Speaker 1: I want to go out on a limb here and
Speaker 1: may regret this, but I don't think Fabian can be
Speaker 1: either the killer or the victim. So this is the fusspot.
Speaker 1: Resort manager is so annoying. Speaking as a German, you
Speaker 1: can say that I could never say that The White
Speaker 1: Lotus is where television is at right now. Show creator
Speaker 1: Mike White captured international attention in twenty twenty one with
Speaker 1: season one of The White Lotus, a production which arose
Speaker 1: out of coronavirus lockdown and the need to shoot something
Speaker 1: in a contained location. White set the story at the
Speaker 1: four Seasons resort on Maui in Hawaii, and he locked
Speaker 1: in a group of actors to depict the mostly saintly
Speaker 1: staff and disgustingly privileged guests of a five star resort,
Speaker 1: The White Lotus, during an emotion packed week that begins
Speaker 1: and ends with a corpse. That delicious idea has now
Speaker 1: become a form Mila for success, and each new season
Speaker 1: of The White Lotus takes the same premise, a resort
Speaker 1: where clashes of wealth, power, ambition, sex, and excess play out.
Speaker 1: Season two was set in Sicily. Season three, now about
Speaker 1: to reach its climax, is set on the Thai island
Speaker 1: of Ko Samui. If you've been watching The White Lotus
Speaker 1: and you're desperate to find out whose body was seen
Speaker 1: floating in the ornamental pond in episode one, look no further.
Speaker 1: We're about to dig into each character to determine who's
Speaker 1: dead and who done it. I'm joined by The Front's
Speaker 1: producer Christen Amiot and editor Jasper Leik. Guys, we've got
Speaker 1: to start by talking about Zion. He's the only character
Speaker 1: we can categorically rule out as being the victim of
Speaker 1: the murder in this season three. He's the son of Belinda,
Speaker 1: and we can rule him out because in the opening
Speaker 1: scenes of episode one, we saw him beginning a meditation, says,
Speaker 1: let the sounds of the external world fed away.
Speaker 2: That was interrupted by a distant gunfire. Ma'am man, that's
Speaker 2: a gun and then the appearance of that floating corpse. Fuck.
Speaker 1: Zion's immediate fear is that his mum, Belinda, is the victim. Now,
Speaker 1: Belinda was the SPA manager from White Lotus Maui. She's
Speaker 1: here in Thailand, honest, konman, and that's how she got
Speaker 1: to know the very buff and very charming Paunchai Zion
Speaker 1: appears to see the corpse floating past him in episode one,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't react with the horror you might expect
Speaker 1: if it was his mother. But having said that, Belinda
Speaker 1: is really the only character who in this season has
Speaker 1: been expressing fears for her own safety, isn't she?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is something to be said for the fact
Speaker 3: that Belinda almost felt too obvious.
Speaker 2: Would Mike White.
Speaker 3: Really make it the person who in the opening scenes
Speaker 3: we thought it would be, and then to build it
Speaker 3: up with a different threat, which appears to be from Gary,
Speaker 3: who is also a returning character and in fact the
Speaker 3: only character to have appeared in all three seasons.
Speaker 2: But then is it Okham's razor? Did we know the
Speaker 2: answer from the get go? Okay?
Speaker 1: So Gary, he's the mysterious rich guy who Belinda is
Speaker 1: worried about. She recognizes him by another name as Greg.
Speaker 1: That was the character he played in seasons one and
Speaker 1: two when he was the husband of Tanya mccaud, the
Speaker 1: flamboyant heiress played so brilliantly by Jennifer Coolidge, and she
Speaker 1: died at the end of season two.
Speaker 4: I know it sounds crazy, but my husband he brought
Speaker 4: me to Sicily and then he left so he could
Speaker 4: have an alibi. Then they take me after Palermo, and
Speaker 4: then they set me up with this guy who's in
Speaker 4: the mafia, and he's coming here, I think, to try
Speaker 4: to throw me.
Speaker 2: Off the boat. Please Liz Geese.
Speaker 4: They're trying to murder me.
Speaker 1: So Belinda has worked out that Gary is in fact
Speaker 1: Greg and is wanted by authorities in Italy for questioning
Speaker 1: over the death of his wife. But we know, don't
Speaker 1: we as viewers, and this is something Belinda doesn't know
Speaker 1: that although Greg was plodding to murder Tenure at the
Speaker 1: end of season two, ultimately she died by accident.
Speaker 3: Yes, it did ultimately come down to happenstance and a
Speaker 3: bit of slippering footing on Jennifer Coulig's part.
Speaker 5: I think if Gary isn't the shooter, he's almost the
Speaker 5: greatest red Herring ever. From the very beginning, we're all
Speaker 5: kind of picking him to be the guy waving the
Speaker 5: gun around at the end of the season. So in
Speaker 5: episode six, we're not quite sure how Gary's found out,
Speaker 5: but he has come to the understanding that his partner Chloe,
Speaker 5: has slept with at least one of the brothers.
Speaker 1: So, Chloe is a French Canadian former model and she
Speaker 1: was feeling neglected and bored. She described Gary as an
Speaker 1: old geezer. She said that he didn't want to have
Speaker 1: sex with her anymore, and that's kind of what drove
Speaker 1: her into the arms of this sweet, innocent teenager Lachlan
Speaker 1: who's in Thailand on holiday with his family. But the
Speaker 1: twist in episode six is that while it looked like
Speaker 1: she was going to have sex with Lachlan, she seems
Speaker 1: to have hooked up with both the brothers, doesn't she.
Speaker 5: That's right, and the brothers seem to have hooked up
Speaker 5: with each other as well. Episode six is the moment
Speaker 5: in the series as well where we finally see this
Speaker 5: sort of happy, go lucky, care free dynamic between Chloe
Speaker 5: and Chelsea and Lachlan and Saxon that comes to a
Speaker 5: crashing end.
Speaker 1: The dynamic between those two brothers, the Ratliffe brothers, Lachlan
Speaker 1: and Saxon. There's been a hint from the very beginning
Speaker 1: that there was something sexual about Saxon's interest in his
Speaker 1: younger brother.
Speaker 4: Yeah cool, I'm Saxon, by the way. Yeah, that's my
Speaker 4: little brother, Lachlan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, guys just eighteen in November, so.
Speaker 3: Just saying he is legal.
Speaker 1: The ben moments of kind of overt nudity. He's been
Speaker 1: talking about sex a lot. He's expressed a quite weird
Speaker 1: interest in their sisters sexual history, So I wondered if
Speaker 1: that was going to go anywhere, And in episode six
Speaker 1: it really did go somewhere. Didn't it an accidental sort
Speaker 1: of sexual encounter between the brothers.
Speaker 3: I wondered if all of that build up with Saxon
Speaker 3: and Lachlan, and Saxon's apparent interest in his brother was
Speaker 3: not so much an interest in actually that coming to fruition,
Speaker 3: but of just his brother's reactions. If that was enough
Speaker 3: to make an egomaniac like him feel as though he'd
Speaker 3: achieved something, and then when it does actually happen, he
Speaker 3: is in no way prepared for it, And now that
Speaker 3: it is real, you have to wonder is that enough
Speaker 3: of a motive for him to go to a dinner
Speaker 3: or to do something immensely destructive in this already quite
Speaker 3: fragile family unit.
Speaker 5: What you just hit on, I think is a real
Speaker 5: theme in this show, where you have all these characters
Speaker 5: that are driven by certain impulses that when those impulses
Speaker 5: actually collide with the real world, they're absolutely not prepared
Speaker 5: for the consequences. After the full Moon Party, Chloe has
Speaker 5: been very flippant up until that point about her relationship
Speaker 5: with Greg, but when the rubber meets the road and
Speaker 5: she's cheated on him on the boat that he pays for,
Speaker 5: she actually, for the first time in the series, becomes
Speaker 5: defensive about her relationship with Greg to Chelsea, saying, I know,
Speaker 5: on paper this might not make much sense, but to
Speaker 5: be honest, I've got a pretty sweet deal here.
Speaker 2: She does allude to Gary's let's see though shook the
Speaker 2: four of us just.
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 2: Or why would he kill you?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Well, Gary might kill me.
Speaker 2: I honestly think he's capable of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about young Lachlan. I mean, he is
Speaker 1: so sweet and innocent. He is really more like a
Speaker 1: thirteen year old or a twelve year old than the
Speaker 1: eighteen year old who he is supposed to be. He's
Speaker 1: you can tell going to be handsome, but he's not
Speaker 1: really there yet because he's like a poached egg. He's
Speaker 1: so sort of unformed, and he's this season's kind of
Speaker 1: version of the innocent Abroad like he's yet to be
Speaker 1: corrupted like all the other revolting rich people around him.
Speaker 2: Could Lachlan be the victim?
Speaker 3: I wonder if when it comes down to it, Lachlan
Speaker 3: has enough wilds or enough innocence maybe to make himself scarce.
Speaker 3: I wonder if when his parents inevitably have this blow
Speaker 3: up that is coming over their financial situation, that he
Speaker 3: is at the pool or something else.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Saxon.
Speaker 4: As I've just had a massage. You're setting me back?
Speaker 2: How can you be so viper?
Speaker 4: I thought you had one.
Speaker 1: Too, Yeah, but it kind of suck.
Speaker 3: Why what was wrong with it?
Speaker 2: And no happy end?
Speaker 4: Ah? What aren't they all supposed to be a little
Speaker 4: specially speci.
Speaker 1: He is the greatest douche ever played by Patrick Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 1: I think, absolutely brilliantly and I've kind of come to
Speaker 1: love Saxon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's been fantastic, and I think the arc that
Speaker 3: Mike White has given him has been quite sophisticated.
Speaker 2: Under that surface.
Speaker 3: Level debauchery that he seems to be at the center
Speaker 3: of all over the place.
Speaker 1: You kind of have been wondering too, if he's all taught,
Speaker 1: you know, he talks a lot about sex, but we'd
Speaker 1: never seen him having any until now.
Speaker 3: Yes, he seems more concerned with getting a blender into
Speaker 3: the villa so that he can have his protein chacks
Speaker 3: than it does to actually put in the time and
Speaker 3: effort of a god for a bit of conversation with
Speaker 3: one of these women that he's ogling the entire time
Speaker 3: he's on screen. So I think he's a really interesting
Speaker 3: manifestation of where the world is at the moment, especially
Speaker 3: being a character from a southern state. I can imagine
Speaker 3: him listening to Joe Rogan. There's all of these influences
Speaker 3: that seem to be comprised in Saxon in this lovably
Speaker 3: infuriating way.
Speaker 5: I love this idea too, that you can take somebody
Speaker 5: like a Saxon, and you can take somebody like a Jacqueline,
Speaker 5: and all you have to do is put them on
Speaker 5: a plane, fly them to another country, take their electronic
Speaker 5: devices away, and you seem to completely knock the screws
Speaker 5: loose on the way that they behave in the world.
Speaker 3: I think that harks back to another really interesting part
Speaker 3: of Mike White's career. Mike White actually came runner up
Speaker 3: on a series of Survivor called David and Goliath.
Speaker 2: For me, I'm a survivor obsessive fanatic. Everybody in my
Speaker 2: business wants the Oscar. It's like, you know, losers like
Speaker 2: I want to win Survivor.
Speaker 3: Wow, And what is survivor? You take a bunch of strangers,
Speaker 3: particularly in a David and Goliath setting. Some people, I
Speaker 3: imagine are quite physically capable, others are more psychologically.
Speaker 5: Observantwn cur season.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and you drop them onto an island in the
Speaker 3: middle of nowhere with no devices, and you tell them
Speaker 3: to survive. And with the greatest of respect to Mike White,
Speaker 3: I don't think he was there as a goliath. He
Speaker 3: was there as an observer of people, and he almost
Speaker 3: won it for that reason. So I think when you
Speaker 3: take that mindset and you apply it to what he
Speaker 3: does creatively with the White Lotus, and particularly in this season,
Speaker 3: where we are depriving people of their technology and of
Speaker 3: their connection to the world that they've left at home,
Speaker 3: it casts a really different light over the way that
Speaker 3: these people are unraveling so quickly. We're not even through
Speaker 3: the week yet in the scheme of this season.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that, Yeah, that's amazing it.
Speaker 2: Came on up.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about where Saxon and Lachlan come from. Mum
Speaker 1: and Dad Ratliffe are Victoria and Tim. She's a hyper
Speaker 1: anxious Southern bell played by Parker Posey.
Speaker 2: Why would you encourage her to move to a monastery?
Speaker 4: What's next? You want to shave her head and start
Speaker 4: being a bongo in Times Square.
Speaker 1: Her main concern in life seems to be the location
Speaker 1: of her larazepam, a little orange bottle of tranquilizers that
Speaker 1: have disappeared from her handbag. Only will the audience know
Speaker 1: that they've actually been stolen by her husband, Tim.
Speaker 4: Maybe they just focus on the money and you just
Speaker 4: serve a few months, oh just a few months in prison,
Speaker 4: you fucking retord Federal present. Most of them are too bad.
Speaker 4: I know if you do come out, fine, I can
Speaker 4: put you in touch.
Speaker 2: With the road or die. Understand me, I would rather
Speaker 2: fucking die.
Speaker 1: Every time he manages to get his mobile phone back
Speaker 1: from the very controlling sort of wellness you know, Camp
Speaker 1: Commandant Pam, he finds out more about the fact that
Speaker 1: his life is unraveling back at home, a corporate nightmare.
Speaker 1: So Tim is suicidal at the prospect of losing his
Speaker 1: status as a pillar of society, and he's stolen a gun.
Speaker 5: That's such an incredibly written moment when we see Tim
Speaker 5: steel Gaytok's gun, but the clock is winding down for
Speaker 5: Gaytok to find that gun, and as we see in
Speaker 5: episode six, he does reclaim that gun, which is perfect
Speaker 5: timing for Gaytok because he is then able to show
Speaker 5: up to target practice with his superior later that afternoon.
Speaker 5: But it also plays into Tim's hand quite well, or
Speaker 5: his wife's hand probably even better, because by the end
Speaker 5: of that episode we see that his ideas of suicide
Speaker 5: have escalated not just from his own suicide but to
Speaker 5: murder suicide for him and his wife.
Speaker 1: She depicts herself or frames herself, as someone who couldn't
Speaker 1: possibly live without handbags and money and the status that
Speaker 1: they have, because she, out of all of them, is
Speaker 1: the most miserable. She's addicted to tranquilizers, she's complaining about everything.
Speaker 1: You know, she doesn't seem to actually be enjoying her wealth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she doesn't appear to be enjoying it. And you
Speaker 3: have to wonder if this flip from Tim to suddenly
Speaker 3: understanding not only his own position and predicament, But to
Speaker 3: understanding his daughter's motivation for wanting distance from the life
Speaker 3: at home. If that is motivation enough, knowing that there
Speaker 3: is a weapon out there to go and get it back.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about Gayetok. He's the sweet natured security guard.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to be in charge of that weapon.
Speaker 1: He was distracted by his infatuation with the beautiful young
Speaker 1: resort worker Mook, and the gun was a new addition
Speaker 1: to the resort. It was acquired by the security team
Speaker 1: after robbers invaded the hotel and ransacked the gift shop,
Speaker 1: apparently with the assistance of Russian wellness coach Valentine, who
Speaker 1: we see distracting Gaytok at the boongate when the robbers
Speaker 1: are driving into the resort. So Gaytalk for me, is
Speaker 1: a suspect because he's just so.
Speaker 2: Sweet, you know.
Speaker 1: I can imagine him not turning evil or being secretly evil,
Speaker 1: but killing.
Speaker 2: Someone in an active kind of righteous vengeance.
Speaker 5: I see him on a sort of hero trajectory. I
Speaker 5: think he could be the cape wearing guy who saves
Speaker 5: the day, or at least maybe he saves Milk's life.
Speaker 5: But as we saw at the end, of episode six,
Speaker 5: it was Gayetok who did finally go to the range
Speaker 5: and seem to have a pretty steady hand, which makes
Speaker 5: you think that maybe he's a little more experienced than
Speaker 5: he lets on.
Speaker 3: I think I'm somewhere in the middle with Gaytok in
Speaker 3: that to me, he is a guy who appears lovely
Speaker 3: on the surface, and then it kind of occurred to
Speaker 3: me that this is a guy who cannot handle rejection.
Speaker 3: And again, just thinking about it from Mike White's perspective,
Speaker 3: He's probably watching what is going on in the world
Speaker 3: today and in the manisphere online, and there is just
Speaker 3: some element of that that jumps out at me that
Speaker 3: he could be alluding to there being something a little
Speaker 3: bit more sinister going on under the surface there with Guytok.
Speaker 1: Well, Mook never agrees to go on a date with him,
Speaker 1: and I've found it really intriguing. She's played, incidentally by
Speaker 1: li Lisa Mannibal, who is probably the most famous person
Speaker 1: in this entire show. She's a member of the K
Speaker 1: pop supergroup Black Pink and as a rapper of massive
Speaker 1: renown in Asia in her own right. So her character
Speaker 1: Mook really keeps going talk dangling. She never says yes,
Speaker 1: she never says no. She does go looking for his
Speaker 1: attention all the time. She invites him to come and
Speaker 1: watch her dance. She's interested in some way. I feel
Speaker 1: like Muka has hidden depths. Is she potentially in league
Speaker 1: with Valentine and the dodgy Russians It's possible.
Speaker 3: Or is she a woman who knows she can't say
Speaker 3: no to this man if he is a guy with
Speaker 3: a steady end.
Speaker 2: I think you're being very unfair to I like.
Speaker 5: The hero trajectory, but you've definitely got me questioning my
Speaker 5: thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: We'll just replay the tape.
Speaker 2: Coming up. Is this a murder or a blood bath?
Speaker 1: And who's the prime suspect? That's after the break. I'm
Speaker 1: dying to talk about Valentine. We knew he was going
Speaker 1: to have sex with one of the Golden Girls. Eventually
Speaker 1: it ends up being Jacqueline, even though he seemed to
Speaker 1: have a more genuine connection with Laurie and his mates
Speaker 1: from back home in flate of oostalk. I'm seriously sketchy,
Speaker 1: aren't they?
Speaker 5: I love them?
Speaker 4: Hey, how are you doing? My friends Alexey and ladd.
Speaker 1: Hi, who also have some wildly jealous Russian girlfriends in Toe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a really interesting moment with Jacqueline and
Speaker 3: the angry Russian girlfriends at the nightclub where she was
Speaker 3: dancing very close to all the guys in this group
Speaker 3: while kind of having this unbroken eye contact with the girlfriends,
Speaker 3: knowing that they would be hating this, but yet nobody's intervening,
Speaker 3: nobody's doing anything to stop it.
Speaker 2: Jacqueline's a monster.
Speaker 1: I mean, she is as narcissistic as Saxon and is
Speaker 1: kind of driven by sex, but it seems that she
Speaker 1: does actually want the sex that comes from her outrageous behavior.
Speaker 1: And what happens in Thailand case and Thailand, Oh what
Speaker 1: does that mean?
Speaker 2: It means what?
Speaker 1: Not dead? Yet?
Speaker 4: All right? We would still be young and hot and fun, okay.
Speaker 5: Valentine is such a great character. I love the way
Speaker 5: that the writers of the show use him as a
Speaker 5: tool to expose Jacqueline as this total monster and as
Speaker 5: this sort of chaos agent in the Golden Girls group.
Speaker 5: She's the one who is sort of encouraging Laurie to
Speaker 5: pursue Valentine. She's the one that seems to be trying
Speaker 5: to make that romance happen. But then when push comes
Speaker 5: to shove as soon as she has a moment. She's
Speaker 5: the one who's seducing him and bringing him into her bed,
Speaker 5: despite the fact that she's obviously in a relationship with
Speaker 5: an actor back in America. I think she uses him
Speaker 5: as a tool to get one over on her friends,
Speaker 5: to sort of cement her position in the hierarchy within
Speaker 5: that friend's group.
Speaker 1: Okay, Sri Taala is the resort owner and a former
Speaker 1: tie diva. She's like the ty Jacqueline you know, plus
Speaker 1: thirty years married to an enigmatic American Jim Hollings who's
Speaker 1: played by Scott Glenn.
Speaker 2: He is kept sort of secret right until.
Speaker 1: The end, isn't he But he's the one who Rick
Speaker 1: believes to have murdered his father.
Speaker 5: So my theory on this is there's three parts to destruction.
Speaker 5: Rick has had the motive to murder from very early
Speaker 5: on in the series, when it is established that he
Speaker 5: at least believes that this man in Bangkok is the
Speaker 5: killer of his father. At the end of episode six,
Speaker 5: Rick is on Jim's doorstep. He's armed. It doesn't look
Speaker 5: good for Jim at that point. I'd say Rick's probably
Speaker 5: my favorite character in this series and I love his
Speaker 5: completely lopsided relationship with Chelsea. She's understanding and she's nurturing,
Speaker 5: and she's caring in a way that he seems so
Speaker 5: undeserving of. Like their romance is such a mystery to
Speaker 5: the viewer, which may her devotion to him confusing, but
Speaker 5: somehow even more romantic.
Speaker 2: You guys go out and don't do anything. My buddy
Speaker 2: is sober, so fucking annoying.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it must be so annoying me caring about you.
Speaker 2: How do you stand it?
Speaker 4: Please come back.
Speaker 5: I mean, she's always very affectionate towards him, but I
Speaker 5: think she sensors that something really bad is afoot and
Speaker 5: she is essentially trying to rescue him from himself on
Speaker 5: his path to destruction. In this series, then, I think
Speaker 5: we have this path to destruction, which is the Ratliffe family.
Speaker 5: You've got Tim and by the end of episode six
Speaker 5: it's established that he's had thoughts of motor suicide. The
Speaker 5: third part to destruction is the dinner party at Gregg's house. Interestingly,
Speaker 5: we have the Ratlifts going to that party. So you
Speaker 5: have these three violent paths that are all running on
Speaker 5: parallel track, with the possibility that tracks two and three
Speaker 5: will actually come together in episode one where we get
Speaker 5: that foreshadowing of what is to come. I remember a
Speaker 5: lot of gunshots. I was always under the assumption that
Speaker 5: this isn't just going to be one murder. My sense
Speaker 5: is that we're in for a blood bath.
Speaker 1: Can't wait, guys, I think we need a watch party
Speaker 1: for the final episode.
Speaker 5: Great idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we might see if the boat's available.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on the front.
Speaker 1: Our team is Jasper League, Kristin amiot leat Zamaglue, Tiffany Dimac,
Speaker 1: Joshua Burton, Stephanie Coombs and me Claire Harvey. And we've
Speaker 1: got Arts and Entertainment Journalism twenty four to seven at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot Com dot a U Slash Review