Review: Things Stay Steamy as 'The White Lotus' Travels to Thailand for Season 3

Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 4 MIN.

As the three old friends strive for some fresh youthful adventures (hello, pool party! Hi there, slate of handsome Russian guys!), young love begins to blossom for resort workers Mook (Lalisa Manobal) and Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong). Their families are close, but is romance right for them? Gaitok certainly thinks so, and in order to elevate his standing at the resort and improve his circumstances he's willing to serve as a bodyguard for Sritala, the resort's owner (Lek Patravadi), who also happens to be a famous entertainer. But Gaitok's own mild nature might disqualify him from the job, which only sharpens the possibility that he might have more bite in him than anybody suspects.

Another couple arrive in the form of Rick (Walton Goggins) and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood). He's overwrought and uptight; she's playful and determined to get him to relax. As it turns out, The White Lotus is the last place Rick can relax, since he has some long-standing business with Sritala and her husband – business that dip ever so slightly into the other side of Thailand, with its myriad of sexual and gender possibilities.

That's fitting. Questions of attachment, identity, and suffering as part of the human experience are key to this season's storylines (with the show being set where it is this time around, how could they not be?), and Rick's dilemmas are directly plugged into those issues.

Digital detox and ancient philosophies intersect, as do criminal intentions, spiritual leanings, carnal hunger, and the most pressing question of identity of all: Just who is gonna get rubbed out this time?

Season Three feels in many ways like a repeat of Season One, but that's all right. Creator/writer/director Mike White has hit on a winning formula, and he's far from mining it to exhaustion. (Good thing, too, sine Season 4 has already been announced.) There might or might not be enlightenment within reach of those willing to forsake the chaotic world of noisy human affairs, but for the rest of us it's a relief that "The White Lotus" will once again be a weekly refuge.

"The White Lotus" Season Three premieres Feb. 16 on Max.


by Kilian Melloy , EDGE Staff Reporter

Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.

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