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The Final Cut
When Zen Meets Chaos: Thailand's Perfect White Lotus Setting
Warning: Contains Spoilerd
The White Lotus Season 3 masterfully explores how paradise corrupts and reveals our darkest impulses through the perfect metaphor of Thailand, where serene Buddhism exists alongside raw danger. This season weaves Buddhist philosophy into its narrative, using the white lotus flower – growing beautiful and pure from muddy waters – as a symbol for examining human nature and karma.
• Explores wealthy American tourists visiting the White Lotus resort in Thailand, continuing the upstairs-downstairs theme of previous seasons
• Features three distinct groups: the wealthy Ratcliffe family from Texas, three former college friends reuniting, and two couples with hidden motives
• Incorporates Buddhist concepts like the "monkey mind" to examine how characters struggle with inner dialogues and impulses
• Uses cinematography with shallow depth of field to visually represent character isolation and miscommunication
• Examines how characters are trapped in their identities and karma cycles, with only some finding transcendence
• Contrasts Rick and Chelsea's tragic ending with Tim Ratcliffe's moment of clarity when he nearly loses his son
• Reveals how corruption spreads from wealthy visitors to local staff who compromise their principles
• Sets up Season 4 in a Nordic setting, shifting from Thailand's heat to a colder environment
We hope you enjoyed our analysis of White Lotus Season 3. If you're intrigued by this discussion, be sure to watch the show on HBO and join us next week for another episode of The Final Cut.
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Welcome to the Final Cut, the show where film and television meet expert insight and passionate discussion. Hosted by Professor John Cook, Emeritus Professor of Media Film and Television at Glasgow Caledonian University, and Charlotte Buren, amateur filmmaker and devoted cinephile, the Final Cut brings fresh perspectives to everything on screen. Each episode explores the latest releases, iconic classics and the trends shaping the world of storytelling, through spirited debate, academic depth and a shared love for the art of film and television. Whether you're a seasoned critic or just here for the drama, this is your place for screen talk that cuts deeper. This is the Final Cut.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of the Final Cut, the show where we discuss the latest in film and television. Today we're going to talk about the White Lotus and in particular now season three and maybe a bit also focus on the final episode. So it has been an interesting season and all of them has a sort of all of the shows have a sort of similar theme. It's always the affluent American or affluent people from various worlds that come and visit these White Lotus resorts, upstairs-downstairs theme to it, whereby the guests, who sometimes have certain negative characteristics perhaps, are visiting this very polite staff and the same, obviously, in this episode and in this season it's set in Thailand, in Kusumui, at one of their wealthy White Seasons resort, and we are invited in to see various guests coming. And for this discussion today we have dressed up appropriately in Lutus-style fashion and, as you can see, our background here is mirroring and so we are presented with it's certainly three families or people from three parties are coming in and for example, for the first we have the Ratcliffe's family, which is a wealthy taxon family who, tim Rathcliffe, is bringing his whole family and they have this sort of Dallas appeal kind of wealthy family and his daughter is interested in Buddhism, which is the pretext for going to Thailand. And we have the girls, which is a three girls who obviously were students together and now have a reunion here in Thailand.
Speaker 2:And we also have Rick and Chelsea, which is a part of a sort of two kind of odd couples, where he is kind of an older man who has found this younger woman that he has brought over to Thailand and he is here in this pretext to show Thailand, but actually it's more of solving a sort of family dilemma.
Speaker 2:And we have a final couple with Greg and Chloe chloe, where we know greg is hiding secret but he's also hiding it from chloe, and again under the pretext of having a lovely romantic trip in thailand. So overall I thought it was a, it was a great episode, it was a great season, uh, I think, actually a lot stronger than season two. I think, uh, I loved season one and I think this is on par or even better than season one, and it's an interesting showing, kind of a traditional format, but it had an interesting twist and turn to it. But, moreover, so with me here today, obviously I am joined by my co-host, professor John Cook, who is an miraculous professor in film and media. So what was your feeling about season three and the White Lotus?
Speaker 3:Well, hi, charlotte. Welcome everybody to this podcast on the White Lotus, season three. You'll see that we're all dolled up in our tie gear here. Uh, appropriately for the for the show. So what did I think? Well, because I hadn't really seen the previous seasons, I came to this fairly raw and new to it. I'd seen a little bit of season one but I'd completely literally missed the boat with season two. So I actually enjoyed it and enjoyed the experience and the immersion of it. Um, I've noticed online quite a lot of criticisms that it was a bit of a slow burner, that the pacing some people criticise the pacing of it as being rather slow, but on the other hand it suited the pace of an experience in Thailand that is supposed to well, on the surface was supposed to be relaxed and things were supposed to be slow.
Speaker 3:But the key, fundamental premise of this show and I think of the entire three seasons of the show, is that what looks initially idyllic starts to get darker and darker and the guests bring the kind of corruption of the outside world into this sense of paradise, this paradise-style resort. And you have to remember that the title of the show is called the White Lotus, and a white lotus is. If you look up the meaning of white lotus, it's obviously a flower but has been attached to the idea of purity and enlightenment. But notice that the way, the way that the white lotus grows, is it grows in muddy water. So it's actually, in that sense, a product of corruption.
Speaker 3:Quote-unquote. That's the metaphor that you've got a yin and a yang. You You've got the muddy water that produces this wonderful flower of purity and enlightenment. But at the same time, is that flower all that it necessarily looks? Is it as pure and enlightened? Has it not got a sort of filthy soil underneath? So that's very much, I think, the theme of the premise of the show sorry, the premise of White Lotus and it was very much the theme, I think, of season three that we've just watched.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also there's of course, quite a strong Buddhist theme about mindfulness. This idea of the monkey mind, the monkeys that's interesting, I think has kind of two kind of meaning. One is about the monkey mind, that we can't actually sort of switch off that inner dialogue. I don't know if people are familiar with one for less, but uh, so. So I think the monkeys was a representation of that, but at the same time I feel the monkeys had also slightly evil streak to them, so you didn't really know whether they were going to have, um, any more part.
Speaker 2:Another thing that I thought was quite interesting was this about the revolver you see in all the scenes, um, and whether it's a check of gun, this idea that something is placed and then you don't know whether or not it's going to be used, and it's in many um. It comes up first with tim ratcliffe about whether or not he's going to kill his family when he actually steals the gun that is then stolen from him, and then obviously with the Thai gentleman, the bodyguard, who sorry the security guard whether or not he's feel able to use the gun and impress that lady. But it's, it's. I think it's quite tense, a lot of it. You sort of sit on your edge of a seat, kind of be worried. But you know, is he going to kill her? I mean with with him there? Is he going to kill the family? Is that he's going to resolution?
Speaker 2:Um, and another thing I also want to bring up is this idea of miscommunication. I think there's a difficult something that is permanent to go serious, and particularly this season, is this idea that people are unable to communicate. So and and this could maybe be because of the within Tim's case, maybe the idea of shame he he's embarrassed about if his wife finds out about the fact they are bankrupt because of the FBI raid and he's not unable to communicate that. And it's the same with Rick and Chelsea. This miscommunication, how did you find that? The Chekhov's gun and miscommunication.
Speaker 3:Yes. Well, the gun motif, of course, is key. So we're going to obviously give away a few spoilers, so spoiler warning for those that haven't seen the entire eight episodes. But towards the final episodes of of the series, we have all this literally gun play, if you like, playing around with the the. You know, hitchcock called it the mcguffin um, the thing that's introduced into the plot, that um may or may not lead somewhere, and mcguffin often leads nowhere.
Speaker 3:So the initial placing of the gun, uh, and the security guard trying to trying to locate the gun, and who does find the gun and takes it away. So that particular threat evaporates, of course, in the case of the Rattler family, to be replaced with the threat of poisoning. So the father first of all tries to think about shooting himself, and then he thinks horrifically about trying to poison his own family, with the exception of his youngest son who said he wasn't so much interested in material possessions. But in the end, tragically, and we think in the final episode that unfortunately he's killed his own son and this is the deep tragedy of it. But in fact it's not.
Speaker 3:So that whole story just resolves itself, but the real meat is actually in the final episode, with the character, rick, who starts the gun war that we've known about and has built a sense of tension about right throughout the season, because the season opens with mayhem in the resort, which is a perfect metaphor, by the way, for the show, the idea that I mean it's a lovely scene actually where one character is in a meditation session and is told to shut out all sense of the world, to have this sense of peacefulness, and suddenly realises that there's cracks in the air which sound like gunshots and then the the so-called guru quickly does a bunk and a runner, showing that the whole thing is actually, um, a little bit of a facade that it gives the resort gives the illusion of wellness, but actually, um, there's a lot of danger in that location underneath, and that could actually be a wider metaphor for Thailand as well actually which we can maybe return to in this bit later in this discussion.
Speaker 2:Mike. So, mike, why talk a bit about this metaphor, the Greek metaphor, the Greek tragedy of you kill what you love, and I think it's coming in two instances. It's the first, obviously, between Rick and Chelsea, whereby he in the end sort of I can't spoil it tragically ended up killing her because of trying effectively to save her, and then, with Tim Ratcliffe, that he's effectively killing his time inadvertently. I don't think he purposelessly put the rest of the milk there as to drink, there for him to find, so that he couldn't probably foresee that the boy, or could he? It's a bit ambivalent, but there is this method of killing what you love.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to just come back to your idea before about miscommunication, one of the key things I think is that all the characters, when they're in the resort, are very much isolated, so they can't really communicate with each other very well. I mean, they talk, obviously, but they're not necessarily on the same level. So, for example, the very entitled character played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, he Saxon Saxon. He is very much trying to obviously get off with the women, but the women are operating on a different level to him, certainly the character Chelsea, and so the people are miscommunicating. They're not working together on the same level. Only really towards the end does he have a little bit more, but not much, but a little bit more understanding. So he's seen towards the end of the show reading books about Buddhism that Chelsea had recommended him.
Speaker 3:But this actually is carried over into the cinematography and the visual look of the show and this is why we've got the background that we have of the focus on the grass and the wet grass as our background, because that very much mirrors I mean it's actually almost mirroring exactly some of the key shots from the show.
Speaker 3:And if you look at the show very carefully over the eight weeks when the characters are in the resort, they're shot with a very shallow depth of field. The cinematography has a shallow depth of field, in other words, only the figures themselves, the main characters, are in focus and the background is out of focus. This compares to some films, for example the films of Stanley Kubrick, who have a wide depth of field where both foreground and background are sharply in. You know, you have a sharp image, sharply in shot. So in the White Lotus it's complete opposite. There's a lot of blurry background with only sort of foreground figures or objects sharply in shot, and it's only actually when the characters step outside of the resort that that changes. So I think it's the idea that once you're in one of those sort of tranquil wellness resorts, you're sort of locked away from the rest of the world, but crucially as well from the rest of your fellow men and women, and so that is an interesting visual aspect that emphasises what you were saying, charlotte, about miscommunication.
Speaker 2:The other thing, absolutely, and the other thing I also want to talk about is, as a psychologist, I'm most interested in miscommunication in terms of realization of trauma and the inability of being resilient. So both Ratcliffe's family, the Ratcliffe family and Rick and Chelsea are experiencing trauma, but their experience is quite differently and in both cases they're both hiding something from their families, respective families. And in Timberlake it's that he has gone bankrupt. In Ricks it's that he wants to find the man who shot his father and ultimately kill him. Okay, but when things goes completely wrong, etc. Their ability to be resilient to this is because in some sense, both are men, are sort of falling apart, whereas we find with with tim, he he's he, he has some sort of resilience in him in the sense that he's able to deal with situation in terms of that he doesn't poison his family and he's able to still have resilience to not act out, whereas in the situation with Chelsea and Rick, it's completely obvious that Rick has no resilience. He cannot cope with that anger, despite sort of Chelsea trying, you know, maybe give him this man from us trying to, you know, love conquers all, etc. Whereas he cannot deal with it and that ultimately, I think what leads to this tragedy.
Speaker 2:And another thing that struck me and is this idea of Chelsea as, almost like one of these women who loves too much, that she believes and many, I think, women believe that they can change the man. They can. Just enough love. Or you know, we she's trying to make it seem that you have enough love here. You know you don't have to, you know you don't have to go after something, you'll be fine, you're okay, and ultimately still try to get it to happen. What is your response?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, I mean, it's actually there in one of the lines in the episodes where she's trying to explain, I think, to Saxon the basis of her relationship with Rick, because, saxon, you know the miscommunication, he can't understand why she would be with someone like that. And she says that it's the yin and yang thing. Again, he is pain and she represents hope, and so in many ways these characters are quite heavily symbolic and they are the yin and yang. You know, if we go back to the whole sort of Buddhist backdrop, they're the yin and yang that contend throughout this series. You know the dark and light, pain and hope, and it's quite noticeable that throughout the series we see shots of Buddha or certain Buddhist gods where the genus faced, which is the Latin term, where they're looking.
Speaker 3:One is looking in one direction. One isred in the deaths of Rick and Chelsea, in which, for the first time ever, rick's pain has been alleviated and he's almost staring up at the sky as he lies there dead in the pond with almost a beatific smile on his face, as if he's seen God, whereas poor Chelsea is lying face down in the water in an opposite direction. So the idea that they're in opposite directions and, in some sense her hope at the very end has been transposed to Rick, who is finally liberated from his pain as a result of death. So it's a pretty bleak message, but it's the idea that it's karma. So Rick is someone who cannot escape from his past and he's locked in that karmic cycle.
Speaker 3:Um, chelsea tries to intervene, tries to create. You know, he's got. He rick is is, is mourning someone that is gone, um, and not realizing that there's someone there right now that that he could have love with, but he's unable to do it. There's a moment where we think he's transcended it, but he doesn't, and in the end he's caught in that karmic cycle. Ratliff Tim Ratliff, the businessman character gets that moment of hope. He could have gone down that path, but he gets that moment of hope and it's the moment when he realises that he had almost lost his son and suddenly everything else just pales into insignificance. So he gets his own form of transcendence by realizing that whatever's going on with his business and the possibility of him going to prison, it's nothing compared to the loss of his son.
Speaker 2:And hopefully they're able to communicate better after coming on the boat. That's right, we don't know.
Speaker 3:We don't know. It's left hanging the idea that they may all be changed by their experiences, those at least who've lived and survived.
Speaker 2:I want to talk a bit about the girls and the trio.
Speaker 2:It's quite interesting because it's something that actually reminds me a bit of some of the Swedish writing about girls or your old classmates how people change, and I think initially, you know, when the trio meet, it's like you say everything's fine, everything's normal. But then the old kind of presumably jealousy has come back to haunt them. You know Jacqueline as a Hollywood actress and has sort of paid for it all, so they are the ones who almost expected to feel grateful for her generosity. And Kay, too, kind of she's, also has, you know, certain set of superiority, coming from Texas and maybe and this also being Trump, but wanting still to fit into the gang. And then Laurie, who, as a lawyer, also struggling and hoping that maybe this I think they all may be hoping for different things going to happen in this trip, but then with the various affairs it's almost as if they're trying to escape their childhood or this, but at the same time it sort of all comes back and haunt them. What's your opinion of that? The ladies.
Speaker 3:Yes, it all comes back in one. So I mean it's a little bit like. I mean it's. It's quite a a nice touch in the early episodes of the, the season, where it's each, each um of the three women, um each, they each gossip about the other, uh, behind the other's, back to the, to the friend, and it changes um each episode. So they're all gossiping about each other and they do end up a little bit like jealous school girls, you know, jealous about you know, oh, you've stolen my boyfriend, kind of thing is effectively the vibe that you get when these characters sort of pair off with various men throughout the season but they're not trapped by their karma again.
Speaker 3:In their case there is a form of epiphany, there's a form of revelation towards the end, and they manage to transcend that ultimately by the Laurie character who's the most embittered, understanding that in fact what transcends it is not so much anything they've done or not done to each other, but time and the fact that they've been together for so long. So she experiences that epiphany at the very end. Whether as a plot point, whether it's a little bit too pat and neat, maybe in terms of the final episode resolving that storyline, that's up for debate. But within the flow of the narrative, they do experience a form of transcendence. They recognize that the ultimate value is of their friendship and in that sense, they leave the resort with an equilibrium restored. That equilibrium had been knocked during the holiday, but it's now. It's now been restored and improved upon.
Speaker 2:My question is mentioned as a sum and he talks about this concept of identity. And it is maybe most prominent in this dialogue by Frank, a friend of Rick, that he meets in Bangkok where he talks about his changes to political love for Thai women and then his identification now, possibly as a Thai woman, that it's almost his. He becomes what he loves like he, he, he likes him so much so he becomes one himself. I don't know is that something you find in screenwriting, this idea that you almost become what you love? I mean?
Speaker 3:he's there, he's wonderfully played by Sam Rothwell. It's more comic relief, I think, that speech and it's the idea that you think you know a friend but actually it turns out to be um entirely different, that they've changed a great deal and he's obviously been on a journey. But notice that as soon as he um hooks up with his old friend, he sort of relapses into his old alcoholic, um womanizing ways. But um, yeah, it's again. It's that idea that that character has been on a journey, in a sense that people can change. One of the aspects I think of the show is that identity is a prison and that each are locked into their own identities and it's only some of them that manage to transcend that identity and to leave their prison. So in a comic way the Sam Rothwell character embodies that, but it's done in a very comic, outrageously comic way.
Speaker 2:I thought it was a wonderful monologue and I was kind of amazed that he was able to give it in a sort of eloquent way.
Speaker 2:But in terms of identity, the not someone else that is trapped in identity is this between Gatok and Lisa, this idea that he is I don't pronounce his name that he is, he has this profession, he is a security guard, so he is meant to be this tough guy. But actually he is not a tough guy. He's, you know, and also due to his religion, he's a Buddhist, he's non-violent, and then he has to be, you know, in a brutal like act, you know, do this shooting, but also to win the love of Lisa. So he also has to transcend his identity. He has to be someone who he's not, if that makes sense, but he sort of does it in the end, when he kind of, when the lady who owns the hotel sort of asks him to shoot Rick, when he runs away and he sort of then becomes a sort of heroine. So that's also another example of people that cannot transcend. How did you find that?
Speaker 3:Well, that touches on a really important aspect of the show, which is the way in which good characters can also be corrupted and actually fall prey to what the show called the monkey mind. You know, you have all these shots of, cutaway shots of the monkeys in the trees called the monkey mind. You know, you have all these shots of, cutaway shots of of the monkeys in the trees surrounding the resort, um, and you know, as you've mentioned before, charlotte, the theme of the monkey mind. Now, just think about there's two, uh, good characters through most of the season. There's two good characters, essentially the, the lady belinda, who comes to the resort and starts to realise that she knows somebody who lives nearby and has that moral quandary, the fact that he may be a murderer. There's her. And then there's also this security guard, who's a very nice fella but is under a lot of pressure to be, um, live up to the sort of strand, I guess, of thai culture, of, of hyper masculinity, of being the tough guy you know, as symbolized by the, the boxing matches that that we see throughout the season. But look what happens to both of those characters, the good characters, um, at the very end they're corrupted by the pressures of the environment around them and of the bad karma of others.
Speaker 3:So the security guard, yes, ultimately gets the approval of the lady that he wants to date by becoming the bodyguard. But look at the price of what he's had to do to achieve that. He's had to shoot a man in the back. Essentially that's what the show shows at the very end. You know, when he's asked to take the shot, the man is walking away from him and he's not threatening him, and yet he shoots Rick in the back.
Speaker 3:Now you know again yin and yang. It ultimately produces some sort of peace for Rick, I guess, but it's still a nasty act, while the Belinda character, who has, you know, essentially been wrestling and not wanting to be bribed, in the end is bribed and paid off to cover up a murder. So the price of her doing that is to walk away from the man that she had kind of could have set up a business with and could have been her partner. So the there's bad karma there as well, and the way in which and interestingly, you know, there's almost a satire there the way in which the um, the rich characters, can infect the poor, um in such a way that the the poor ultimately make bad karma choices that might might benefit them personally, but in the show's mythology that's the monkey mind. The monkey mind benefits individually, but the peace and tranquility and the equilibrium of the wider universe is corrupted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately she sort of also does to him. As to what was done to her in the previous season, where the lady just sort of when she died, unfortunately she sort of left her.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's right. So bad acts can create further bad acts further down the line. Yes, that's right. So bad acts, you know, can create further bad acts further down the line.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's interesting and yeah, but it's interesting also that she's one of the few people who wins on this episode. A lot of other, they have this sort of, I feel, as if they're leaving the sword. Some of them are certainly even more embittered and even more less relaxed than they came, so to speak, um. But another thing I wanted to move on to thailand, which I think thailand has a very interesting um place in this. Because I mean one thing we both have been to thailand uh together and in um and one, one thing that struck me when I was in time, there was this idea that the poverty lies on top of the rich.
Speaker 2:You know, like you, you, you live in this gated community and where you have all these facilities and it's wonderful and everyone's, and then you stop three minutes outside and you're met with sort of poverty. It's very intense. It's one of these where you, it's such a strong differentiation between the poor and the rich. They really live, they live next door, but it's they're miles apart and as well as a tiny culture of slightly silencing but maybe not being talking very open. But how was your feeling?
Speaker 3:and obviously you have been more determined than I have been only once before you're absolutely spot on and you know it's interesting because the show is three seasons in and in many ways the Thailand setting is the perfect setting for this kind of Buddhist karma type of show in which you know you explore the corruption under the White Lotus. It's actually a perfect setting because Thailand is such a raw society For those of you who've never been, I mean, it's a really interesting country of contrast because you've got this very peaceful population that are, you know, that worship Buddhism, and yet you've got this, the extremes as well, you know, of violence, of poverty and actually of outright danger in that society. So it's a society of extremes in that society. So it's a society of extremes. So it perfectly fits the themes of the White Lotus because you know, again, going back to the opening scene of season three, where you know you've got this opening in this paradise of wellness where the Indian guru lady is trying to say close off your mind from all outside influences, but suddenly danger erupts right in the heart of the resort and the facade is ripped open and in fact the Indian guru lady, who's seen as some sort of repository of wisdom in the show, just does a runner from the, the fear of the of the gunshots.
Speaker 3:And of course you know, without bringing up exactly where and when this happened we've experienced this directly, charlotte, because we were staying in a resort in the neighboring sort of um tourist spot in phuket, um, when, um, and we were in this kind of white lotus style resort you know the, the branding is almost exactly the same that, the sort of the sort of insignia across against a white background. Um, we won't mention the name of the resort, but it was in phuket and um, we were enjoying our holiday and one night we were listening to a band. We were there with our um one and a half year old son uh, at the time he was one and a half years old we were listening to to a band. We were there with our one-and-a-half-year-old son at the time he was one-and-a-half years old and we were listening to a band and we suddenly heard a sort of commotion outside the walls of the hotel. So the walls of the hotel were quite big and you were kind of shut in, but you could hear street noises from the other side. We didn't think much of it and then it was only gradually that we realised that in fact what had happened was a murder directly outside our hotel that we were staying in, in a road that we had already walked down with our one-year-old son in his pushchair. And the interesting thing was the Thai people never mentioned it to us, it was never discussed, it was never raised, it was not, there wasn't anything.
Speaker 3:The only way we found out was actually because we, we happened to. You know, there was no internet in the hotel, rather like the mobile phones, um, but you could go on the internet in the hotel lobby and one time a day or so later we went on the internet to check the news and suddenly we got the local news coming up and what had happened was that two Australians who were staying at our very hotel had gone for a walk down that road. It was two women, I think, and one of them had a bag, and two guys in motorbikes came shooting down the road and tried to steal the bag off one of these Australian ladies. She gave struggle and struggled and she managed to resist for a short time, but eventually the guys grabbed the bag and it was only after she had staggered a few more steps that apparently, according to the news, she discovered this huge wound in her torso. The guy had actually stabbed her with a blade and I'm afraid to say that she died shortly thereafter. So it was a murder that did create news.
Speaker 3:I think it made international headlines as well. But we were kept from it, and even sort of taxi drivers that were using um, you know, we would notice um kind of police outside the hotel and and, and they didn't even let on to us because I think the idea was not to disturb the tour. Yeah, but it's certainly, charlotte, I'm sure you agree, you'll remember that that it sums up the um, the huge extremes of thai society and the way that everything looks very serene on the surface, buddhist calm, but underneath it can be, it can be pretty dangerous. What do you think of that?
Speaker 2:There was also seen a sort of sense of the band played on. So, yes, so we, we kind of I sort of felt it's something strange, but we couldn't really pinpoint what the strange thing was, but it it's like. But no one said something, nothing was discussed, because some people say that it isn't strange that the people is not talking. But that's exactly what happened no one said a word. We had no idea they were treating us as regular guests and you know, it was something that, oh, we had had this happen outside, so we were in blissful. Uh, I mean, and maybe that is this idea that they want to like, what writers look to get up this? They want people to stay cocooned in this, almost, like you know, move, remove mobile phone, remove everything, so that you are away from life.
Speaker 2:And something that struck me now, maybe it's a bit like you know, sometimes you feel like between the rich and the poor, that rich people sometimes are living in a bubble. They are not able to identify with the struggles of the poor or something like that. I don't know, at least some of them. I feel something that's coming up again Again, it's a theme in the white clothes that's not supposed to struggle, but sometimes, of course, the rich are seen as a satirical characterization. But that was something, yeah. But, as I say, at the same time, I was very impressed by how guest-friendly, how friendly the people were in Thailand, you know, and I mean, for example, they were looking after my son, you know, they were very friendly. At the same time, it was this code of silence or code of not discussing.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's right, charlotte, and yeah, I mean, you know, they would babysit our son when we wanted to go out. Um and um, you know you could say, well, look, you know people, they were trying to not spoil people's holidays, uh, not frighten them, um, let people have a lovely holiday. But at the same time you also felt a little bit you were being, you know, cheated a little bit because, intrigued me, we treated a bit like children. Uh, and that idea that, um, you know you, you shouldn't know what's going on, you know, because it could have had an effect on our holiday if we had been caught up in violence that we were unsure was happening and you know, it could have just been simple avarice to protect the, the thai tourist industry.
Speaker 3:Um, it was very interesting. I remember it was on the day we flew off and we were waiting in the airport and it was on the television screens at the airport, you know, in the lounge, when we're waiting. They finally got the two guys or they found somebody anyway that they claimed were the perpetrators of the um, of the killings and um, I do remember. You know this is the way it works over there is they paraded them on television, on national television.
Speaker 3:It was almost, to sort of say, tourists. We found them. Now I don't know whether it was these guys or not, but I do know that, that, um that you know and I haven't checked whether they were presumed they were found guilty and if they were found guilty over there they would be executed. So it's, we can identify with the themes of the white lotus and thailand and that yin and yang and the, the buddhism um contending with the dark forces. It's absolutely on the nose of what thailand like.
Speaker 2:But moving back to the episode, so basically, yes, so a tragic ending, but at the same time hopeful. So what do you think is the next sense for the season? So I thought about sort of some places that it could go. One could of course, be a spin-off of what happens to these characters when they come back. But also maybe I thought of other places that maybe they could go. I mean, I presume they might go where they have these resorts, but maybe I thought of something like Mauritius maybe Well, charlotte, I have some news for you, and maybe this is the right place to end this.
Speaker 3:I read now it isn't just a rumour that, yes, season four is planned, but wait for this. They're planning to do it in a Nordic resort.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, that should be exciting.
Speaker 3:It's a Swedish thing, so it'll be sort of instead of fire, if you like. In Thailand it'll be ice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll be a nordic noir maybe. Yeah, definitely, we're eager to watch that. And so some final thoughts. Yeah, so, as I say, there was a great season, I think, yeah, among among the best, I would say. I think I love what to start with and and I've in some ways it sort of feels as if it's gone better and better and a strong season and interesting character, and we hope it continues in this way to maybe end this. And what about you? Do you have any final thoughts you can leave for our viewers?
Speaker 3:just say that you know it's worth a watch. It is a bit of a slow burner, but the episodes if you saw, and it's one of those shows that you have to soak into it. You're not going to necessarily get a lot of incident in, particularly the earlier episodes, but you sort of slowly soak into yourself, soak into it and it's actually extremely beautiful to look at. The cinematography is beautiful and it's so lush and so watch it on the biggest tv screen you can find. And, um, as I say, I hadn't really been exposed much to previous seasons and so I can honestly say that I enjoyed white lotus season three and, um, you know, got a bit out of it and hopefully, with you you listen, audience, listening to this discussion you've got a bit more out of it as well.
Speaker 2:I hope so. Yeah, definitely tune in to HBO's White Lure. It's a great show and a great character. To say, and, as I say, I was sitting on my edge of my seat and couldn't wait next week to watch the next episode, so it's a certain nail-biting as well. But thank you very much for following us. I'm hoping following us next week and you have a great week.
