White Lotus Hot Takes and Musings
Is it a 'Hot Take' if I'm correct, though?
Don’t let the name of this publication fool you — it will not be solely about Severance. In fact, most of it won’t be about that show or the profound anxiety it causes me. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s cool too. Deep cuts aren’t for everyone.
So.
I have been hearing rumblings about “wHy seAsoN thrEE of White Lotus iS gARBage” and um, let’s talk about it, because I disagree, but not for the reasons you may think.
(Or, for the exact reasons you think! Go on and read about it. If you don’t want to yell at me by the end of this post, we should be Substack friends! Subscribe to me and restack this post! If you do want to yell at me by the end of this post, don’t do that. You’ll immediately get blocked. What you can do, however, is politely disagree with me. Cool? Tight.)
EVERYTHING THAT LIES AHEAD IS A SPOILER. If you haven’t started or finished season three, and you intend to do so, don’t read this article yet. But come back when you have!
Let’s jump right the fuck in with everyone bah-humbugging about the mere fact that the creators of Wyt Lolo dared to deviate from S1 & S2’s intro song.
Does the season one intro song absolutely slap? Yes. Yes it does. Did they change it to adapt to a lighter, more ‘classical music’ version for season two, being as it was set in Sicily? Yes. They did. (And to be perfectly frank, I didn’t like it as much as season one’s intro, but I also didn’t throw a tantrum over it.) Now. Did the show’s creators change the intro to something entirely different for season three, that still slaps super hard? Yes. They did. Did everyone lose their fucking mind about it, causing me immense annoyance? Yes…They did.
The best shows allow us viewers to completely forget about the bullshit we have going on in our daily lives, and allow us to fully immerse ourselves in the world they have created. Amazing opening title sequences set a visual precedent and quite literally set the tone for the show, establishing the tone, inviting us to come along for the journey. The White Lotus creators absolutely accomplished this with season three’s intro credits music, especially in tandem with the visual art.
You wanna hear the original song from season one’s opener? Great. Open a new tab, type “White Lotus season one intro theme” into a search bar, and fucking listen to it.
You know what? I’ll do it for you. Here. The White Lotus show-runners didn’t delete the song from existence—it is still readily available for your listening pleasure, free of charge. Relax.
Do you want to know what inspired the composer (who composed all three seasons by the way, so if anyone gets to change things the fuck up, it’s them!) for this season’s intro music? Girls singing over a soundbite of cat noises on social media.
At first, I bristled at this reasoning, because what the everloving fuck does that even mean? But then I read this interview where he shared that “[I’m] rarely surprised by pop music anymore, but people harmonizing with cats on TikTok felt new to [me].” Respect, dude. Get your inspiration wherever you can get it. He elaborated, and that’s what made me really love the inspo: “I think that the best song I heard in the last few years that I can remember is people harmonizing to a cat on TikTok. There's a cat, and somebody put some piano and then some girls started harmonizing, and then there's all these versions harmonizing this cat, it's super moving and so spontaneous and fresh.” Look at him giving credit where credit’s due, lifting up young women and loving cats all in the same breath! We love to see it.
Anyway. Everyone is so focused on hating the new intro song that almost no one is talking about how beautiful the intro artwork is this season, and how it has gotten better and better since season one! Season one was all still artwork—basically wallpaper—and season three has progressed into a moving-wallpaper trippy experience, once that is still unique to the setting (Thailand in this case), and has themes of water, like season one and two.
Speaking of water, I was in the bathtub when I first had the thought to write this essay. I was thinking of all the poignant and ridiculous shit I would include, and as I was going through scenes from the first couple episodes in my head, I realized there was some lovely foreshadowing in the water gun scene. In this scene, three characters, Jaclyn Lemon (a superficial actress) and her friends Kate and Laurie have been dropped off in town by one of the hotel staff, Valentin. So brave for exiting the resort! (That is what the kids call sarcasm, folks.)
You see, Jaclyn had insisted on Cuttin’ loose with my bitches, cause I am definitely not old; Yep that’s right, me and my besties are super young, lolz let’s get wild girliez! While walking down a street, a group of locals, mostly children, are in an epic water gun battle. This Water Festival is a cultural tradition, Songkran, or Thai New Years.
At the time I watched it, I found it hilarious to watch the three middle aged white ladies screaming and running away like they were getting sprayed with actual fucking bullets. That’s when I thought of the before-unrealized foreshadowing, and that fateful scene in the finale. And then I got super annoyed.
You don’t have to stretch the imagination to guess how the aftermath of the actual shooting would play out, fictionally, or in reality. The three white women would be deemed not only survivors but heroes too—and let me be clear, I’m not saying they shouldn’t be treated with compassion and I’m not saying they won’t develop PTSD because they are white—that’s absurd. But. What I am saying is—what would more than likely happen, is Jaclyn will be given a future pass for problematic behavior and put on this I Survived a Shooting Pedestal, even though in actuality, most gun violence is experienced by people living in and around extreme poverty, which, as we know—because of the Super Cool Super Fun intersection of white supremacy, hegemonic masculinity and capitalism—affects people of color more than white people, especially in cities, and these bitches live in NYC, LA, and Austin, respectively. You know deep down they’re going to blame Thai people, aka brown people, for causing them harm, even though white people and the systems they uphold statistically cause way more harm to people of color than the inverse. And this thought is going to tie back in later, stick with me.
Let’s take a hard left turn, shall we?
I’d like to discuss the increasingly foreign concept of Inevitability.
Why does everyone need a crazy twist ending now?! THERE DOESN’T ALWAYS NEED TO BE A PLOT TWIST. Nor should there be! I’m going to write an entire essay dedicated solely to Plot Twist Culture and how it’s fucking slowly but surely ruining the Authenticity that is Inevitability. So stay tuned for that!
Of course Gaitok didn’t want to lose the woman he loved (Mook), so of course he gave into the pressure she was putting on him to essentially man up, and tell his morals to go fuck themselves.
Of course right after Rick and Chelsea have this beautiful moment, and declare they’ll be together always, Jim sidles back into frame and declares “Oh you thought this was White Boy day?” Okay, different movie, but same energy. Of course piece of shit ass Jim wasn’t going to let that go. Of course Rick didn’t let it go either. It was always there under the surface. This is the guy that released a fucking cobra in episode three, which immediately bit Chelsea. Damn. Another foreshadowing I just now noticed.
But on the topic of inevitability— We all hoped Gaitok would choose his values over a better-paying yet dangerous job, and a love match that is probably not meant to be. But that’s not how the fuckin world works.
Of course Belinda takes the money. And why the fuck shouldn’t she?! Of course Gary/Greg/Creepy Old Bald White Guy #3 is loaded and sitting pretty in Thailand, off the radar (for now) and bribing people with hush money.
Things being inevitable don’t cheapen their value.
I (begrudgingly) read a Rolling Stone article where the idiot, sorry, ‘journalist’ who wrote it said Belinda’s acceptance of this dirty ass hush money is “unearned”………HA. That’s rich, coming from the magazine whose advertising campaigns have been criticized for their depiction of violence against women and objectifying women among other problematic shit. But also, FUCK that. You are telling me this black single mother did not earn this come up? OKAY, ALAN. This same dumdum, oops, ‘journalist’, also writes that Zion is a “cartoon chasing after dollar signs.” Last time I checked, he is a funny, charismatic, steezy young black business student who was only there at the White Lotus in the first place to take a (probably well-earned) vacation, and then as shit hit the fan his role changed to protect his mom, but also, to help secure that bag. Again, the world does not give hand outs to people of color. Especially not black women! I’m sorry the black characters didn’t behave the way you wanted them to, Alan.
Also — Belinda was just minding her own damn business, doing her job, when this mess of a human GaryGreg ambushed her. Belinda did not seek this shit out. Once GregGary’s offer was on the table, she was in a more-than-tricky Damned if I do, Damned if I don’t scenario. Plus, Gregaryan’s money wasn’t even his money to begin with! It was Tanya’s, money that Tanya had told Belinda she would get so she could finally open up her own wellness business! I’m glad she took the hush money.
Can we please stop acting like nuance does not exist?! People of color do not have the same upward mobility as white people. You think society gives the Belinda’s of the world the same opportunities and grace as the Pipers, or even the Laurie’s, of the world? They don’t. You think Mook and Gaitok have the same opportunities as Tim and are shown the same global compassion as Jaclyn, and Chelsea? They don’t, and they aren’t. This *hand clapping emoji* shit *emoji* was *emoji* inevitable *clap clap*.
Was this season perfect? Absolutely not. But I just find some of the things people are really flapping their gums about to be petty, misguided, altogether forgetting nuance, and sometimes downright incorrect. The visuals were stunning, the composition and editing was fresh and beautiful, the score was amazing and very effective at building tension and creating vibes. I love how they sprinkled in bits of the season one intro music into the score of this season.
And lastly, the acting performances were stellar, especially from a handful of the actors.
It was so nice to see Walton Goggins act in a role where he wasn’t an unhinged, flamboyant, aggressively Southern man. Rick was reserved, he was insecure, and he had demons he couldn’t shed (not that he tried). I think Aimee Lou Wood’s performance also shined; she made Chelsea so authentic and lovable, which was such an interesting dynamic alongside her very emotionally-closed-off partner. Jason Isaacs, who many people only know as the sniveling, pure-blood supremacist Lucious Malfoy, absolutely crushed it. He, ironically, got to play a deeply unhinged Southern man, the role usually reserved for Goggins. I thought he knocked the role out of the park.
Things I think are actually worth being critical about from Season 3:
Season two sort of felt like season one but Italian. Season three felt like season one but Thai. Ya know? We get a bunch of really shitty, very wealthy people, and they do really awful things and mostly get away with it. I am kind of over this blueprint only because it feels redundant at this point, and it’s not worth the stress of, say, watching a man whip up some poisonous piña coladas and come this close to committing familicide.
I felt like the three white female friends should have had a larger, more emotional falling out, especially Laurie. Episode one she screams out loud once she is back in the villa by herself. Like, day one, on sight she is unraveling, and yet…she never unravels? I feel like I have to write an entirely separate essay about the three women and their super unhealthy dynamic—and I just might. Laurie is clearly suppressing so much, and feels grateful just to be ‘tolerated’ by her mean girl friends. Their entire conversation in the last episode felt extremely fake, and I’m also wondering what else was brewing under the surface for Laurie. I hate that people like Jaclyn always get their way and never have to own up to their shit. The three friends’ jOuRnEy (what a white woman thing to say, sorry) did not feel authentic. Do you think this was a lack of female writers in the writing room and this was genuinely a complete oversight/failure? Or do you think this was intentional, an Easter Egg from writers to those of us watching, portraying a Laurie who decidedly does not unravel, at least not in front of her perfectly manicured friends—because that is exactly what people-pleasers and women who suppress their emotions do?
I felt like they focused on Tim’s familicide fantasies a little too much, which took up a lot of time, and writers could have instead expanded a couple other story lines a bit more, preferably more of Gaitok’s journey. I know they kept doing it to build tension, and it did, and it was also funny in a dark way, but it dragged on a little too much.
I am open to watching a season four, if there is one, god help us, only if Greg finally gets taken the fuck down, and maybe one or two more rich white dudes get annihilated along the way. I’m sick of the sweet bb angels getting the murder end of the stick, even if they are a mess.
I will leave you with a very random question — Do y’all think the manager this season was gay? The hotel managers season one and two were both queer, and it felt like, I dunno, not a coincidence? I found it interesting that they left this dude’s sexual preferences open to interpretation. In real life, it’s nobodies business who is sleeping with who, and I think it’s trash that queer people have to ‘come out’ when straight people aren’t also expected to declare their heterosexuality to the world, but I digress—this is a scripted show. So…why the ambiguity? Thoughts?