You could never accuse The White Lotus of being subtle. Its satire is used as a blunt instrument. Then again, when the targets are as big as desire and spirituality, you really can’t fault Mike White for tackling them with such zeal. It’s no surprise that this fifth episode, structured as a kind of reveling rupture amid these guests’ otherwise quite peaceful hotel stay (give or take an armed robbery), was all about two opposing forces: abandon and restraint. So much so that a key conversation between two characters in Bangkok served as a kind of distillation of White’s interests in this third sojourn at a White Lotus hotel. But more on that later. First off: Let’s talk Chekhov’s gun—or Gaitok’s gun, rather.
As I suspected last week and as Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) confirmed this time around, it was Timothy (Jason Isaacs) who impulsively swiped the gun he left unattended at the hotel’s gate. Someone else—perhaps someone a bit more assertive and/or aggressive—would have confronted Tim and forced his hand into giving up what he’d taken. Someone else—perhaps someone who feared less for his job—would have maybe even gone to Fabian (Christian Friedel) and explained what happened. Alas, all Gaitok can bring himself to do is meekly (and obliquely) hint at knowing that Tim took something he cannot find (in the bathroom, no less) only to be summarily ignored.
For Tim continues to be needlessly obsessed with his slowly unraveling life. No sooner is he spaced out (and a bit high on his wife’s Lorazepam) during dinner than he’s confronted with Piper’s decision to move to Thailand after graduation to…what? Become a Buddhist? He can’t even register such a thing. Which he doesn’t, leaving Victoria (Parker Posey) to hilariously try and talk some sense on her child: “Honey, you’re not from China,” she drawls, capturing a wry mix of exasperation and condescension (with a bit of xenophobia thrown in for good measure). Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) is undeterred even if she wishes she’d have her younger brother there.
Only Lochlan (Sam Nivola) is too busy getting tips from his older brother Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) about how best to further ensnare the flirty Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), who’s all too eager to get with these brothers and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and enjoy a night away from balding, grumpy boyfriends. Theirs will be a night to remember, one to let go of inhibitions. This full-moon party will allow them to forget their troubles with some help from plenty of libations and happy-go-lucky pills. Yes, even Saxon, who insists he doesn’t do drugs (“I am the drugs,” he says) succumbs to peer pressure and ends up dazed if not outright confused by the twirling crowds around him.
Likewise, after a series of duds in their attempts at having fun, Laurie, Kate, and Jaclyn (Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb, and Michelle Monaghan) have struck gold now that they’ve enlisted Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius) and his two hunky friends (played byJulian Kostov and Yuri Kolokolnikov)—all of whom are excited to be drinking and dancing with three drunken and wild American women (with varying degrees of insecurities fueling their escapist night out).
So, yes, while Piper is explaining to her parents that she’d like to live in Thailand to better immerse herself in Buddhism and seek a clearer sense of what she wants out of her spirituality (and later on, meditates while her parents drunkenly go to bed), her siblings and our trio of friends embrace their unruly desires and craven wants with abandon.
And honestly? That makes for White’s most accomplished scene to date. The cutting back and forth between those nights out (Mook dancing at the hotel’s restaurant, the three Russian boys raging with the girls at a club and later still at Jaclyn’s villa, the Ratliff bros high AF walking through the streets) is just sublime, made all the more propulsive by the percussive score that jumps out from the screen. (Seriously, I cannot wait to put this on constant rotation in future gym playlists.)
Here is a portrait of desire run amok. By the time the Russian boys strip down in the pool (much to Kate’s chagrin, who, in her PJs no less, finds herself tut-tutting her friends’ drunken exploits), it’s clear we’re seeing what succumbing to one’s unchecked wants looks like.
Which all feels like preamble for the actual centerpiece of this episode: the conversation between Rick (Walton Goggins) and his old friend (played by none other than Sam Rockwell!). Their meeting kicks off oddly when Rick orders a drink and his friend orders…tea? Oh, apparently he’s sober now. It’s the kind of statement that initially feels flippant but which ends up becoming central to how this interaction will go. For no sooner is Rockwell’s character explaining how he got sober ten months before (understandable) that he begins to, in painstaking detail, paint a portrait of why. He was drinking a lot—that’s obvious. But he was also clearly looking for more and more. He was having sex constantly, first with only Thai women and later with “ladyboys” only for him to realize that what he wanted was to be fucked by them—to feel how girls might feel when he fucks them. Which led him to start hooking up with men as well and donning lingerie to better embody this fantasy—and sometimes even getting some girls to watch. He wanted to be within and outside himself, those moments of ecstasy keying him into something about himself he wanted to tease out. “Sex is a poetic act,” he explains to Rick. “Are we our forms?”
His is a philosophical inquiry arranged in hindsight. He’s seen the light and has spent the better part of the last year making sense of what it is he was seeking, what it is he was finding, and what it is he’s now content to have left behind. (“Being sober isn’t so bad,” he says. “Being celibate is.”) And, given how White frames the conversation (at times quite literally, with Goggins and Rockwell on opposite ends of the frame), it’s clear this may be the thesis of this season of The White Lotus: What are Lochlan and Saxon finding in Chloe and Chelsea and vice versa? What might Jaclyn be looking for in Valentin, who she invites back to her hotel after everyone else goes to sleep? What is Piper seeking in Thailand?
Desire is a fickle muse, and Rick being lectured by a friend about having let go of such earthly wants feels like a warning—one that comes complete with a gun in a bag that we hope Rick won’t need to use as he tries to avenge his father.
Speaking of guns, while pool shenanigans and drunken kissing games are happening (oh yea, did I forget to mention that Chloe and Chelsea get the Ratliff brothers to kiss!?), Tim is trying to find a way out of his current situation. He’s sat down and jotted down a note, it seems, and is ready to pull the trigger when…Victoria arrives. She’s worried about him. Won’t he come to bed? It’s enough to snap him back into reality. And back into prayer: “Please, God, tell me what to do,” he says to himself.
What will a new day bring? Shame? Guilt? Regret? Or maybe just many a hangover?
Stray observations
- • Meanwhile, for Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), it’s clear she won’t get any help in trying to keep Greg/Gary at bay. Fabian doesn’t really understand why she’s so skittish about a man who’s wanted for questions regarding his dead wife and who was clearly asking about Belinda around the hotel. Is she right to be worried? Should they really have called all the police?
- • Sometimes a subtle acting choice catches my eye (or Mike White’s, more likely, and he puts it front and center in the final cut of the episode), and this week I feel the need to point out how Bibb constantly talks with her hands whenever she’s addressing our Three Hunky Russian Stooges, as if she were talking to someone she worries isn’t fully understanding her.
- • Similarly, Monaghan constantly scanning the crowd at the club for people who are gawking at her (with envy? curiosity? jealousy? second-hand embarrassment?) shows us just how aware she is of other people’s opinions…and yet she still finds a way to put herself first, ignoring how much Laurie had taken a liking to Valentin.
- • Loved the girls unable to say “за любовь!” as they toasted and instead opted to say the closest they could muster: “Shia LeBeouf!”
- • Favorite costume this episode: Victoria’s peach jumpsuit or Kate’s comfy PJs?
- • “Charles Manson wrote books! Bill Clinton wrote books! Hillary Clinton wrote five books!”—Victoria, trying to argue that having written a book does not make anyone reputable.
- • Will Chelsea prove to be the Cassandra of the season? She’s been hinting at something bad happening since day one and she repeats it again this episode. Will she survive the season? Also, do we think it’s a red herring to hear Chloe say she thinks Gary is totally capable of murder?
- • I wanted to frame so many shots this episode but the one that really got me was watching Laurie’s discarded top floating in the water with naked bodies obscured and blurred in the background.
