Mike White’s The White Lotushas always been more than just prestige television. Beneath its glossy surfaces — the luxury suites, the spas, the slow zooms on well-dressed dysfunction — lies something mythic, almost fable-like. Season 3 deepens that tradition. Set against the backdrop of Southeast Asia, this chapter unravels themes of spiritual searching, family recursion, and the seductive pull of belief — all while interrogating power, privilege, and the Western gaze.
From mirrored family arcs to Buddhist metaphors, Rumi quotes to Ophelia tableaus, TikTok theories to Michelangelo references — this season is layered, referential, and deliberately slippery.
Each season of The White Lotus rests on a single narrative axis. If Season Two revolved around marital infidelity, Season Three is about mirroring — visual, emotional, and thematic.
We see a blonde trio of friends (Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon), where two consistently ally against the third. Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) pursue affairs with elusive men — both drifters and deceivers, vague about their work and identities. The Ratcliffe children’s fates, too, are entangled with those of their parents.
Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) mimics his father’s career with uncanny precision. Piper’s (Sarah Catherine Hook) rebellion — her desire to opt out of privilege — becomes a faint echo of her mother’s own arc, reframed with new language. The finale crystallizes this architecture of reflection: Rick Hatchett (Walton Goggins) kills his father (Scott Glenn), while Timothy Ratcliffe (Jason Isaacs) nearly kills his son (Sam Nivola). Two scenes, two generations — mirroring each other like inverted parables, biblical in tone and tragic in rhythm.
Running quietly but persistently through the season is a spiritual thread — the search for orientation, belief, or transcendence. Only Victoria Ratcliffe (Parker Posey) holds fast to her comfort-first ideology: “I just don’t think at this age I’m meant to live an uncomfortable life.” (An icon, honestly.)
But the rest are pulled — gently or violently — toward something beyond themselves.
Piper, once set on staying in Thailand for a year, breaks down after one night in a monastery: no A/C, bland food, a hard bed — too much. Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), the gentle security guard devoted to ahimsa (non-violence), is forced into a moral crisis. Stay true to his values, or bend to love and ambition? In the end, he chooses the latter — and shoots an unarmed Rick.
Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), once Tanya’s victim, now wields the same tools. Offered hush money, she declines Pornchai’s (Dom Hetrakul) offer to open a business — softly, politely — just as Tanya once declined her.
Laurie, one of the trio of blonde friends, undergoes a significant realization. In a heartfelt monologue, she confesses to her friends Jaclyn and Kate that she has no belief system: "I have no belief system… work was my religion, then love then being a mother. But I don’t need religion or God to give my life meaning. Time gives it meaning... we go through it together." This acknowledgment underscores her understanding that meaning is derived from shared experiences and the passage of time, rather than external spiritual or religious constructs.
Elsewhere, characters shift away from pleasure and success and toward meaning.
Saxon, the hedonist, begins to unravel — not through confrontation but implication. A troubling intimacy with his brother stains everything, even if unnamed. When Chelsea gifts him a book on self-knowledge — with unnerving tenderness — it unsettles him more than any confrontation could.
Lochlan flatlines and sees God. In his vision: drowning, four monks still above water, watching. TikTok reads it as a Buddhist allegory: the family that once defined his identity dissolves into faceless monks.
Timothy, in financial and existential freefall, visits a monk at his wife’s urging — ostensibly to check whether Piper has joined a cult. Instead, he ends up asking what happens after death, and hears something that marks him: “Each of us is a drop returning to the ocean.”
It stays with him. Later, he refers to the monk as “the real deal.” This drop/ocean motif flows into the finale’s imagery — the last shot of Chelsea and Rick’s bodies floating on a still pond.
There’s a scene where Saxon speaks to Chelsea and they get into a discussion surrounding love and hook-ups, the meaning behind the casual fling, whether it holds any value at all, and the differences between their mindsets. During this scene, Chelsea has in her hand a book of Rumi — Persian poetry — implying her romantic and philosophical belief and nature around monogamy, pure and strong love for one, and as the kids call it these days: yearning. Rumi’s poetry is a reflection of such themes since it is not about surface-level love. Rumi speaks of love in ways that transcend one’s soul. Her intellectualising as well as believing in this notion conflicts with her actual relationship with Rick, as Rick is not monogamous with her, does not yearn for her, or express his love for her in the same way she does. Ah, it’s the naivety of glamorising and romanticising your partner, and it’s like almost the books and knowledge you read and surround yourself with help you build the fantasy even further — because that’s what you long for so much, that you believe you are in that true love, but really, you’re not. Chelsea died after telling Rick, “Why chase the love you didn’t get when you can go after the love that is right in front of you?” Rick didn’t listen, and their fates were met.
However, this can reflect a lot about who we are and the issues surrounding individuals who don’t think beyond their capacity. Rick wanted to go speak to the wellness person since she was who he thought could save him, instead of Chelsea. He didn’t see Chelsea as a person to get intellectually involved with or to discuss his dilemmas with. He just never thought she would “get it” — even though she was very well-read and managed to convince Saxon to change his ideas and beliefs surrounding love. It also goes back to the idea of rich white people thinking eastern cultures and people can somehow release them from their struggles or give meaning to their lives (for example with what happened to Tania and Piper), when in reality if they want to discover that, they need to look into themselves and honestly just speak to their own family or lovers honestly and openly.
Tin and Yang,
Wikipedia
Ophelia, John Everette Millais
Wikipedia
White Lotusis a semiotic feast. TikTok has long been dissecting The White Lotus— from handbags and earrings to bed linen and vase arrangements. But in Season 3, what stands out isn’t just the symbolic entanglement of East and West, but how the very same scene can carry entirely different meanings depending on the cultural lens. The Western gaze sees tragedy, suffering, and sacrifice — while the Eastern perspective offers dissolution, cyclical return, and a merging back into wholeness.
After the shooting, Rick and Chelsea’s bodies float in a decorative pond: he, face up; she, face down, among lilies. The scene evokes both the yin-yang symbol (masculine and feminine, light and shadow — or as Chelsea once said to Saxon, “I’m hope. Rick is pain”) and art history — most directly, Millais’ Ophelia. Even Rick’s white shirt resembles Ophelia’s gown drifting among the flowers. Through an Eastern lens, the image can be read as the harmonious fusion of opposites, a return to balance. Through a Western one — a tragic finale.
The scene where Timothy cradles Lachlan’s lifeless body visually echoes Michelangelo’s Pietà: the composition mimics the Virgin Mary mourning Christ. It’s filled with sorrow and silent acceptance. At the same time, we see Lachlan in his vision — sinking into dark water, as if he too is returning to the ocean, just as the monk explained.
Pietà, Michelangelo’s
Wikipedia
The finale saw a final development of lots of feelings, emotions, and understandings that were built up throughout the season. We don’t need to see the family’s reaction to the news regarding Timothy losing all the wealth of their family, since we already know — by knowing these people — how they would react. Furthermore, Jason Isaacs’ performance was impeccable. There were moments that I, as someone who is not even close to such wealth, felt tears in my eyes watching him struggle with the future of his family, and to make an audience feel that is powerful, especially when the ethics are not so great surrounding his character or actions in the past.
Every single character goes through such a change, but most importantly, Mike White loves for the privileged to lose due to their ignorance, naivety, and narcissistic qualities — and losers to win due to their bravery, sacrifices, cunningness, and luck.
The scene of the formidable Tayme Thapthimthong playing Gaitok, the security officer, finally securing his promotion by performing a violent act of killing — which he thought he was incapable of, mostly persuaded by love — goes back to Rumi, the philosophy of yearning, the way love can push you to do things against your values, against your beliefs and your religion or culture. You do things out of love that are sometimes stupid, crazy, and naive — and it all goes back to our dear Tonia.
The only one who did something not out of love but for herself was the incredible performance by Natasha Rothwell playing Belinda. Returning back to us in another season, she decides to take the money and not get distracted by a new partner and go build her new life. She picks herself and her family and what she — and the entire audience also — thinks she deserves.
Although love can lead to maybe some wrong decisions that might end up killing you in The White Lotusworld, Gaitok’s future seems happy. Yes, he did something that goes against his values and philosophy, but really maybe his values have changed. Maybe he didn’t know he was capable, strong, brave enough to do so — and it feels as though if he didn’t make that decision, he would be unhappy for the rest of his life, trying to convince himself that “he did the right thing.” But sometimes in life, you might have to do the wrong thing — something that’s not entirely unethical — to gain the happiness you deserve, to get out of the holes, poverty, to get out of the constant cycle of dependence on others. And unfortunately, in a society built on rewarding the wrong behaviour, exploitation and overconsumption, capitalistic traits and qualities, you might not have another choice, unless you accept the place you are in.
And you can see some of the richest people in the show are some of the most unethical. Does this go to show that even people like Gaitok or Belinda can also make more unethical decisions to gain more power or wealth? Yes and no. There’s a difference — and that difference is race and/or cultural background. Gaitok and Belinda both were struggling with the ethics around their choices to gain more in their life. Their struggle and empathetic qualities translate, since you can see that Gaitok didn’t snitch on the real thieves at the end of the episode — showcasing he does have a moral line. Belinda also has a moral line. However, white characters such as Greg and Jim do not have such a line — and you can tell by their demeanour, the way they treat others, and the way they like to be treated.
It’s an interesting contrast — one that you can see Timothy struggle with. He nearly kills his whole family rather than let them live poor, and I’m sure Belinda or Gaitok would not make such a decision. They see their worth, power, and the reason people like them or love them as being associated with their wealth and only their wealth — hence, without it, they are nothing. However, when one has values, philosophy, and culture, even without power or wealth, they have people who care for them, love them, and they see it, nourish it, and reciprocate it. They try to find happiness even when they don’t have much.
Something Rick was unable to do, even when it was right in front of him.
Mike White is a philosopher’s dream of a TV show — the way he puts in such significant discussions surrounding love, culture, class, power, and privilege is so important for allowing us to criticise the nature of human beings, the society we find ourselves in and the struggles we deal with on the daily.
© perediza 2025