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The Prestige TV Podcast
'The White Lotus' Season 3 Finale Deep Dive and Theories: A Super Cynical Season
01:05:36
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- [00:00]
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- [00:23]
Joanna Robinson
Com.
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- [01:12]
Joanna Robinson
Hello. Welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson.
- [01:16]
Rob Mahoney
I'm Rob Mahoney and I'm no longer in the Void. I know back home.
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Joanna Robinson
How exciting.
- [01:21]
Rob Mahoney
How does it feel, Joe?
- [01:23]
Joanna Robinson
Pretty liberating. But actually I miss the team. John Richter, who's been doing such an amazing work on a lot of our video podcasts, gods, gave me a letter last night that said like from, you know, the void will. From the Void, the void will miss you sort of thing. It's very sweet.
- [01:37]
Rob Mahoney
It takes a village to make a void, it turns out.
- [01:40]
Joanna Robinson
It's true. It's very true. We are here recording a little earlier than we usually do about the White Lotus finale. We're here recording Monday evening. I don't know when you'll hear it. You'll hear it whenever you hear it. But this is when we are recording this podcast episode. Two Quick things before we get in. I just want to like dive right into the White Lotus finale please. Well I guess a couple things first of I am going on vacation. I'll be gone for a week. But Rob and I pre recorded our pit finale take so that will be up later this week. You will if you have emailed us in the interim. Your emails will not be read on that podcast but they have been read by us and thank you so much for them. So the pit finale pod is coming from us on this feed. Also stay tuned. We will be having some last of us coverage and also we intend to dip into your friends and neighbors. We're not hitting that first episode because again, I'll be on vacation. But. But we will swoop in for episode two and see how it goes going forward. So that is sort of what we are up to here on this feed. And we've had so much fun with you guys, with Severance, with White Lotus, with the Pit. So we hope you'll, like, stick around for what we have coming up.
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Rob Mahoney
Yeah, the vacation doesn't have to end, you know, we have to leave Thailand. We're on the boat, but the boat's gotta go somewhere. And why not to John Hamsville as far as I'm concerned.
- [02:56]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. And like, who cares that there was a mass shooting or one of us was nearly poisoned? Everything seems fine.
- [03:01]
Rob Mahoney
That's just more zombies for the last of us, you know?
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Joanna Robinson
Very true, very true. One thing about the Pit finale pod that we did not. I did not mention, and I will be like, drummed off the Internet by my fellow Generation Catalano members if I don't. Is that the guy who plays measles dad? If you're listening to this pod and also listening to Pit pod, the guy who plays measles dad is Devin Gummersall, who played Brian Krakow on My so Called Life. Of course. And I didn't say that, and I should have, but anyway, that's what pods are for.
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Rob Mahoney
Are for cross pod corrections for mistakes we made, omissions, things we forgot. Talking about the Pit.
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Joanna Robinson
You're. You're Rob, you're really nice because you're like, hey, Joanna, you kind of like, apologize too much or whatever. Correct yourself too much. I just don't want to get a single Brian Krakow email. That's. I'm just like heading it off of the past. Don't email me about Brian Krakow. Okay. And the other thing is, we got an email from a listener and I can't find it right now, but they were asking us here at the end of all things. The Pit wrapping up White Lotus wrapping up Severance having concluded. Do we want any do overs? Or in the case of the Pit, a first over on what our email choice would have been. We got monkey shootout and pineapple bobbing. Rob Mahoney, would you stick with Those? Or hindsight's 20 20. Would you Monday evening quarterback a different email address for any of these shows?
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Rob Mahoney
Pineapple bobbing, I think had a level of whimsy that I enjoy in terms of the severance experience. And I'm very glad that's the strain we hit. Was whimsy first?
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Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
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Rob Mahoney
Did we hit whimsy first? With monkeyshootoutmail.com I would argue accuracy first. Not a monkey holding a weapon in the finale so much Joe. But you know, Rick has this big line about how he has to get the monkey off his back. I would argue the fact that he doesn't get the monkey off his back is the reason that he and Chelsea die in the end ultimately. Like there is a metaphorical monkey shootout. It just involves Rick as a conduit Monkey Mind shootout.
- [05:04]
Joanna Robinson
Gmail.com all right, suck it haters. We got it right. I love that. Okay, before we get into I have like things I want to get to. There was this Mike White interview on the official podcast that we kind of want to dig into a little bit and some other emails that hit the various trades etc. So we want to talk about that. But I haven't gotten a chance to talk to you, Rob Mahoney, about how you felt about this finale. So what are your big picture takes on the White Lotus finale as it stands as an episode or as it reflects on the entire season as a season.
- [05:34]
Rob Mahoney
Like, I am also of the opinion, as it sounded like you guys were on the panel, that White Lotus is just too well acted and too well made to ever not be good and fun. And I will always enjoy these seasons as they roll out. This is my least favorite of the three seasons. I was, I would say, underwhelmed by this finale in part because they put off so much toward the back end. And so there's a lot of seven episodes of circling the same kinds of issues over and over and over. And I'm not opposed to that kind of storytelling if it takes us somewhere in the end. And I think it was pretty hit and miss as far as which of the stories actually delivered on that promise and which ones didn't. And that's a tough place to end when you're putting so much on a 90 minute finale to resolve so many of these threats.
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Joanna Robinson
Bill was asking us sort of when Mallory and Bill and I did our sort of instant reaction, we watched the episode, we hopped on mics and and we talked about it without really being able to marinate in it. And he was asking sort of, we were talking about letter grades and I think I said A minus or B plus. I think I'm very pretty firmly in a B plus space for this season. I think 4, 5 and 6 were really good episodes of television. And so I just think, I don't know if it's like a peak too soon or just like interestingly calibrated. If you have Or. Or have you. I'm going to take that again, Donnie, thank you so much. If you have listened to the official podcast interview with Mike White, or perhaps seen it, you know, reported out as it has been in the various trades, Mike White has a very like, hey, if you don't what I'm doing, don't want. Don't like what I'm doing, don't watch it. Except he said, like, if you don't.
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Rob Mahoney
Don't want to repeat his language. There was edging involved. There was a lot going on in that mic, as there always is.
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Joanna Robinson
Yeah. If you, if you don't want to fuck me, don't go home, get out of my bed. Don't go home with me like this, sort of. He's like, if you don't like what I'm doing, don't watch my show. I don't care. Which was pretty fun and spicy for Mike White. But I think I. I think some of the criticisms of Nothing's Happening, which Mike White seemed to be responding through to directly, etc, I don't ever truck with those. But I do think the pacing was off this season, or just like the stories were calibrated oddly. And then listening to his take on certain endings, I was like, man, Mike White and I are just not on the same page for certain things. And since he's the creator, I guess I'm the one on the wrong page.
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Rob Mahoney
What show are we watching if that's the show that he's making?
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Joanna Robinson
Were there any Mike White takes that particularly stood out to you as like, huh, that's not. That wasn't my view of things.
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Rob Mahoney
I think it was. Here's where we get into tricky territory. He talked explicitly about this scene that I believe was at least written, if not shot, in which Piper loses her virginity to Zion.
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Joanna Robinson
Right.
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Rob Mahoney
Somewhere in the finale, I would presume, based on the way he was talking about.
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Joanna Robinson
That's what he said. Yeah, yeah. Final episode. Yeah.
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Rob Mahoney
I don't know what story purpose that serves or how it fits into this at all or what sense it would make now. Maybe if you laid it all out for me, I would get it. And maybe this is the reason why it was ultimately cut. So it's like, how can I judge him for something that wasn't even in the final product because somebody thought better of it at some point than to include it.
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Joanna Robinson
You're all, I, I give you permission to always judge whoever you want to judge. Ramoni.
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Rob Mahoney
Thank you, Joe.
- [08:51]
Joanna Robinson
No, but I think I kind of understand where he's coming from because he was trying to really underline this Saxon Piper flip, which is something that we had been talking about for the last couple episodes as Saxon decides to pick up a book and read a book and stuff like that. And so. And then it's reflected. Piper's transformation to privileged prince princess is reflected in her wardrobe change.
- [09:13]
Rob Mahoney
Oh, yeah.
- [09:14]
Joanna Robinson
In the last episode and stuff like that. So if he really wanted to underline that, I think the point he was trying to make was that Saxon was all about, like, carnality and getting after it, and so then Piper should get after it in the final episode. And there's a version of that that makes sense to me, but trying to shoehorn it. I would almost pick a rando over Zion who's an established character. You know what I mean? Picking an established character, then just makes it. It's almost gonna be not enough if it's Piper, like, fucks a stranger in the finale. That's its own thing and could potentially work. But Mike was like, well, the finale was already really long, and this would be like, an extra 10 minutes. And I'm like, 10 minutes doesn't feel like enough time to make these two major stories collide right at the end of things. So, yeah, that's sort of where I sit with that.
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Rob Mahoney
I think, overall, as he's talking about the getting out of my bed and the edging experience of White Lotus, as you said, most of that has to do with pacing, which you and I, as you alluded to, have not really had that much of a problem with. I think there's certain things we wish had evolved differently, certain things we would get more or less of. And overall, maybe just condense this to six or seven episodes rather than eight, and some of these stories would be better served for it. I thought in this finale, this is where I was kind of confronted with what I love about White Lotus and where it is not delivering on that. And maybe that's on me as a viewer, that I'm watching it, as you said, for something different, for what Mike White is trying to deliver. I'm not here for plot. I am here for character. I am here to ruminate with these people. I'm here because every White Lotus season, these are such fully realized versions of people that I've met, people that I know, people that I've experienced out in the world, or you can just see how that person would come to be within their little bubble of privilege. And I thought in this finale, there were a lot of our favorites, and they just stopped acting like people, and they Started acting like characters on a TV show and they started just cutting narrative corners. They started doing things that were maybe like one or two beats beyond anything we had seen them do before in a way that I didn't feel like we quite got there. And then all of a sudden, because it's the finale, here's the end point. And because it's the finale, all these people are going to die. And because it's the finale, not a word will be said by any character about the massive shootout that just happened at their hotel that no one seems all too fussed about. Joe, on one hand that's nitpicking, but on the other hand it's like, where's any. Maybe I was told up front there would not be resolution and that was correct.
- [11:37]
Joanna Robinson
Or the near death experience of a teenager. Like, it's just like business as usual.
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Rob Mahoney
Do the Ratliffs know that Laki almost died?
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Joanna Robinson
You mean people other than Tim?
- [11:49]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah. Like, does Victoria know? Do his siblings know?
- [11:53]
Joanna Robinson
We were given. I. We don't know. I guess this is. I want to talk about Locky and the poison for a second because this is something that's been really needling at me. The inconsistent idea of like what this poison does. I feel like, to your point, and you know, our pal Mallory Rubin was sort of her. Her take seemed to be there was more emphasis on the murder or the whys and the where's of the murder than there was in previous seasons. And I kind of agree, I'm not quite exactly where she is on that. But I do think that if you are going to do a murder mystery and you have someone say something is a poison at the beginning of the season and you have them reiterate it in the finale, it's a poison. And then you have multiple, multiple characters drink that poison and then everyone's fine. That is tough storytelling for me. Yeah. But so here. So some doctor on Twitter, Josh Trebek MD on Twitter, Dr. Twitter, did a long thread about these specific seeds and their specific lethality and what exactly they do to you and how many you need to take. Turns out it's just one to like really fuck yourself up and stuff like that. So he wrote, just one kernel can be enough to mess with your heart and cause significant poisoning and even death. In my opinion, Lachlan would probably have died. Just one kernel is enough to be deadly. And there seemed to be ample leftovers in that nasty blender before he made his smoothie. Lockheed also didn't get any medical care or digoxin antibiotics, body Fragments, which is all part of his like, long thread that he wrote about how you combat this poisoning. So it's just like, it's just good vibes that save Lockheed. And if that's the case.
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Rob Mahoney
Yeah. Then what's the love of a father? Let's be honest.
- [13:50]
Joanna Robinson
Well, there's. We had one listener, Daniel Wright, and I always love taking us to Tarot Corner, especially in a season of White Lotus where Tawny was always, always interested in tarot. Chelsea is certainly interested in tarot. So what Daniel said is that Lachlan, as he's lying on the, on the decking by the pool and sort of seeming like. And the camera's panning up, is very Tom Cruise far and away, like his soul is leaving his body sort of thing. He's in the pose of the hanged man on a tarot card. And Daniel says the hanged man upside down symbolizes surrender, letting go, reflection, sacrifice, punishment, a test period, uncertainty, blah, blah. But when reversed, it can symbolize triumph of selfishness, insufficient effort, indecision, lack of spirituality, excessive conformity, death of the soul, yearning, detachment, or unnecessary sacrifice. So we love a tarot card because it can mean 9 million different things. But something that I think is really interesting. My best friend wrote a book about witchcraft and so she's always like looking at things through the lens of witchcraft. And she was like, well, something like this is definitely used in trials by ordeal. And I looked it up and it is just right there on the Wikipedia page that this particular poison was used in witchcraft trials where it's like, take this seed. If you live, you're innocent. If you die, you were a witch. Like one of those like iconic, classic, fun witch trials. And so is Lachlan taking this poison and surviving meaning like a testament to his innocence that he was tried by those four monks that he saw like hovering over the surface of the pool and found innocent and allowed to live. And was Rick tried and found guilty and not allowed to go forward? I'm trying to make the Lachlan and Poison story make more sense than just a fake out to, you know, to distract our attention from the shootout to come. Any thoughts on that or any. Or how is all of that Lachlan poison story sitting with you?
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Rob Mahoney
I am relieved to find out that he's not a witch. That's. This is good news for everybody involved and clear that possibility off the table. I love a witch, but I don't want the over theorizing about non witches who are witches. You know, like, I want the authentic witches to please Step forward. And Lachlan is not one of them.
- [16:15]
Joanna Robinson
That's true.
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Rob Mahoney
I think where I struggle with the Lachlan poison stuff is I do ultimately think it was mostly there for the pump fakes, and it's mostly there for the murder subplot. And ultimately, I really like his overall journey and arc this season. Right. Locky is coming to this and ending in a place where he has done enough introspection and enough hand stuff, I guess, to, like, finally know that he should be the one steering the ship of his life and not just his siblings telling him where to go to school or his parents telling him what to do, or his brother even, like, making a protein shake for him. It's like, I gotta take control of my own shit. And he's fumbling through that, and maybe he'll go to a monastery and maybe he won't. Maybe he's found religion. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he saw God. I don't know. But I think he. He has come to a moment of honest realization about himself and kind of what he needs and what he wants and the fact that only he can get it. And so he did pass a trial of a kind at the White Lotus. Poison or not.
- [17:11]
Joanna Robinson
Thanks for that hand stuff. Joke really made my day. Okay, you're welcome. Our listener, Deborah, wanted to point out that a reason among many. Like, never mind. The mountain of Lorazipan that he had climbed throughout the week.
- [17:26]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
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Joanna Robinson
A reason that Tim didn't clean the blender is that he has never had to clean a dish in his life.
- [17:31]
Rob Mahoney
This is.
- [17:32]
Joanna Robinson
Always had people doing it for him. And I'm like, yeah, I'm just. If there's poison goop at the bottom of the blender, I. Even if I've never washed a dish in my life, I'm still gonna give it a little rinsola, you know what I mean? Just like a slosh around, at least. I don't know.
- [17:48]
Rob Mahoney
But is that better or worse than Lachi? The next morning, taking the remnants even, he gives it a quick sniff, right? Like, he's. And everyone has told him, this tastes bad. This tastes funky. This coconut milk is off.
- [18:01]
Joanna Robinson
The coconut milk is off, but there's a little rum in there. And he was told he couldn't have any, you know, and he's like, maybe I can just sneak a little. Even if the coconut milk's a little funky. Not that. It's not that. That protein shake, that's just protein powder and water and carry a banana. Like, not even a single splash of oj or spinach of peanut butter.
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Rob Mahoney
What are you doing?
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Joanna Robinson
What are we doing? Sexton taught him nothing, I think.
- [18:26]
Rob Mahoney
Well, this is the problem with the rum theory is he is in a villa that has steady access to alcohol. If what he's looking for is a bottle of rum, I assume the bottle's just sitting there. He could spike his own, his own smoothie with it.
- [18:37]
Joanna Robinson
He really should have. Everything would have gone better for him, certainly. I want to talk about Victoria Ryliff in this episode and something that Mike White said about Victoria. Like he was talking a little bit about the ways in which her. Some of her scenes and some of her lines had been shaved out and in. In the shaving out, you lost. I guess some of this. He didn't cite it this way, but it reminded me so much of Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones when she would talk to Joffrey and she'd be like, anyone who isn't us is the enemy. We are we Lannisters. We golden haired Lannisters are the only thing that matter, that are important. And so it was sort of like Circe talking about that means no wonder there was incest in that family. The idea is just sort of like, it's just us and no one else.
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Rob Mahoney
You put it that way. You know, it only leads one direction.
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Joanna Robinson
It's just natural. So. So Mike White was like, you know, there were lines where Victoria was basically like, you guys are so attractive, so wonderful, you're the best. And there are lines that remain in there, you know, like the boat people or you know, just sort of like. And he was sort of using it to explain the Kate interaction. He was like, the Kate interaction is basically like, you're not in my family, so I'm not really interested in talking to you. Only my family matters. Only my attractive children who say terrible things. Saxon. But I laugh anyway at their jokes, you know, and so, yeah, so it's just this sort of like, it's us, it's the rat list. We're the best thing that has ever been made on this planet. So why would we breed with anyone else? Sort of energy coming from Victoria, I guess, disturbing. What do you want to say about Parker Posey's performance or Victoria in this episode?
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Rob Mahoney
Needed more of it just because I love it so much every time that she's on screen, every interaction, every look, the reaction gif express, it just continues apace. I think the thumbs up will be a moment that lives, at least infamy. For me personally, I really enjoyed it.
- [20:44]
Joanna Robinson
You're a GIF guy. Am I just learning this about you?
- [20:47]
Rob Mahoney
We've been around. I hate to.
- [20:48]
Joanna Robinson
We've talked about this, okay?
- [20:49]
Rob Mahoney
We've been down this road before.
- [20:51]
Joanna Robinson
I believe it. I believe it.
- [20:52]
Rob Mahoney
I believe also believe it. If in the end I convinced you to come to my side and you agreed that jif was the proper pronunciation of that word.
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Joanna Robinson
No. Don't mess with people with bad memories, Rob. That's cruel and unusual. On the someone who surely has a bad memory is Victoria, given all the lorazepam she's had. And something one of our listeners, Nayana, said. And I. I like to think this is intentional, but I kind of think they just didn't want to deal with the reality of lorazepam withdrawal. But they were saying, our listener was saying that perhaps Victoria's ability to just sort of, like, come through this lorazeplam withdrawal means she's more resilient than she gives herself credit for, than anyone maybe gives her credit for, and that perhaps whatever is waiting for them back home is something she can handle. And I. I kind of like this interpretation, this idea that, like, because Victoria pulls off a better con job than Rick manages, right? She's just sort of like, right? She's like, sure, Piper, go spend a night there. It's fine. And then when she comes back, she's like, oh, you didn't like it? How interesting. You know, and it's just sort of.
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Rob Mahoney
Like, first she just about hyperventilates once Piper starts down the road.
- [22:04]
Joanna Robinson
Chef's kiss. So good. But, like, could Larazepam Victoria have accomplished all of that? Does she need to be sober in order to pull this off with Piper? What do you think?
- [22:18]
Rob Mahoney
I think so. And look, I will never underestimate the brute force strength of a Southern mom. I think this is where Victoria and Kate have a lot in common, right? Like the amount of grit and Barrett that you have to have in some of these social situations. Formidable, to say the least. So I agree with the interpretation that Victoria is stronger than she gives herself credit for. She may not want to live without the all inclusive buffet and, you know, all of the assortment of riches and benefits that come from staying at a White Lotus, for example, but I think she's gonna get through everything just fine. You know, maybe not with a smile on her face, but she's gonna survive.
- [22:49]
Joanna Robinson
Like, one of. One of the theories that I had was that it would wind up that Tim was not actually gonna get in any trouble and they would be fine. That doesn't seem to be how it panned out. But I want to say that, like, one of my inspirations for this comes from a member of. Members of my own family, where I had a member of my family, not my immediate family, but a member of my family who had a. Like, a fortune in real estate and then the real estate market crashed and that they were, like, quite used to a ton of money and they had no money. And then his partner figured out how to play the stock market, essentially, and she made back, like, all of their money in the span of a couple of years. So it was sort of like, what.
- [23:33]
Rob Mahoney
Are they going to.
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Joanna Robinson
They had all this money. What are they going to do? They have no money now. And then she figured out how to make their. So I'm just sort of like, I feel like Victoria not. Maybe not playing the stock market, but I feel like Victoria will figure out how they can still live in style. That there is, like, a certain level of untouchability at a certain level of wealth. That's my sort of anecdotal evidence of that. I'm not saying that's always the case, but I. I think it can be the case that it's just sort of like, too big to fail. It extends beyond institutions into certain, like, just people, you know, they are, you know, like, very important people in their community. Like, I just feel like someone's going to come through with an opportunity for Saxon. Someone's going to figure out something for Victoria to do, and they're all just going to figure it out. Like, that's what it feels like to me.
- [24:28]
Rob Mahoney
So, first of all, not to piggyback off your relatives capitalist endeavor with our own capitalist endeavor, but have they sold the book rights or movie rights to their life yet? Because that's. That's quite a turbulent journey they've been on.
- [24:41]
Joanna Robinson
No, I'll talk to them about it, see if that's something they're interested in.
- [24:44]
Rob Mahoney
My people will talk to your people, Talk to their people. We'll get it all connected. I would say the only thing really jeopardizing the theory you're putting forth and I think overall, the way this season ends for many of the characters, the Ratliffs included, are sort of asking you of, like, to fill in the blank on what happens next, to find the connective tissue between this and that. We don't know how anyone in this family is going to react to the news of what is about to happen to their life other than Timnos, and he's kind of given them a shred of a pep talk. That everything is gonna be okay. And I think has his own sort of moment of clarity. Like, if anyone in this finale is sort of embodying amorfati, it would be Tim Ratliff among that list. I think he, in even talking and broaching the subject with his family, is sort of confronting the idea that, you know what? Some shit is gonna happen. We are gonna try to stick through it as a family. And I am maybe slightly more willing to talk about it than I was 24 hours ago or certainly 72 hours ago when I was neck deep in Lorazepam.
- [25:41]
Joanna Robinson
Can you hit us with that episode title again, Rob?
- [25:44]
Rob Mahoney
Amor Fati. What's wrong with that?
- [25:46]
Joanna Robinson
You just put a lot of some beautiful spice on it. I really loved it. Okay. I think that's. I think that brings me into the next thing I want to talk about perfectly, which is something that Mike White said, that his whole conception for this season is a parable and a parallel story between Rick and Tim. And he talked about it at length on the official podcast. And I just don't think he was terribly successful in this specific endeavor. I think he was successful in a lot of other endeavors, but in this specific endeavor, his premise is this, that Tim, and we hear it from Tim himself. Tim is raised with a lot of expectations. Everyone expected the most, the best, everything from Tim. And then Rick was raised with. With no expectations, with. With, like, a unreliable mom, it seems like. And, you know, no connection, no communication with his father.
- [26:41]
Rob Mahoney
And, well, his dad was on the Death Star. Like, he had stuff to do, you know.
- [26:46]
Joanna Robinson
You know, the. That helmet won't polish itself is what I have to say about that. So. So I think that. So the idea is that Tim comes from this place of encouragement and that Rick comes from this place of wound that he can't. As Chelsea, you know, lays out explicitly in these episodes, he can't see the love in front of him because he's too preoccupied with the lack of love that he had, the lack of support he had growing up, whereas Tim grew up, well, nurtured. And so Tim can make the right choice, which is not pull the trigger and, you know, the metaphorical trigger, that is pina coladas. And then Rick makes the wrong choice in pulling the triggers, and then Rick is punished with death, and Tim is rewarded with Lachlan not dying. That rubs me the wrong way. Like, I really don't like that as a. As an idea at all.
- [27:40]
Rob Mahoney
I don't think that parallel is very successfully laid out. So I agree with the premise or I disagree with the premise and I also don't think the execution of that idea is on there on screen.
- [27:51]
Joanna Robinson
So like we meet them on the boat and they are clearly being set up as like these two guys, very different walks of life sort of thing. So I understand the sort of first steps that we took on that journey. But I wouldn't say those parallels really cleared for me. I would say that was more successful inside of the. The microcosm that is the, the. The fancies. The three ladies. Like their parallels make a lot more sense to me. But the Rick and Tim on parallel paths but different choice backgrounds. Yeah. Premise wise, I don't really like what it's trying to say then. And, and then execution, it doesn't really work for me.
- [28:33]
Rob Mahoney
Which on. On the first part. Fair enough. Like, I don't, I don't want to agree or have to agree with every expression of an idea on a show. Like that's totally fine. But you want to sell the ideas that are important to you. And if you think this is an important piece of the text that these two guys are parallels, I'm going to be honest with you. Short of those current interactions in episode one and two that you just described, I didn't really think about Tim and Rick in conjunction whatsoever. And I don't think they were shown on screen in like a parallel filmmaking sense. They weren't shown in stories like parallel. Like they just didn't structure it in that way.
- [29:04]
Joanna Robinson
I think a more compelling parallel coming out of the finale. And this has a lot to do with a lot of the interviews that Amy. Amy Lee Wood has been giving are the Rick and Chelsea parallels. And that's been really interesting. We got a great email from our listener who did not really sign it. So I'm just gonna say a. Outlining a bunch of interviews that Amy Lee Wood has given, talking about the ways in which. And a friend of mine really loved the way that Chelsea's story ended. Chelsea's Ori ending the way it did rubbed a lot of people the wrong way because we love Chelsea and, and it seems like she dies for Rick sins. And it's very like what are we doing here? But a friend of mine was talking about how much she was like, this is the most true to life. She's like, she's like characters like Chelsea and she's like. And she's like. To be clear, I have been the Chelsea who are just like refuse to see the reality of these men that they're with and are just sort of like, he's wounded. I can help him. I can fix him. He's like my child. Like, don't look at any of the red flags and just hitch their wagon to this thing that's dragging them all the way down into hell. And it's just sort of like. And then you just wind up, up, like, completely fucked over because you are been unwilling to take the blinders off when it comes to this guy that you have attached yourself to. And I'm sure it happens the other way gender wise, but like, oh, it's.
- [30:23]
Rob Mahoney
A gender neutral Chelsea situation. Anyone can be the Chelsea.
- [30:27]
Joanna Robinson
Be the. Don't be the Chelsea you wish to see in the world.
- [30:30]
Rob Mahoney
Well, don't be the Rick either, is the problem. You got to find other role models.
- [30:33]
Joanna Robinson
So, like, Chelsea, does Chelsea. Does anyone on my list deserve to die? I don't think that's really. It's. It's not really about deserving, I think. And I think that's why the whole, like, Rick fails a test so that he dies sort of rubs me the wrong way. But. But Chelsea just leaving everything up. This idea that Rick feels like he can't make any active decisions that he has no choice but to pursue Jim Hollinger to Bangkok. Or, you know, basically he gets a sort of like, Marty McFly, don't call me chicken moment. Like when his dad talks about his mom and he's just like, there's nothing I have. There's nothing I can do. I'm buffeted by the winds of fate and I've got to do this. And Chelsea feels the same way. She's like, we're fated to be together, so whatever happens to you happens to me. And that's just how I feel. And so they're both, they're. They're two Amy Lee woods words are the two sides of the same coin. And they're just going to, like, you know, go where, where the breeze takes them without making these conscious decisions. I just don't know how I could make that stand in. In stark contrast to Tim Ratliff, who is also quite buffety this season. But I like thinking about Chelsea that way. Chelsea, a character we really loved.
- [31:48]
Rob Mahoney
Yes.
- [31:48]
Joanna Robinson
Chelsea, a character you and I talked about last week, is sort of like, what is her identity outside of her thing with Rick? Like, who is she? What is going on with her? So it's devastating because she's so charming and so bubbly and so wonderful, but it's like, okay. But she had a lot of opportunities to make different decisions. She did with Rick, and she didn't you know, so Mal brought up a.
- [32:14]
Rob Mahoney
Line from episode one on the pod you guys did after the actual show, which was when she's talking to Rick, Chelsea's talking to Rick, and she says, this is so on brand for you to be the victim of your own decisions. And that's where Chelsea ends up herself. Like, ultimately I was trying to think, you know, if this is a doomed, tragic couple and they are, they die in the finale in a way that, you know, once we get through some of the Chelsea character stuff, I think we should kind of zoom out at to talk about the cynicism of this season overall. Kind of the overall scope of how fucking bleak and tragic this season ended up, even relative to already quite bleak and already quite cynical seasons of White Lotus. Yeah, the death of Chelsea is just a totally different thing. And I think we get there because she and Rick to what Amylou is saying, and you're echoing here, Joe, about like the same, like different sides of the same coin. They share that tragic flaw. Like they both have that inability to see what is right in front of them and the inability to live in the present. You know, Chelsea is so much dealing with an idealized version of Rick based on what she thinks she can do if she saves him, if she gets to that point, if she pulls him out of the darkness. But this dude continues to give her just about nothing. Like that's the plan is the most non committal commitment you could possibly get.
- [33:24]
Joanna Robinson
And she like tears up and I know, like chin wobbles. She's like, this is the most passionate and romantic thing you've ever said to me. I was. I was wrong all season. I was rooting for Rick and Chelsea and I was wrong all season. And I will happily admit.
- [33:37]
Rob Mahoney
Reflect on the unceremonious end of your favorite couple, Joe.
- [33:43]
Joanna Robinson
No. Okay. But I thought this season was about reflection.
- [33:47]
Rob Mahoney
What happened to that?
- [33:48]
Joanna Robinson
I'm good. Thank you so much for asking. But I think that. I think it's fascinating for Mike White to talk about their end and talk about this hopeful nature to this end, because in his view, what this episode is giving us is an indication that there is like, that their love will transcend this tragedy and that if it doesn't work out for them in this lifetime, it will work out for them in the next. And I'm just not sure that. Again, I think you made a really good point earlier talking about the opportunities inside of a show as artistic as White Lotus for visual storytelling. So if there's something like visual that's met you know, and there's, like, shots of the Rick looking up at the sky. And maybe that is supposed to indicate something to us. And. And that's fine. I enjoy a Terrence Malick film. But, like. Like, I don't know that I think Mike really landed the plane in terms of, like. And their love transcends the. The physical death that they've experienced here. Maybe the way that they're laid out in the pond. But I don't know. I think I would have. Yeah. I don't know. It didn't. It didn't quite work for me. Do you want a big. Let's. Let's. Big picture. Talk about the cynicism. I. I started talking about this last night with Bill and Mallory, this idea of, like, it felt like an extremely cynical season overall.
- [35:15]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [35:15]
Joanna Robinson
And then I sort of talked myself out of it thinking, like, the other seasons were also cynical. But I really agree. Like, I think this is just like an extra degree of. Yeah. Just like, almost a romantic. Like, there is no love story in here worth pulling for at all. And I. And that's fine. I mean, whatever at the end of the day. But, like, I. I don't know if, like, Mike White. Mike. Mike White, who creates all these characters as prisms of himself. He's talked about this many, many times over the years that he's just sort of like every character. White Lotus is me to some degree. And. And this is my favorite thing about what I do is I just sort of refract my own experiences across all of these characters. But I'm just. I'm just curious.
- [36:04]
Rob Mahoney
This.
- [36:05]
Joanna Robinson
You know, and this is. This is. He is well entitled to this in his life. But if my. If Mike White is in a more cynical space now than he was when he made seasons one and two, that's entirely possible. And so we are getting the reflection of maybe someone who is a different place in their life than they were when they wrote different versions of these seasons. He talked about this as a very, like, heady season, a very parable forward season. And then perhaps season four, and we'll talk about season four in a little bit. Like, will be a bit of a return to form. He seems a little rattled by some of the reaction, it feels like, to the season. But what do you want to say about the cynical nature of White Lotus Season 3?
- [36:47]
Rob Mahoney
I think there's kind of two parts of it, and the first one is just the overall story that Mike White is telling with season three, which, as we said, is ending in a level of death and an Upped body count that is just totally different and a level of tragedy that's totally different from previous seasons. It's one thing to show people who are trapped in loveless marriages, stuck in difficult situations, trying to figure out how their means and their values can coexist and where they need to compromise in order to have all those things at once. All of that. Very fair game for White Lotus. And to be fair, anywhere Mike White wants to take White Lotus is fair game. I just think that this is a quite cynical turn. As far as you're not wrong that the romance has kind of been sapped off the screen here and. And I would say take it even step further to say the most romantic characters are Chelsea, who is dead in the water, and Guytok, who is on a violent path he never wanted to be on in the first place and basically starting to live a life completely outside himself. Like, this is a pretty bleak way to end. And I think killing Chelsea, as opposed to the characters we've seen die in previous seasons and killing Rick, for that matter. Not just Chelsea, but core, kind of splashy cast members of White Lotus. This opens up the sort of anything can happen nature that I think is catnip for TV viewers, but is also like kind of a cynical play in itself.
- [38:06]
Joanna Robinson
I want to go back to the guy talk thing because this is. This is between listening to Mike White's interview. I think the big takeaway a lot of people had was like the Zion on Piper thing. For me, it was like the record scratch moment was when he was talking about guy talk, because for me, that was my interpretation was the one thing about the finale that really, really worked for me. And Mike White's like, that's not how I see it. It's like, oh, no, Right. Okay, so guy talk kills Rick, gets the girl, gets the job, gets is. Is embracing Mook and seems quite happy to be embracing Mook. That was clear.
- [38:43]
Rob Mahoney
That's what he wanted.
- [38:44]
Joanna Robinson
But when he gets in the car, there was something about his face that. That I misinterpreted, I guess, as a sort of end of the graduate, what have I done sort of face. Mike White thinks guy talk is happy. And he said things like, in order to get ahead, you have to suck up your idealism. You have to shove people down the stairs. Like, this seems like something. A hard lesson that Mike White has learned in his life that you have to, like, stop, put a pillow on the face of your inner guy talk and just, you know, become a Hollinger guard. And that's. That's how you get ahead in life. And he's like, you know, Mike White said, we as an audience know what was lost, but that Guy Talk is fine. And I was like, well, okay, there goes the one ending that I thought I really like, understood and felt like I. I knew what the show was trying to do with it. And that is the most cynical thing to me, that Mike White's like, guy talk, sacrifice his own ideals, and that's a good thing at the end of the day. And I'm like, what are we talking about? That. That was astonishing to me, so.
- [39:50]
Rob Mahoney
It's such an odd way to put it.
- [39:51]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, I was. I was really bummed out by that, frankly.
- [39:55]
Rob Mahoney
I think ultimately, like, he's not wrong to say that in order to quote, unquote, get ahead, you do have to swallow that idealism. Right. Like, you do have to make compromises of yourself. I think where we might disagree is where that leaves you at the end of the day and where that leaves a character like Guy Talk in particular, who we should say got this job because the last two guys who did it just got shot. And Guy Talk is somebody who does not want to pull the trigger, does not want to participate in this kind of violence, if anything, had one foot out the door and was trying to quit. So he wouldn't have to deal with anything even remotely like this before. And yet, because he's presented with an opportunity that could bring him and Mook closer together now, at the end of the day, which is what he's wanted all along, he jumps at the chance. And, yeah, of course he wants to be with Mook, but he doesn't want any of this other stuff, at least based on what we've been told all season long.
- [40:39]
Joanna Robinson
What do you make of the general consensus, this idea that Belinda is the new Tanya?
- [40:47]
Rob Mahoney
Before we go to Belinda.
- [40:49]
Joanna Robinson
Sure.
- [40:49]
Rob Mahoney
Can we. Can we talk about Mook for one second?
- [40:51]
Joanna Robinson
No. Yes, of course.
- [40:53]
Rob Mahoney
Well, fair enough, as usual. Well, I think she and Guy Talk suffer from a similar problem, which is those characters are just not very fleshed out over the course of the season. Guy Talk has a little bit more to do. Mook is mostly there to be an object of affection and desire. And, yes, she has some agency. She has some stuff. She wants mainly for Guy Talk to be more ambitious or for whoever she ends up with to be an ambitious sort of guy. That's all. Fair. Totally fine. I was left wondering how much the casting might have impacted that character, if at all. Because, like, Lisa playing Mook.
- [41:28]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [41:28]
Rob Mahoney
Who.
- [41:29]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, that's a good point.
- [41:30]
Rob Mahoney
If you're. If you're not familiar with K pop in that world, she might just be like an interchangeable celebrity, but it's like there are different kinds of fame involved here, and there's. There's a level of fame where there are guardrails all over the place as far as how K pop stars specifically can act in public, including if they're acting on a show like White Lotus. And so if you can't do anything, let's say. Let's just say hypothetically that she can't be on screen doing anything too risque or too adult or too complex or too polarizing. What can you do with a character like that on White Lotus other than, frankly, where Mook ended up?
- [42:04]
Joanna Robinson
That's fascinating. I hadn't thought about it that way.
- [42:06]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah. And maybe that's giving it all too much credit. And maybe Mook is just a badly drawn character or a poor or a, you know, a rough outline.
- [42:13]
Joanna Robinson
Thinly drawn.
- [42:14]
Rob Mahoney
Thinly, for sure.
- [42:15]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's talk about Belinda. What do you want to say? I, like, I. I was pushing back a bit on this. Belinda is the new Tanya thing. I understand that that's the parallel that they're drawing here. I think it's definitely there. I just don't think it's as clean as she did exactly to Pornchai as was done to her. I just think the situ. The circumstances are so different between those two characters. And again, I don't. I don't want to, like, dwell on this Mike White interview, but it's just sort of like. I found it very peculiar that he basically said that a reason that he put Belinda on this path this season was because people had critiqued him for putting a woman of color in this horrible position in season one. And that, you know, he has talked sort of throughout his work on White Lotus about the whiteness of the characters or, you know, how people of color are treated inside of these spaces and all this sort of stuff like that. He basically. Basically reading between the lines, he basically said people were mad that I didn't treat this black woman well. So I gave her an ending where she got a lot of money. Are you happy now? Like, was sort of my. My takeaway from what Mike White said, and maybe I'm misunderstanding what he said. And on the one hand, we love it when a TV creator, like, listens to people when they talk about. Give feedback on, you know, what it means to a certain demographic or to how we digest story as a whole. When Certain characters are put in certain situations. It just felt like a very. He felt he sounded sort of weary when he was talking about it. He's like, well, people seem mad about this. So I think I fixed it. Did I fix it? And it was just like. That was bizarre to me. I kind of liked the Melinda story a lot this season. Like, her ending, specifically this season. I like that she made this choice. I like that it was a complicated choice for her. I like that. Okay, if. If Gaitok wasn't upset when he drove away in the car with Sitala, she was upset on the boat with Zion as she's waving goodbye. So, like, this is a, this is a moment of conflict for her and I. And I liked leaving her there. More upset than any of the Ratliffs seem. More upset than certainly any of the fancy scenes.
- [44:35]
Rob Mahoney
So Zion is not that upset either. A body just floated by him and he's, like, cheesing up here.
- [44:40]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, I've decided, and I didn't say this last night, but I've decided that Zion is who I wanted. Nouveau riche Z, Season four of White Lotus. Give it to me. That's what I want.
- [44:52]
Rob Mahoney
I am open to it from the perspective of, you gotta get him in episode one and you have to establish this guy as a character because breezing in and being like, oh, by the way, I'm an NBA in the finale, I did not particularly enjoy. There's just a lot of contrivance to him being here at the end, kind of being the little, like. I guess if you want to take Belinda's decision from a moral standpoint, he's a little bit of the devil on her shoulder, saying, take the money, take the money, take the money, take the money. This is your opportunity. Don't let good things happen to good people. Even though this maybe isn't a good thing to sweep a murder under the rug. Don't have to talk about that part. I didn't know what to make of his character because he's so charming and it's a very funny presence on screen, but I don't know why he's doing anything he's doing. And it came out of nowhere. And nothing he's doing means anything to me. Because of the state of the season.
- [45:39]
Joanna Robinson
He came in, I would have happily had him here all season. Like, I don't see any reason why not to hold back on him other than, like, to introduce him at the beginning as, like, our POV character, then just not have him for a while. But I, I, I feel like I kind of get. Okay, first of all, something I didn't mention last night that I want to make sure I mentioned is, like, inside of his sales pitch, he just casually drops Langston Hughes, dream deferred. That was just, like, one of the funniest things that I've ever seen on screen. I thought it was so good. But I think that, like. I think this idea that, like, why the not all these other people, like, Tim Ratliff is doing absolute bullshit stuff for his money, and Greg, Gary has literally murdered a lady and he seems fine. Why don't we get some of this? And that all just seems like it worked for. I don't know. That really worked for me. But I agree with you. I would have happily had Zion there all season. I thought he was great. And if Zion's there all season, then a Piper Zion hookup at the end of the season could actually work if they were interacting all season long and leading up to that, like, I could see that happening.
- [46:51]
Rob Mahoney
But, yeah, his perspective is not a problem for me. It's just the way and the timing of when he was thrust into the season and then expected to do all of this stuff in the finale in terms of carrying these negotiations and representing Belinda and, like, leave while us businessmen talk. Like, there's all these elements of it that are just like, I don't know.
- [47:08]
Joanna Robinson
That was so funny.
- [47:09]
Rob Mahoney
Like, some of the stuff is very funny and very charming and I'm enjoying watching it. It's just like, from a character perspective, I don't really get it. That said, I love, as you say, the kind of complicated endpoint we put Belinda in, in which, you know, she's been ruing all season. Like, can't one thing go right for me? And at the end of the day, she sells out what she thinks is right for a big old bag of money and fair enough, but is left with the premise, like, that she now has kind of said goodbye to an uncomplicated life in a lot of ways. Like, she's gonna be looking over her shoulder in some manner for a long time. But. But she is the one person at the White Lotus who seems to understand if you do some suspect shit, you gotta get out of town as humanly possible.
- [47:49]
Joanna Robinson
Get out. You do a crime at a White Lotus, you leave a White Lotus. That's. That's the. That's the move.
- [47:56]
Rob Mahoney
What is. What is Rick doing? Just go to the buffet. Like, nothing. Like, you didn't hold a gun to the owner of the hotel.
- [48:01]
Joanna Robinson
This is so aggravating. I was like, too dumb to live. I just, like, couldn't. I couldn't handle it. I think Natasha Rothwell as Belinda this season. Like, I really like the way her story ended. And I think, as with everything, it all just felt a bit drawn out until the end. And so. So, like, bring in Nicholas Duvernay as Zion at the beginning of the season. Let them be interacting with each other. Let them. Their relationship be a bit more complicated. Let. Let us understand that because they have this, like, perfect buddy, buddy cop, like, you know, mother, son relationship. Like, where's the conflict and the drama inside of their relationship and make that something for Belinda to do while she develops this romance with this guy. And then she makes this decision at the end of the season or just give her a few us fewer episodes. But I just. I do like where it landed. I like. I like this decision from Linda. I like the decision that she made. This feels like the most White Lotus thing to me is like, someone compromises their morality, they get a serious financial windfall and a less, as you say, a more complicated life going forward.
- [49:16]
Rob Mahoney
We did get an email from Daniel, who I thought had a great suggestion, which was that, you know what? This random dude who's supposed to be off the grid suddenly putting $5 million into someone's bank account is going to get flagged all over the place. This could be like, a real problem once the authorities start sniffing around. What Belinda should have done, Daniel said, was Shark tank this shit and sell Greg Gehry a stake in her future spa. Some arbitrary percentage for the $5 million to make it look more legit. I gotta say, I think there's some merit there. I think they maybe should have thought this through. I think NBA Zion should have been on top of it, and he frankly fell asleep at the wheel.
- [49:53]
Joanna Robinson
Okay. We're just. U of H is taking hits all over the place because really, it's the negotiation.
- [49:58]
Rob Mahoney
It's the Mallory Rubin school of negotiation that Z graduated from, if we're all being honest about it.
- [50:03]
Joanna Robinson
Courtney, our listener Courtney said all wire transfers over $10,000 have to be reported by the bank to the IRS. I imagine they're gonna have a lot of questions about how this hotel spa worker just got 5 million dumped into her account. I guess U of H didn't teach the importance of setting up offshore accounts when doing business with international fugitives. So, yeah, we have a few. A few financial questions.
- [50:24]
Rob Mahoney
Counterpoint. Do laws matter? I don't know.
- [50:27]
Joanna Robinson
Great question. Okay, we have some season four stuff to talk about, but we haven't talked about. I don't know what you think about Kate and Jacqueline and Laurie. Where are you with that?
- [50:39]
Rob Mahoney
I think Laurie's speech is my favorite moment of the finale. I think it's really beautiful. I think it's amazingly written. And if we're just comparing apples to apples to oranges, to grapefruits, to pomelos, to whatever fruit we have on the white lotus table dragon fruit, I'm sure it's, you know, it's a tropical situation. I think it's probably my favorite, like, monologue moment. Like, I actually prefer this to Sam Rockwell's big ordeal. I thought this was just really powerful and just connected with me on a really emotional level. Right. This idea of time spent transcending everything else, that when you know people and you invest in a life together over time, that even as I'm growing and you're growing, that there's this, like, tether that is holding us together is, I think, a really poignant idea, and I'm really glad Laurie delivered it. I don't know how we got there, but we got there. And so it's yet another one of these plot lines where it's like, I like the Jacqueline Laurie scene, kind of waking her up and sort of half apologizing in the morning, but they don't really get to have the conversation. I like the scene that we get of Laurie seeing her friends at the pool taking selfies without her. And there's clearly a lot weighing on her in that moment. Yada, yada, yada, Big, emotional speech. And so it's like, what happened in the yada, yada, yada. I don't really know.
- [51:53]
Joanna Robinson
I, I, I think that's perfect encapsulation of how I feel about it. And I think I've been thinking more and more about it, about this idea of, like, time. Not just like, time we're still here, but time. And you and I were talking about this a little bit because, like, we were talking about, you know, you are friends with your childhood friends. And I've got, like, you know, there's, like, people like my sister have known me my whole life. Like, the people who have known you.
- [52:15]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [52:16]
Joanna Robinson
Your whole life know you in a way that no one else could know you. And there's the negative of that in terms of what Carrie Coon has talked about all season. In terms of your decisions, the choices that you've made are are shown in, in sharp contrast to choices that other people have made who have been on the same the same path as you or a Similar path as you, but there's also this aspect of, like, you almost get to know and see yourself in a more full way when you're around those people who have known you your whole life. Yeah. And those people are so valuable, not just for people like me who can't remember how Rob pronounce, mispronounce his gift, but, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But, like, you know, just. Just the fullness of you as a person. And so when you start to lose those people as you get older and all this other stuff like that, those people get rarer and rarer around you. Like, Laurie and Jacqueline and Kate might be people who don't have their parents in their lives anymore, necessarily, perhaps, you know, and so, like, the people who have known you that amount of time, that pool gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and so how important those relationships are to you. I agree. I think Laurie's speech, Carrie Coons delivery of it, is my favorite monologue of the season. Is it my favorite White Lotus monologue maybe?
- [53:35]
Rob Mahoney
Actually, very good.
- [53:37]
Joanna Robinson
The Sam Rockwell thing. Like, the. You know, the more the season goes on, the more I'm just sort of like, it was showy and fun, but, like, at the end of the day, do I really feel like it deeply illuminated the season in a way that I would be missing if I didn't have it? I don't know that that's the case, you know?
- [53:57]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I think that's very much in there. But you get Sam Rockwell to deliver that moment because he can hold you in that monologue in a way that not a lot of actors can. And you get Carrie Coon for this moment. Like, this is kind of what we've been waiting for. Not just a big emotional outburst, which she can do so well, but selling the, like, the inner conflict of how she's felt on this whole trip, this whole journey she's been on, like, emotionally trying to rectify the person she's been with, the person she's trying to be, and kind of who these three women are in each other's lives and all these things. Like, this is why you get Carrie Coon on your show. The other reason you get Carrie Coon on your show is cause she is a fucking athlete, Joe. The. The dead sprint that she puts on after Jim Hollinger gets shot.
- [54:41]
Joanna Robinson
Oh.
- [54:42]
Rob Mahoney
Oh, my God. We. We needed Carrie Coon in Paris. Well, U.S. track and field. Like, we got to get a baton in this woman's hands. We got to get her on the track.
- [54:52]
Joanna Robinson
We did get some emails from listeners who are like, so much for the bonds between those three women because Laurie's just like, bye.
- [55:01]
Rob Mahoney
Very force majeure in that way. Like, I am out. Survival instincts are kicking in.
- [55:07]
Joanna Robinson
Oh, my God. Force majeure is such a white lotus coated.
- [55:10]
Rob Mahoney
Oh, very much so.
- [55:11]
Joanna Robinson
Okay. Speaking of, we were talking about cold lotus, this idea of white lotus taking place in a snowy locale in season four. But what Mike White has said in this, you know, the official podcast interview and around to the various trades is he actually is contemplating doing something like either a film festival or an art festival because he says he wants to get back to his roots of something he really, really understands, which. Like making fun of like celebrity and art criticism.
- [55:40]
Rob Mahoney
Yes, that.
- [55:41]
Joanna Robinson
That is something that's on his mind. So you. There are not many. I mean, Sundance, I guess, aside, like film festivals that take place in. In usually if you're film festing in Toronto.
- [55:56]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah. What year is Tiff or what time of year is tiff? I don't know.
- [55:59]
Joanna Robinson
It's in the fall. It's like not super cold when, when fallen.
- [56:04]
Rob Mahoney
Toronto is pretty cold as far as I'm concerned.
- [56:06]
Joanna Robinson
But like, but you. But like, I feel like it's only Sundance where you see extremely famous people in like, their parkas and stuff like that. You don't see that at TIFF necessarily, but, you know, a Telluride or a Can or a Venice, we're looking at sort of sunny, you know, water adjacent sort of situations. And he has also said, I think in a few places that maybe he wants to go just go back to Europe up. So. Yeah. Are we going to get like a Can esque? I don't know how different that will look from season two necessarily, but I, I think that could be really fun. And you know, he's like, I want to, I want something to do something that's like, maybe less heady and more just sort of like sharp satire of a world that I'm intimately familiar with. And like, this was like an attempt to sort of wrap his arms around a big concept in a world that was like slightly off the beaten path of his own experience. And there are many ways in which it was successful and some ways in which it didn't work for us. And I understand his impulse to be like, well, maybe I'll just like, let's just do a layup season. Let's just say, like, really, I get it and I can do it really easily.
- [57:16]
Rob Mahoney
I've done a lot of reading about Buddhism lately. Like, can I just draw from something a little more familiar to My actual lived experience.
- [57:23]
Joanna Robinson
So Nicholas Duvernay as Zion, who is like, maybe decided to become a movie producer with his money, like a high powered agent with.
- [57:32]
Rob Mahoney
Negotiate those contracts.
- [57:33]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, I don't know. I can see it. I think he would roll out some incredible fits and we would all have a great time. So that's my. That's my pitch for who the cast carryover should be. Who would you want to see in a, like, film festival. Yeah, Art festival version of White Lotus.
- [57:51]
Rob Mahoney
See, this is where it sucks that we've already used Patrick Schwarzenegger, you know, like, rolling out Patrick Schwarzenegger as, again, some version of his actual self, as he in many ways is in this season, I think would be delicious in that context. And I would be excited about even more given what we saw from him performance wise this season. Like, the smoldering, wounded look over the shoulder that he gives Chelsea and Rick on the beach I think is very impressive. Like, you know, actors can hurt themselves doing stuff like that. You know, that's a real moment bit.
- [58:21]
Joanna Robinson
You really read me when you pointed out that Saxon is exactly the kind of the archetype that I tend to enjoy in a show. Thank you so much for that, R.A. mahoney.
- [58:31]
Rob Mahoney
I see you, Joe. I just want to acknowledge you and everything, all of your many interests, that's all.
- [58:36]
Joanna Robinson
Thanks. Thanks. They're pretty narrow. Okay. Anything else you want to say about White Lotus before we go?
- [58:44]
Rob Mahoney
One final note on the pina colada first. Or two, I guess. Two notes on the pina colada front one. Tim Ratliff, don't do this to the pina colada. A wonderful beverage that you have weaponized against your own family, that you have debased with poison. How dare you, sir? I just. I think it's completely uncalled for. You want to put a gun in your hands, you want to kill your family through other means, that's your business. I am not terribly concerned about it. I found a pina colada delightful, and I'm not sure I'm never gonna be able to look at one the same way ever again.
- [59:16]
Joanna Robinson
Leave the pineapples and the coconut out of it.
- [59:18]
Rob Mahoney
Yes, completely. And along those lines, this is among the incredible production value of White Lotus, which. This just looks better than most things on tv. It's better acted and better performed, as we said, than most things on tv. The direction overall, I think is superlative. The score fucking rules every single episode. The score is immaculate. And, oh, I'm seeing a little tension in that. Joe, did you not appreciate the score of this season.
- [59:43]
Joanna Robinson
No, of course I agree. But did you see the drama from the show's composer?
- [59:48]
Rob Mahoney
I know there is some drama and that the composer is leaving the show, but I don't know the source of that drama. Would you like to fill me in?
- [59:54]
Joanna Robinson
No, no, no. Just that, yeah, just like, I don't know, Disagreement. No, my only face was like, you're like, the score is the best. And I'm like, and he's leaving.
- [60:03]
Rob Mahoney
Well, the score is the best and maybe you shouldn't let that composer leave. That seems like a bad idea. In particular, on the pina colada front, my favorite bit of score all season is the vocalizing blender as Tim Radliff is cooking up the pina colada, which is just like this weird, gasping vocalizing sound as the Vitamix whirs. It just really did it for me. I got it.
- [60:24]
Joanna Robinson
Do you want to give us an impression of it?
- [60:27]
Rob Mahoney
Not for free. I'm only a session musician, Joe. You got to get me in the studio. I have many requirements for the green room and we just don't meet them on this podcast.
- [60:35]
Joanna Robinson
I'm sorry, Rob said. Fuck you. Pay me. All right. That has been my genuinely, like, slightly brain dead coverage of the White Lotus finale. Things for bearing with a standing ovation.
- [60:48]
Rob Mahoney
For Joanna Robinson, please. Double White Lotus pods. Not just period, but within, I don't know, 12 hours.
- [60:54]
Joanna Robinson
Basically everything's great and all the takes were good and she didn't mess up anything. Thank you to Rob Mahoney, who is a pure delight always to work with. Thank you to Donnie Beacham, who is up late on a Monday doing this recording for us. Thanks to Justin Sales for managing everything and always. That's it, Rob. I'll see you soon for Mushroom Zombies.
- [61:21]
Rob Mahoney
Can't wait.
- [61:21]
Joanna Robinson
Any teasers you want to give the folks for, like, your last of us hype?
- [61:26]
Rob Mahoney
You thought this shit was bleak? Come on. White Lotus season, season three is child's play in the relative bleakness of the universe. We're going to go so much darker. We're going to go into the real pits of despair. So come along with us.
- [61:41]
Joanna Robinson
Child's Play starring pit star Brad Duraf.
- [61:45]
Rob Mahoney
So please also stop emailing us about that.
- [61:48]
Joanna Robinson
Please join us for the pit finale later this week. Y'all are the best. We'll see you soon. Bye.