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- [00:01]
Glen Weldon
99% of the US population lives within listening range of at least one public media station, and everyone can listen to NPR podcasts free of charge. That means you get completely unpaywalled access to stories, prize winning reporting, and shows that represent the voices in every corner of the country. Hear the bigger picture every day on npr. The latest season of the White Lotus just wrapped up, but not before serving up a tropical buffet of sex, betrayal, violence, revenge, privilege, incest, drugs, death. And this, at least, was new spirituality.
- [00:42]
Ayesha Harris
Yes, and in keeping with White Lotus tradition, we finally found out whose dead body was floating in the pond way back in the season premiere. I'm Ayesha Harris.
- [00:53]
Glen Weldon
And I'm Glen Weldon. It's just the two of us today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, and we've got so much to talk about. So the White Lotus is the creation of Mike White. Y'all know this. And each season has featured egregiously privileged white folk coming into contact with cultures not their own. That contact always starts out indirect because the white folk in question are staying at luxury hotels. So there's a buffer. But before the season is over, the walls of privilege inevitably crumble. This season was no different. It was set in Thailand. And look, we want to concentrate on the finale, of course, but there's so much to talk about. I think the best way to handle this season, Aisha, and all the revelations of the final, is to tackle each storyline one by one. You up for that?
- [01:34]
Ayesha Harris
Yeah. Yep.
- [01:35]
Glen Weldon
Let's do this.
- [01:35]
Ayesha Harris
Let's do it.
- [01:36]
Glen Weldon
So we've got to start with Rick and Chelsea, played by Walton Goggins and Amylou Wood. I think we're gonna be together forever, don't you?
- [01:46]
Ayesha Harris
That's the plan.
- [01:47]
Glen Weldon
Oof. Oof. I say oof. It turns out, of course, that they're the ones who end up in the pond. At the beginning of the season, Rick came to Thailand to find the man who killed his father. In the finale, Rick kills that man, but that man actually turned out to be his father. It's giving l. This leads to a gun battle in the crossfire. Chelsea is killed. And as Rick is walking away with her body, he is shot and killed by the hotel security guard, Guytok. We'll talk more about Guytok in a bit. Aisha, what did you make of how this long Rick Chelsea storyline concluded?
- [02:22]
Ayesha Harris
Yeah, I mean, look, this entire series and this season especially, there's a lot of signposting that's always happening right from the very first episode. It wasn't necessarily that. I Thought that the. The twist was gonna be that this guy could be his father in the first episode or the first time he actually talks about why he's there. Cause I don't think we learn until maybe a little bit later into the series. But I did kind of figure it out by the penultimate episode, when Rick goes and he's posing as the movie producer, and he has that confrontation with him. And I was like, this guy's gonna be his actual father. I know it.
- [02:58]
Glen Weldon
Yeah, of course.
- [03:00]
Ayesha Harris
I was like, oh, this is. And when that reveal finally happened, I threw my hands up in the air. I was just like, what are we doing here? Why is this show so obvious? And the Chelsea moment as well, which you just heard, where she's like, we're gonna be together forever. I was like, oh, she's gonna die. Or he's gonna die. Someone's gonna die. Exactly, Glenn. I don't know. It felt clunky, but, you know, how did that play for you? Were you into this storyline at all?
- [03:24]
Glen Weldon
Not the you killed my father storyline at all, but into the Rick Chelsea relationship a little bit. Although I will say the biggest critique about this season I'm seeing online is how sluggish and bloated it felt, which makes sense because the show keeps getting longer. Season one was six episodes. Season two was seven. This season was eight. And if you had that critique going into this season, going into this finale certainly fed into that, because it's a lot of buildup, a lot of fake outs, and then the last 15 minutes, everything happens. You say signpost, I say setup. Early in the season, Chelsea says, bad things happen in threes. And first she has a brush with violence during the robbery, Then she gets bitten by a snake, and then she dies because he can't keep his revenge in his pants. Right, Right. And I think one of the funniest jokes and one of the most kind of emblematic jokes in the season is Chelsea sang at one point that her relationship with Rick is a yin yang one. It's like we're in this yin and yang battle, and I'm hope and Rick is pain, and eventually one of us will win. Right there. See, that was the moment I knew she was doomed, because that is a very smart way of illustrating how our culture co ops other cultures by turning something. The concept of balance itself into a zero sum game. And I just didn't get this relationship for most of the season for reasons like that, because they don't make sense together.
- [04:42]
Ayesha Harris
Right.
- [04:42]
Glen Weldon
Mike White needs to show us Rick as someone who is distracted and consumed by revenge. But he also has to show us a Chelsea who is, in every other part of her life, a deeply emotionally intelligent person. She can read people. And I kept wondering why she didn't see how poorly he was treating her, how he never made eye contact with her, how he dismissed her. And then I remember all the people I know in my life who give great relationship advice but are in lousy relationships themselves. And it's like, okay, and that moment we just had in the finale, she says, we'll be together forever. And then he says, that's a plan. Giving her nothing, giving her less than a crumb. And what you couldn't see in that clip was her reaction, which is like, he just made the biggest, grandest romantic gesture in the world. That's when she goes from being just doomed to a tragic figure.
- [05:29]
Ayesha Harris
Look, I do find it a little hard to understand that relationship, but I also have seen those types of relationships play out. Usually there's a money component to it, oftentimes.
- [05:40]
Glen Weldon
And there's a money component here.
- [05:41]
Ayesha Harris
Sure, there is, too, but they really kind of downplay it. And she is, you know, unlike some of the other women on this show who are clearly in relationships because of money, Mike White goes out of his way to make sure that, like, we understand that Chelsea sees something in him. When it comes down to it, I think most of us don't actually care who dies at the end of it. Like, it's the journey. But then the journey for me was not that enlightening here. And as much as I love Walton Goggins and Amy Luwood in these roles, it just felt sort of perfunctory to me. But whatever, I get that.
- [06:15]
Glen Weldon
So Gytok is the guy who actually killed Rick. Gytok and Mook are another couple. They work at the hotel. They are played by Tame Tap, Tim Tong and Lisa, whom listeners might recognize from the K pop group Blackpink. Gaitok's whole character is he wants to be harder. Mook's whole character is she wants him to be harder, too. That's the entirety of her character. Things turn out pretty well on this plane of existence anyway. But he's a spiritual guy. And although killing Rick earns him respect and a new position as the bodyguard for the hotel's owner, and it also earns him the love of Mook, because, of course, it does. It all happens at the cost of his beliefs. How'd that hit you?
- [06:50]
Ayesha Harris
I think my biggest issue with White Lotus as a series is the fact that the people who work at these hotels, especially if they are people of color, tend to be very flattened, very one dimensional. I think Belinda, the Natasha Rothwell character who we'll talk about later in the first season, was like an exception to that. But here it just felt as though there was nothing really going on here. My biggest critique is that I would have liked to see far less of all the white people at this resort and more of the dynamics of everyone who was working at this resort. Look, Guy Talk and Mook, on paper, they look like a beautiful couple, but this just felt like a storyline from like 50, 60 years ago. It's like it's not even just about wanting Guy Talk to be harder. It's like she wants him to advance in his role at the hotel to the point where, like, he's making money and he has more power. Like, it's about that too. It's about this very. Again, capitalism rules everything, but there was just not a lot to do. And Mook, we were talking about this before we started recording. Really, really, like, not a lot of screen crime. And I'm sure people, blackpink fans were probably like, what's going on here? Where is she?
- [08:03]
Glen Weldon
I mean, she comes off like the woman in the ad for Charles Atlas bodybuilding, who dismisses the skinny guy when he gets. But then he comes back and he's jacked. She's all over him. Which is a very. To your point, a very aggressive depiction of women. There's a possibility that I might buy it if she was given any specificity, any characterization, anything that made her distinct. And I don't know if it's in Mike White's wheelhouse to kind of do that for some of these characters that he's portraying as being objectified and victimized by the white folk, but that's the extent of who they are, and that sucks.
- [08:40]
Ayesha Harris
Yeah. I do wonder what it would be like if he did to actually try to write these non white characters in more interesting ways. But then I'm like, do I want to find that out? I don't know.
- [08:49]
Glen Weldon
Yeah, see, that's the thing. He is in his wheelhouse with the Ratliffs. Let's talk about the Ratliffs. They are an obscenely rich North Carolina couple with three kids. And throughout the season we see that the father, Tim, knows that the feds are onto his shady business deals. He's played by Jason Isaacs. He doesn't tell his family that prison is waiting for him when he returns home or that the family has lost everything, basically. And in the Finale, Tim finally surrenders to the despair he's been spiraling into all season long as he attempts to poison everyone but his youngest son, Lachlan, only to come to his senses at the last minute. But then the next morning, it's Lachlan who polishes off a poison smoothie and we get a very cheap fake out death that the kid seems to bounce back from awfully quickly. Laughlin is played by Sam Navola. The other two kids, Piper, Piper no and Saxon, are played by Sarah Katherine Cook and Patrick Schwarzenegger. And their mother, Victoria is played by Parker Posey.
- [09:46]
Ayesha Harris
I just don't think at this age.
- [09:50]
Glen Weldon
I'm meant to live an uncomfortable life.
- [09:56]
Ayesha Harris
I don't have the will.
- [09:59]
Glen Weldon
Aisha, what was your big ratliff takeaway here?
- [10:03]
Ayesha Harris
Okay, so I am in the bag for anything Parker Posey has ever done, even when it's something as bloated and messy and mostly not interesting as the season of White Lotus.
- [10:16]
Glen Weldon
This is why we get along, Aisha, because you are a gay man at heart.
- [10:20]
Ayesha Harris
I really am. I thought the scene in this final episode where Piper finally admits that she is only meant to live the soft life she can't actually commit to, you know, full on Buddhism or any sort of spirituality. Like the food, I mean, it was vegetarian, but it, I don't know, you could tell it wasn't organic and it was just kind of bland and I don't know, it was kind of like, could I really eat this for a whole year? The look on Victoria's face of like, yes, yes. Finally, finally we won was like a really great moment. Like I was laughing the whole time. And the whole family dynamic here. It did overall feel a little bit like a retread of season one with the family that's led by Connie Britton as a matriarch. Obviously not a one to one, but it felt like it was exploring the same things, especially the Sidney Sweeney character versus Piper and this quest for feeling enlightened in a way. But this was the second twist fake out that I saw coming from a mile away because of course the poisonous fruit was kind of like it was made the Chekhov's gun in the first episode.
- [11:38]
Glen Weldon
It's Chekhov's punk Pong.
- [11:39]
Ayesha Harris
Yes. And the hotel worker is telling them they're poisonous, they will kill you. And then when she reiterates it again in this final episode, they call it a suicide tree. I was like, okay, they're harping on this a little too much. And as soon as Lachlan being a young adult Kid who clearly would never wash a dish in his life has never done it. And the idea of him being felled by the fact that he was too lazy to clean out the. The blender before using it is like, he's not gonna die. Even when he was swimming in the water, it was like, he's not gonna die. That's just too much. Glen, were you on board with me? Did you also kind of have that sense that it was possible that they weren't actually gonna die?
- [12:22]
Glen Weldon
I knew that the family wasn't gonna die. I did think that Lachlan was gonna die. I was faked out, effectively, because I remember there was gunplay, but I thought that was gonna be a complete red herring, the gun stuff, and that the body was something to do with something else. That's what I probably would have done. But that's, you know, that's me. The Lachlan and Saxton stuff in the storyline. I just want to say to folks, I'm seeing a lot about this online. Yeah, if you were grossed out by the brother on brother stuff in this show, but you took the brother on sister stuff in Game of Thrones in stride, you are telling on yourself and you should work on that.
- [12:54]
Ayesha Harris
Indeed.
- [12:55]
Glen Weldon
But I do like that storyline because it's there for a reason. It's not just there for, like, for people to kind of post memes about. It is there to point up what happens when you live in a bubble like these characters live in and are constantly told that you are good people, you are quality people, and the people outside the bubble are beneath you. When you're trying to told that often enough by the Victorias in your life, you're gonna believe it. So that's what gives you Lachlan, you know, entering his flowers in the attic era. And it also gives you, not for nothing, a few hundred years of British and European aristocracy. Right? A few hundred years of history is where this goes. But to the Parker Posey of it all, I'm going to join you. This is a synergy of actor and role, because Victoria on paper is kind of a cartoon. And my gal Parker is known to go big. As you say, it is dangerous. But when in that finale, Victoria says, yes, we are lucky. No one in the history of the.
- [13:50]
Ayesha Harris
World has lived better than we have, even the old kings and queens. The least we can do is enjoy it.
- [14:02]
Glen Weldon
If we don't, it's offensive. That is such great writing because it's close to the line of broad satire that is entitlement distilled to its essence, the thing we owe to others is to keep to ourselves and never think about them. That is the prosperity gospel. That is God wants me to be wealthy. It is a cancer. And it is embedded in American life of people like the Radcliffs. And they seem broadly satiric at the beginning of this show. And then they became less and less so as the season progressed. They are matched to this time in a very strange way.
- [14:35]
Ayesha Harris
Yes, I agree. I guess I just like after three seasons of this, I'm just like, what more can we explore? And while it felt very on brand and on point, it was also just like in service of what at this point we've seen this not just in this show, but in plenty of other series about rich people. Again, I guess I'm just a little kind of tapped out on this, stating the obvious. And when I read something like an article in the Atlantic where they're calling this the first great post woke piece of art, I'm just like, what are, what are we doing here? Like, how are we, how are we talking about this show and how is the show actually playing out?
- [15:14]
Glen Weldon
That's just not being able to read satire.
- [15:15]
Ayesha Harris
Yes.
- [15:16]
Glen Weldon
Look, we've got a lot more to unpack here. We're going to talk about the great Carrie Coon, the great and good Natasha Rothwell in a bit. We'll be back after a quick break. NPR informs and connects communities around the country, providing reliable information in times of crisis. Federal funding helps us fulfill our mission to create a more informed public and ensures that public radio remains available to everyone. Learn more about safeguarding the future of public media. Visit protectmypublicmedia.org on this week's episode of.
- [15:48]
Ayesha Harris
Wildcard, actress Elizabeth Olsen reflects on being a Marvel superstar. I think I haven't always successfully made choices in my work that are aligned with my personal taste, and that is something I feel like I'm still trying to prove. I'm Rachel Martin. Join us for NPR's Wild Card podcast, the show where cards control the conversation. Since Donald Trump took office in January, a lot has happened. The White House Budget Office ordered a pause on all federal grants and loans. The impact of the Trump administration's tariffs is already being felt in President Trump's efforts to radically remake the federal government. The NPR Politics Podcast covers it all. Keep up with what's happening, happening in Washington and beyond with the NPR Politics Podcast. Listen every day.
- [16:36]
Glen Weldon
Imagine, if you will, a show from NPR that's not like npr, a show that focuses not on the important but the stupid, which features Stories about people smuggling animals in their pants, incompetent criminals, and ridiculous science studies. And call it Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, because the good names were taken. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me. Yes, that is what it is called. Wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. Let's start up again with the three gal pals. They grew up together, but they now live very different lives. Kate is a Texas supermom. She's played by Leslie Bibb. Carrie Coon is Laurie, a divorced lawyer who's guzzles chardonnay by the bucket. And Jacqueline is a famous actress with a trophy husband. She's played by Michelle Monahan. Their time together at the White Lotus is marked by pettiness, bickering, and jealousy. But it ended on a note of, well, Aisha, you tell me, what did you make of Laurie's speech?
- [17:30]
Ayesha Harris
We started this life together. I mean, we're going through it apart, but we're still together. And I look at you guys, and it feels meaningful.
- [17:41]
Glen Weldon
Was that an epiphany that signals some kind of real healing among the three of them, or was it just more of the kind of fakey insincerity that we've been seeing all season from them?
- [17:50]
Ayesha Harris
I think it was deliberately ambiguous, and this was kind of where I assumed it would end up. That obviousness, at least from my point of view, was actually, I was okay with that. They were the most interesting part of this show for me. I loved their dynamic. You could tell what it was right off the bat. I love the way it kind of unravels in part over a man. Valentin. I think that Laurie sort of breakdown at the end for me said they're gonna paper over all of this. I don't think any of them have really changed. They're just kind of. Cause they haven't really. They never really had, like, a moment where they're, like, airing everything out, at least not in a way that, like, you feel as if they've moved forward. They kind of paper over everything. Like, they might confront each other, but then it's like, okay, well, we spend some time apart, and then we come back together. I liked the way that ended. My vision is that they're probably gonna go back to their lives and then, like, not talk again for a very long time. It's like. Cause that's what happens sometimes when you go on these trips that bring out so much left animosity. But, Glenn, I'm curious what you thought about this.
- [19:00]
Glen Weldon
I didn't see any Ambiguity in it. Because I bought that speech completely because it had the benefit of being delivered by Carrie Coon. Cause on paper, I think there is ambiguity in it, but I just bought the way she was delivering it. I was also surprised by it because I thought I was being set up for Laurie to take them both down. I thought I expected Laurie to get out the filet knife and just go to town. What she delivered instead was gratitude and humility and, yes, a very sad expression of what her life is like. An acknowledgement that life is unfair, but that she's, I don't know, come to terms with it. Or she keeps saying, you know, it's not about God, it's not about religion, it's about time. And that kind of seems like she's the only one there who's come to peace with anything. Was that earned by the one moment we saw her watching Kate and Jacqueline in the pool and smiling? I don't know if it was earned by that, but it worked for me in the moment completely.
- [19:54]
Ayesha Harris
Yeah. Okay, I take that back. I should clarify that I did believe Laurie's speech. What I don't believe is that they've actually come together.
- [20:02]
Glen Weldon
It's gonna change anything.
- [20:03]
Ayesha Harris
Like, it's gonna change anything. Like, I still feel as though the Leslie Bibb and Michelle Monaghan characters have not had the same journey that she has had. You know, has anything punctured, like, the surface of what was going on there? I'm not sure.
- [20:16]
Glen Weldon
Yeah, well, something changed, certainly, for Belinda. So White Lotus has always been about how wealth corrupts people, but this was the first season we saw it kind of making even non wealthy people aband. Not just Guytok who did completely, but also the great and good Natasha Rothwell, who returned from season one as Belinda. She made a deal with John Gries from the first two seasons. He plays Greg, who was Jennifer Coolidge's shady as hell husband. He's now living in Thailand, going by Gary. Belinda knows who Gary Greg is. And essentially, even though she kind of backs into it, she essentially extorts him to give her $5 million. So I'm torn here, Aisha, because she abandoned her principles. But, oh, she seems happy about it, doesn't she?
- [20:58]
Ayesha Harris
I mean, after all that Jennifer Coolidge put her through in season one, I'm just like, you know what? Why not? See, this was, again, this entire storyline was, for me, a missed opportunity. Because I was hoping that in the first episode, when Belinda sees that black couple from afar and she just does the wave and she's like, oh, it's lovely. I've had that exact same experience at, while vacationing, where it's like, oh, you see another black couple, and you're like, oh, like, we're out here. It's great. And, like, you might do the nod or you might wave, as has happened to me. Like, you might even actually talk to them and have conversations with them and befriend them. And I wanted to see more of that. And this is, again, if we're gonna do another season, which, you know, they've confirmed they are. Again, I don't know if Mike White is up to this, but, like, let's see actual, like, what it's like to travel in these luxury spaces as a person of color and interact, especially if you are a black. And if you were, you know, say, in like, a black country in the Caribbean or something like, that would be interesting. Missed opportunity. But I did love seeing Belinda kind of get her come up. It's also, I did enjoy the scene with Zion, played by Nicholas Duvernay as her son, when he, like, is trying to negotiate in hardball with Gary Greg and he starts just throwing in Langston Hughes's a dream deferred. He's like, okay, this is a fun moment. Like, I enjoyed that.
- [22:25]
Glen Weldon
You know, she would need to feel like her dream is coming true, like, full on. I mean, you got your dream here, she's gotta get hers, right? I mean, what happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
- [22:36]
Ayesha Harris
I liked that scene. And then I loved that we do get, like, a little fake out there where we think she's like, too above this. And then she's like, no, I'm walking away so that you can go and close the steal. Like, I enjoyed that. So I was content with the way that ended.
- [22:49]
Glen Weldon
Yeah. I think, though, for her to go back to Pornche, who is the masseuse played by Dom Headakubbumkap, she's doing to Pornchai what Coolidge's character did to her in season one. It paralleled, but it didn't land with any weight whatsoever. Because while Belinda was a point of view character in season one, Pornchar barely registered at all. He was, you know, some pecs. That's not on the actor. That's the writing or the lack of it. And it just didn't. Like, if you're gonna do that, you need to lay track. And no track was laid for that moment.
- [23:20]
Ayesha Harris
Yes. Again, so many characters, so few of them were actually fleshed out in any meaningful way. I also just thought, like, overall, the way we get that final montage, and all of a sudden, there is literally a mass shooting at this hotel. I'm saying, and no one. And again, this episode was already long as it is. I get it. I didn't necessarily need 10 minutes of everyone finding out what happened at the hotel. But it does seem weird to go from, like, Lachlan just may or may not have almost died and, like, multiple people were shot and some were killed at this hotel. And all of a sudden, like, everyone's just like, on the boat leaving the island and, like, happy as a clam. Like, what?
- [24:04]
Glen Weldon
Yeah, I mean, like, that place would be on total lockdown and nobody would be leaving. And the fact that, you know, it's one thing that Belinda's waving goodbye to folks, but then we see the folks waving goodbye to her and they're all smiling. It's like, yes, we're doomed. This is gonna take down the entire franchise, the entire chain of hotels. But that's fine. Bye. Bye.
- [24:23]
Ayesha Harris
Yeah, the three ladies just literally saw the hotel owner get shot right in front of them. And then they're just like, communing on the boat.
- [24:31]
Glen Weldon
Like, yes, okay, there's a word for them. They are witnesses. And boy. Anyway, tell us what you think about season three of the White Lotus. Are you on board for Season 4? Find us at facebook@facebook.com PCHH and one other thing before we go. This weekend in our podcast feed, we'll have another monthly mailbag bonus episode for our pop culture Happy hour. Plus supporters, Aisha and I will be talking about movie theater etiquette. We have thoughts on thoughts on thoughts.
- [25:02]
Ayesha Harris
So many thoughts.
- [25:03]
Glen Weldon
So sign up for pop culture happy hour plus@plus.NPR.org happy hour. That brings us to the end of our show. Aisha Harris, my friend, thank you so much for being here.
- [25:12]
Ayesha Harris
I'm glad you have a beautiful face. I'm glad you have a beautiful life. Glenn God psychologist Dolly Chug studies the lengths we will go to protect the way we see ourselves. We care about whether we're seen as a good person, whether others see us as a good person, and whether we feel like good people. Ideas about our self image. That's on the TED Radio hour podcast from NPR.
- [25:43]
Glen Weldon
At Planet Money. We'll take you from a race to make rum in the Caribbean. Our rum from a quality standpoint is the best in the world. To the labs dreaming up the most advanced microchips.
- [25:53]
Ayesha Harris
It's very rare for people to go.
- [25:55]
Glen Weldon
Inside to the back rooms of New York's Diamond District. What you looking for?
- [25:59]
Ayesha Harris
The stupid guy in They're All Smart.
- [26:02]
Glen Weldon
Don't worry about Planet Money from npr. We go to the Story and take you along with us wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:10]
Ayesha Harris
Short Wave thinks of science as an invisible force showing up in your everyday life, powering the food you eat, the medicine you use, the tech in your pocket. Science is approachable because it's already part of your life. Come explore these connections on the shortwave podcast from npr.