that southern accent. People love to imitate it.

Speaker 4 And so these Mike White's shows and the White Lotus are a lot like like the Christopher Guest movies. And our time right now is very memeable.

Speaker 4 It's like, it's not just a show, it's part of the zeitgeist, and it's that kind of show that people will bring into their homes, and then they get to kind of live through these parts.

Speaker 4 My family was like that. They loved, you know, the Chris Guest movies, and it made them laugh.
And they get to see

Speaker 4 through

Speaker 4 the characters that Mike has created, people that we've seen in real life that we kind of go like, oh my God, I can't believe she's, that person is like that yet.

Speaker 4 I've seen that person. I've seen that person.
I know this person. So there's a real, there's a glee in this, like, in this world.
But I think she's,

Speaker 4 Victoria, I think she's, I think she's drowning in a lot of ways. But she looks at her son and she sees her father.

Speaker 4 You know, so she's like choosing these like ways to look at her reality and her world.

Speaker 4 And there's like a lot of power in that and there's you know I don't think it's been the best for her kids that she indulges herself in such a narcissistic way but I loved being able to portray that, you know, so that was really that was really fun.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there is kind of a grandeur in the way she's doing it and I'm from Texas so I you know I know I know so well. I was like, oh, I've met I've met a version of this family.

Speaker 2 I've been at their lake house getting kind of vaguely yelled at by the dad about my internship or lack thereof, right? But it's

Speaker 4 like, I'm not your daughter.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yes.

Speaker 2 But it's sort of also like the drama of the repression. I mean, there's so much, there's so much power in that too, and when will it break through?

Speaker 2 And I was wondering, I mean, do you, as you played Victoria as things escalate,

Speaker 2 to what extent does she know, especially as

Speaker 2 perhaps the little Razapam begins to run out and perhaps, you know, what she might overhear late at night becomes a bit clearer, you know, how did you understand that as you were doing it i love denial

Speaker 1 denial

Speaker 4 very real darling and i think that's what it is is like i know it no i don't i denied it i denied when she's asking is there something she's like yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah it's an alliance i think he has a lot on his plate in having to protect a woman like Victoria.

Speaker 4 I think the stakes of making her such a mess and someone that you think like needs a lot of help and can't exist without him, which I know he believes.

Speaker 4 But then we're like, no,

Speaker 4 this woman, you know, the woman behind the man, right? And she's like, she's the one with the force. So it was really fun to play those shades in a couple and in a family.

Speaker 2 We were wondering that from the beginning.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I had a hint of a sense like at the very end of the first episode, the ratliffs are in their villa and they're talking and they're sort of cataloging like what we've done and what we have.

Speaker 1 And Victoria's saying, You built all this. And I was like, Is there a Lady Macbeth vibe where like there's the forceful woman back there?

Speaker 4 Exactly, yeah. I always want to bring theater into my work and those tropes of drama.
And so, Mike, what he's done is he's kind of like a playwright in this way.

Speaker 4 I don't know of anyone else who's been able to be so theatrical and classic in this Chekovian way and this,

Speaker 4 you know, high drama,

Speaker 4 you know, who'd done it. Like we all love a mystery.
We all love an archetype of someone that we've seen before, like come to life.

Speaker 4 So he brings a lot of humor to that, a lot of joy to that. I mean, the jokes were so good.
He gave me such, she has such great lines. She has incredible lines.

Speaker 1 I was screaming.

Speaker 1 The collective meme has been like, we flew over the north pole

Speaker 4 but like those kinds of people that are like where did you go today and then they say something completely

Speaker 2 you know completely different okay so we asked jason isaacs this question feel and i'm i feel that we must ask you who's victoria's favorite child

Speaker 2 Patrick. Oh, we guessed wrong.
I thought it would be Locky.

Speaker 1 What did you think? I think that's what I would have guessed too. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I think Patrick, I think Lachlan carries her sensitivity and her shadow in a way, and that she's very tender with him and knows his sensitivity, but he reminds her of her own

Speaker 4 because she's such a narcissist.

Speaker 4 Her own. I think she's like, I think she's

Speaker 4 more armor. I think she protects him intensely

Speaker 4 in her heart, you know. And with all our kids,

Speaker 4 Piper is her father's daughter. She is going to be fine, you know, but the boys are a bit more

Speaker 4 untethered or like a little wild, but there's something to,

Speaker 4 you know, I think

Speaker 4 Saxon's bravado that just reminds her of her granddaddy,

Speaker 4 you know, just that kind of thing. So when she sees him, she's just looking at him going, that's my grandfather.

Speaker 3 Oh my God, it's like Bubby all over him.

Speaker 4 You know, just this like joy. And there's so,

Speaker 4 I think she's got a lot of heart. You know, I think there's a lot of love there and passion.
It's really, it was really fun to play.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 4 Thank you guys. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 I love how she's giving sort of stage diva, you know, like the cat on a hot tin roof moment she gave us.

Speaker 1 It was really good. I know.
Well, she was like, you know, luxuriating in her blossomy blouse for a while. Yeah, that was fun.
I didn't realize that she, that is her accent.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 I can see she grew up in the south. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Spectacular guests this episode, if I must say so myself.

Speaker 2 And we'll see you guys for the next one.

Speaker 2 The White Lotus podcast is a production of HBO and Campside Media. This episode was hosted by Gia Talentino and Josh Baerman.
Natalia Winkleman is the managing producer.

Speaker 2 Our associate producers are Allison Haney, Anthony Pachillo, and Aaliyah Papes. Sound design and mix by Ewen Lai Tremuen.
At Campside Media, our executive producers Josh Dean.

Speaker 2 For the HBO podcast team, our executive producers Michael Gluckstadt, senior producer Allison Cohen-Sorokach, and producer Kenya Reyes. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.