The White Lotus Season 3

This Sunday, the final episode of The White Lotus Season 3 was released on Max. The White Lotus is an anthology dramedy show that takes place at an all-inclusive resort with this season taking place in Thailand. The show tells the story of three groups vacationing at the resort and shows their struggles and conflicts as the week carries on. I am new to this show. I just watched through all three seasons in the past month. It is a multi-time Emmy-winning show so I wanted to see how good it was.

Season 3 captured the same charm and novelty as the other two seasons. I like the novelty of having each season be at a different resort. The stories the show is trying to tell play well into that. Just like in the other two seasons, season 3 does a great job of taking a bunch of out-of-touch rich people and making their problems seem like they are worth getting invested in. The best of the plotlines this season was the one with Jason Issacs. Throughout the season, his character Timothy has to deal with the dread of knowing that his business is falling apart at home from legal troubles and having to cope with the fact that he and his family's lives are going to change forever once they get home. Aside from Timothy, all of the other characters' drama is very well written. I'm not much for reality shows or movies with a bunch of drama but when it is well written, like it is in this show, I can get invested. I also thought the final episode was very well done. You know something is going to go down based on the opening in the first episode but are unsure what. The final episode plays into that by paying off everyone's plot lines in such a way that you are unsure which ones are going to go sour. In the end, you get stories that end tragic, while others that end in a more uplifting wall. Regardless of the outcome, they are all at least somewhat satisfying to the stories that were originally set up.

I did think that this season was a bit of a step down from the other two seasons. I didn't find the characters or plots as compelling. They are all still interesting, I just liked the characters in the other seasons a bit more. I also thought that the plotline with the guard was a bit underdeveloped. We already had a staffer plotline in Belinda that was interesting, I'm not sure that the half-effort guard plot was needed too. Regardless, the show still did its job as I was invested in these stories until the end.

Overall, this is a great, just not as great, season of The White Lotus. The show manages to find the balance of characters that are awful while still holding on to that strand of likability along with those that are more genuine but just a little out of touch. I am looking forward to seeing what Season 4 will entail.

Score: 8/10 Grade: B+ Recommendation: Check it out.