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- [00:00]
Gia Tolentino
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- [00:42]
Amylou Wood
But you know, I was never too worried because Amor Fatty. Do you know what that means?
- [00:50]
Josh Bearman
I don't know what that means.
- [00:52]
Amylou Wood
It means you have to embrace your fate. Good or bad, whatever will be, will be. And at this point, we're linked. So if a bad thing happens to you, it happens to me. I think we're going to be together forever. Don't you?
- [01:19]
Gia Tolentino
Hello and welcome to the White Lotus official podcast, companion to season three. I'm Gia Tolentino.
- [01:26]
Josh Bearman
And I'm Josh Berriman.
- [01:27]
Gia Tolentino
And welcome to the Last Hurrah, the bonus episode for our season three companion podcast. We'll be talking to Amylou Wood later on, but first, like, we're just going to be talking about the big things of this season. What the fuck was this all about?
- [01:45]
Josh Bearman
My big question actually is like, are these seasons each about something different or are they all about sort of some version of the same thing? We started off early on talking about my whole kind of like my special private thesis about season one, which is that it wasn't about wealth or money or privilege, that it was actually this story that essentially explored Buddhist ideas of suffering and happiness. And then of course, now that's the explicit exploration here.
- [02:12]
Gia Tolentino
It's interesting because people, I think people will have said, everyone liked to be like, first season is about money. Second season's about sex. Third season, it's about spirituality. It's about life and death. But all of these things are the same idea to me. Like, does that make sense to you? Like, it's like the condition of being human is to live in a state of identity and desire. And these are the things that cause you to self imprison. These are the things that cause your suffering. The things that we desire tend to be money and sex, right? So it's like, it's the same. It's always gonna be the same mess of themes to me. I mean, there's an aesthetic tilt towards one thing over the other. Like, season two is so, like, hot Sicilian. It's a very bodily season, et cetera. And this, there's lots of eternal return. There's a lot of bouncing droplets. There's, you know, there's a lot of. You don't know what time it is of the day because it's this golden Thailand, hazy.
- [03:06]
Josh Bearman
It's always magic hour.
- [03:07]
Gia Tolentino
It's always magic hour. It's 10am it's magic hour. 3pm Magic hour. Middle of the night, somehow still magic hour. But you know what I mean? Like, I think your theory is correct, and I think it's also. Yeah, I think it's every single story. And I think that there's no real difference between the prison of identity and the prison of desire for money. The prison of desire for sex that you can't have or even sex that you can like. It feels like the same exact question to me.
- [03:32]
Josh Bearman
Yeah, well, I was thinking about your response to kind of the Buddhist treatise about season one. You're like, well, all stories are in some way about needs, but I think what's actually different in this case, the point is, in fact, that all those needs are irrelevant. Because if the whole idea is, like, laying down this kind of Buddhist foundation for the story, it's like everything else that everybody is saying is basically irrelevant. And only what's relevant is how you look past all those needs and sort of discover something. Because in a traditional storytelling, you'd have the need set something into motion, and then the plot gets resolved. And then, as we see now in season three, the resolution of season three entails this kind of overture, with the monk saying the attempt for resolution is also causing you suffering. So what if there is no resolution? Right. And what if the story doesn't need to be resolved? And it doesn't. And you don't need to have anxiety seeking resolution all the time.
- [04:28]
Gia Tolentino
Right.
- [04:28]
Josh Bearman
And season two, it does feel, like pretty distinct because it is this bedroom forest where it's about how to actually manage your needs in daily life with the transformation of the sexual politics of the foursome. And there's sort of like a trade of insight and wisdom in that process. And so in that case, those characters are learning how to manage their selves and their identity in their daily life, whereas season one and three were about sort of escaping the needs of your daily life.
- [04:55]
Gia Tolentino
Yeah. I think that one of the things that this season is asking overtly and that the other seasons were not is like, do you have a soul? Do you have, like, simply, do you have a soul? Which of these characters has a soul? What would remain of you if your life changed drastically? Like, what is there actually to you underneath? And that to me, it's like Lachlan is the one kind of with the claim on it because he's the one that is not clinging to a belief structure yet and he's the one that kind of has an intact soul almost as a result. You know, like, there's something where, like I was gonna ask you which of these characters belief systems sort of stands the test of this week at the White Lotus? You know, like, I think kind of Chelsea's kind of does. Chelsea is a wackadoo. Like, hey, reading this book about how we're all sorted into groups one through 12 and if we're in, you know, and we're both in group seven and so that means we're something to each other. But she's right. Like Chelsea has a belief in something beyond the visible and given. And it's extremely open ended one. It's one that does not seek to establish or control anything. It's just her entire belief system is that there's something beyond this and there's something we can do with that and that I think she's kind of probably objectively correct in that she's kind of vindicated. And the other ones that I think like their belief systems, like there are ones that obviously don't, like most of the ratliffs, their whole belief system is going down the tubes.
- [06:37]
Josh Bearman
Although Laughlin basically develops a belief system along the way that, I mean, he's the one that almost intuits the message when he says to Saxon, what if life is just a test to see if you can become a better person?
- [06:50]
Gia Tolentino
Yeah, right. And again, it's a belief system that does not, it doesn't seek to establish a redeemer of. Like, this is how you should be, this is how you shouldn't. Like Lachlan is like, it's the motion of it. So it's Lachlan and it's Chelsea and I think it's Laurie too. You know, like, I think what she says at dinner is really nice. It's like, then I realize that perhaps the meaning is just simply that I have existed and so have you.
- [07:15]
Josh Bearman
Yeah. It's interesting also because then, I mean, I would say we don't know where Saxon's belief system is gonna wind up, but he's now sort of primed to have a belief system. And of course he is who Lachlan is reacting against when he's trying to Impress on him his idea of alpha male manhood and dominance, all of which we now suspect that's actually not his true identity. And I want Saxon to come back because I want to see what that actual. Where his belief system takes him. Yeah, but yeah, Chelsea, strong belief system that permeates the whole show. I would say.
- [08:01]
Gia Tolentino
There'S something in here about whose sense of self is capacious enough to accommodate multiplicity. Like the people whose sense of self and sense of identity fails are the ones who understand their identity to be one of. It's the most rigid ones. Right. It's like Victoria, it's like probably Jacqueline and Kate, you know, that their sense of self and identity is just very firmly in a bounded check marked good, admirable, visible, you know, and that is me. And everything else is folded into that narrative. And the people whose senses of self don't trap them, but ground them and free them or whatever, are the people, it seems to me, whose senses of self are firm insofar as they are open ended, perhaps all the way to Frank, who seems to be able to accommodate a 45 hour crack binge or whatever. And he's just like, yeah, I'm in my underwear stabbing this mannequin and tomorrow I'll be doing my ablutions at the temple or whatever.
- [09:03]
Josh Bearman
Frank is like, he's achieved some kind of super satori state of like, I exist at all identities simultaneously. I'm a kaleidoscopic identity. I'm all these different ones in my weird role play and in life. And so he's completely. He snaps back to being at peace and instantaneously, which, I mean, we're kind of joking, but also because that was such a bombshell and almost probably the weirdest thing that anybody will see on TV. Yeah, 100% this year. But also quite profound. Right? Shockingly, surprisingly profound too. And then where he winds up, even though he's a side character, I think is quite meaningful.
- [09:42]
Gia Tolentino
You kind of get the impression with Frank, you know, who's like, okay, here's my meth and my knife and shift 5 of hookers from nightclub downstairs or whatever. And the next day I'll be back at the temple. I don't know if this is my personal projection onto this character, but I.
- [10:04]
Josh Bearman
You're like, I get it.
- [10:06]
Gia Tolentino
Yeah, I do get it. Do you know what I mean? Well, I don't think that Frank experiences anything as inherently better than the other. I think he probably understands sobriety as something that is a necessary structure for his life to be clear about himself. And his flaws and the danger zones. But I don't think he's beating himself up at the temple the next day as he's bowing. I think he's just like, wow, the great wheel of life contains multitudes. And that was me, and this is me, and I'm a terrible person, and I am a transcended person.
- [10:39]
Josh Bearman
Right. I like how we've decided that Frank is the most enlightened being in the entire season.
- [10:45]
Gia Tolentino
He is under zero illusions about who he is. You know, like, he is not bullshitting himself. He's scrubbed out all of his bullshit. And I don't know, there's something to be said for that. Like, there's obviously a hard limit to where self knowledge will get you morally, but within the framework of the people we've been presented with this season, there is, like, a profound freedom he has and this absolute self knowledge of his failures and his freedoms, kind of.
- [11:12]
Josh Bearman
Yeah.
- [11:20]
Gia Tolentino
There's something interesting about how Piper and Saxon almost switch places. Like, it's like there's a symmetry in the way that they begin the season. And Saxon is like, I'm American Psycho. I'm a man of the world. I'm about money. I'm about conquest. I'm about sex. Piper is like, I'm wearing a white nightgown. I have pure thoughts. I transcend my position. Like, I merely wish to be a beautiful flower floating on the wind, directing my thoughts towards peace or whatever. And then by the end, Piper is like, hmm, Like, I'm gonna text my girlfriends and set up cocktail night or whatever, you know, it's like, perhaps she.
- [11:58]
Josh Bearman
Comes back down to Earth. She floats back down gently.
- [12:01]
Gia Tolentino
Yeah, she floats back down to Earth. She's like, okay, what if actually, I just stay rich and volunteer biweekly? And perhaps that's like the version of life that I. And Saxon is like, what if everything I've ever believed is wrong and I need to find love and a soul? And that's fascinating. They switch.
- [12:29]
Josh Bearman
I feel like the other. This is more subtle, but the other character who escapes the prison, as it were, is Laurie. And then, by extension, she offers some of that to Kate and Jacqueline by virtue of her little speech that resets their whole relationship. At the beginning, we realize that she's the unhappy one. They're on the Victory tour, but she's unhappy. And then at the end, though, she has some kind of. We don't actually even see it. It's funny. It's interesting, because it's like her big epiphany comes from having gone to the fights out of frustration, fooling around with Alexei, climbing out the window, running sort of walk of shame with her ass hanging out. And then she just wakes up the next morning with a whole new thought, which is like, in fact, none of this matters. None of what we're saying matters. All of our frustrations don't matter. Whatever my failures are, all my beliefs, nothing did anything for me other than time. The things that happen, that unfold in our lives together make us who we are. There's no sort of overarching thing. It's its own sort of like Zen meditative kind of mode of thinking. And then she just kind of lays that on everybody. And it's like a magic. It's like a spell, Right. She makes an incantation, and their whole. Their lives together are completely changed. Yeah.
- [13:48]
Gia Tolentino
I think. I mean, really specifically within the dynamic of female friendship that these ladies have been playing out this entire season. It's extremely important that the way she does that is by instantly unlatching them from mandatory happiness, which is the main thing that has caused all of the characters to deceive themselves. The sort of layered, mirrored, reflecting self consciousness and self righteousness kind of builds into this nuclear arms race of just perpetual escalation of like, no, I'm happy and I've done it right. And this is actually what I've always hated about you or whatever. There are lots of different versions of the life you, but you've chosen very specifically, some relationship to the things that Laurie says she's placed her religion in. Right. In work, in love, in motherhood, in their beauty. They have chosen a particular relationship and they have to defend that to themselves as the correct one and objectively the correct one or something, and that it has made them happy. There's this way in which that, like, completely false structure of thinking becomes almost ingrained as a natural mandatory one for women, particularly when you approach or hit that age. And the incantation that she utters is like, but what if I didn't have to pretend that I did it right or that I was happy? And then suddenly they are all actually happy. And she says, and I'm just happy to be sitting at this table.
- [15:11]
Amylou Wood
I'm glad you have a beautiful face, and I'm glad that you have a beautiful, beautiful life.
- [15:19]
Josh Bearman
And I'm just happy to be at.
- [15:21]
Gia Tolentino
The table that I found really, really well written, that that's the magic spell, her just being like, yeah, I'm actually unhappy, but I'm really glad to be here.
- [15:31]
Josh Bearman
Yeah.
- [15:32]
Gia Tolentino
And I guess the thing that it Unlocks in them isn't. It's not happiness as they can figure it. It's not happiness as they can figure it at the beginning, which is something that's visible that you can photograph, that you can prove. Like, I think it's the kind of happiness that comes from being at peace and honest. But to me, I'm like, that actually is what I think of as means. And I do think they are there.
- [15:51]
Josh Bearman
It's an internal happiness. I mean, it's like they don't, as you say, that was a nice way of putting it. Like the mandatory happiness that's expected in general in life and sort of like comparatively in social circles and so on. When somebody really opens up to you, suddenly, it's like, I've been unhappy. There's a real chance that one of your friends will recoil and never speak to you again. People sometimes don't want to be around that. And so for them to be able to accept that, in fact they might all have their different unhappinesses and they don't have to be on a victory tour and they can sit there together is very nice. And there's this additional kind of layer of what you're saying, maybe in that what she says, what she attributes it to, is time. And so for women in middle age, where also part of their self doubt is like the pending invisibility of older womanhood. And time is your foe. Right. In that case. But then she's like, no, maybe time is actually the gift that we've been given and we have now time, you know, under our belt. And that's what allows us to be able to sit here with whatever our emotions are and have that happiness be internal. Youth is wasted on the young.
- [16:59]
Gia Tolentino
It's the most.
- [17:00]
Josh Bearman
The pithiest statement about all of the human condition.
- [17:06]
Gia Tolentino
Rick and Chelsea, it's not. We were really sad watching it. Like, it's.
- [17:09]
Josh Bearman
That's not what I want for them. It's not what I want in my mind.
- [17:13]
Amylou Wood
How can I get over everything he's taken from me?
- [17:16]
Josh Bearman
He took my whole fucking life.
- [17:21]
Amylou Wood
Stop worrying about the love you didn't get. Think about the love you have. I love you. I'm right here.
- [17:33]
Gia Tolentino
It's no consolation that they die together. It really does not mean anything. In actuality, they should have just continued to move on from the place that they were in at the dinner when he was like, okay, we're gonna be together forever. Like, Chelsea was right about what would happen to them. But she ends her life in utter horror at what her Beloved is doing to himself and thus to her. Like, she ends the show knowing that the snake is out of the cage and coming for her calf and she's gonna actually die this time or whatever. And we hate that for them.
- [18:10]
Josh Bearman
Yeah. I think it's also maybe a little kind of tragic that she's face down in the water, he's face up. He gets a little bit of a sort of like, beatific moment there. But should they have been together? Would it be, like, too obvious and super weird or just kind of like the human version of like those sea otters that float together like holding hands at the Monterey Bay Aquarium?
- [18:28]
Gia Tolentino
Yeah, except dead. Yeah, except, like fully dead. Except bleeding out. Yeah. Chelsea is too pure, and she couldn't last in this world.
- [18:35]
Josh Bearman
I wonder now. So let's say that they are together in the next life, as she says. But she was in the final moments of this life, confused and annoyed. Like, what's Rick doing? So is it going to be like in the next life they'll be in Beetlejuice? Well, she'll be like, what were you thinking? She'd be haranguing him when they're in the waiting room to get to go be turtles or whatever. She's going to be like, come on, dude. We were just. Why did we even come back?
- [18:59]
Gia Tolentino
And he'll be like, I know, I know.
- [19:00]
Josh Bearman
We shouldn't have even been at breakfast.
- [19:05]
Gia Tolentino
Do you think, Mooka, what do you think about guy talk?
- [19:08]
Josh Bearman
Well, she's happy.
- [19:10]
Gia Tolentino
She's happy.
- [19:10]
Josh Bearman
Yeah. I got my guy. Yeah. He's making his way up the ranks. He's got his shades on. But you see that he has succeeded but now has to live with himself as a person he didn't want to be for the rest of his life. So he did not get a happy ending. He's actually. He's created a new kind of prison of identity for himself.
- [19:30]
Gia Tolentino
Yeah. And when he's 55, he will remember the guy talk of yor that didn't believe in violence that hadn't yet taken so many people out. And he'll. And he'll look at his beautiful wife and think, God damn it.
- [19:42]
Josh Bearman
Yeah, I did it all for you.
- [19:45]
Gia Tolentino
Well, it's funny. Like, he experiences his evolution into cosmopolitan bodyguard and successful killer as a compromise and a degradation of some truth about him.
- [20:07]
Josh Bearman
I would definitely say that in general, the season is positing a philosophical statement about the gap between identity is a projection of what you think you're supposed to be. But who are you actually? What are your values? And you are Your deeds and your values, basically, all the things that people think you are or you think you are. Like, I'm a successful lawyer, or I'm this, or I'm a mother, or I'm an Asian woman who wants to get railed by a series of men from the Internet. That's actually what's so profound about Frank's insane monologue is because he has closed the gap on himself and ideas about projected identity. And there's like, he's, as you just pointed out, he is completely at peace and at home with that, and he has no internal friction about who he is. And he knows. Exactly. And he's unafraid to even say it. Right. There's no fear of who he is, whereas everybody else has some fear. Right. And so then it's a question of to what degree do people overcome the fears about their identity? To what degree do they even heave that identity overboard and kind of start anew, like Saxon?
- [21:22]
Gia Tolentino
I think there's also, if I were to try to posit what this season thought, some teleological idea to aspire towards is. It's like the people that also make it out are the people that understand themselves to be works in progress. Like, constantly failing works in progress. But it's like, you know, Frank does, certainly Chelsea does, certainly Laurie does. Right. And like Lachlan now, like, he says it explicitly, like, maybe it's just a test to see if you can become a better person day by day, year by year, whatever it is. White Lotus trip to White Lotus Trip. And I think there's. I don't know, like, I do think that that stands up. And the belief system that very clearly fails you in every possible way, narratively, spiritually, emotionally, in terms of your various happy endings is like, you know, you know, and you've got it, and you're good. Every single person that thinks that will fail.
- [22:17]
Josh Bearman
Yeah. The idea of, like, your identity is not any of the things that you think it is. When all of our characters enter the White Lotus for the week. Right. They would list all the things that actually are not who you are.
- [22:28]
Gia Tolentino
Right. It's your instincts. It's your instincts about, like, I don't know. Yeah. Like, fixity and change or trying.
- [22:34]
Josh Bearman
Yeah. And now we get to talk to Amylou Wood. Welcome, Amylou Wood, to the bonus episode of the White Lotus Official Podcast.
- [22:53]
Amylou Wood
Hi.
- [22:54]
Josh Bearman
Hello. Nice to see you.
- [22:56]
Amylou Wood
It feels like my funeral.
- [22:59]
Josh Bearman
Well, I mean, in a way, it is.
- [23:02]
Amylou Wood
It is.
- [23:07]
Josh Bearman
So we're hearing this after the finale has aired. Do you know what happens? Can I spoil it for you.
- [23:12]
Amylou Wood
I do know what happens. I do know what happens. However, I remember on the call sheet for that day, Mike did put fake things on the shooting schedule so that if any. Anyone in the hotel, for example, found some of our paper trail. Yeah. Then they would think that it was a different ending. So he actually put on the schedule that it was. It said, belinda dies. And so anyone who leaked it would have been leaking the wrong thing.
- [23:47]
Josh Bearman
Oh, wow.
- [23:47]
Amylou Wood
Which I thought was very smart.
- [23:49]
Josh Bearman
Ooh. For a season four, he should shoot, like, multiple endings, like the Clue movie.
- [23:53]
Amylou Wood
Well, then I started going, what if this is a double. What if this is a kind of Russian doll vibe and he's actually given the false ending and that's the real ending. So I sort of mean, like, that would be so Mike, that actually this is the. This is the real ending and that we've been under false pretense, like, the whole time.
- [24:13]
Josh Bearman
That would be characteristically diabolical for Mike.
- [24:15]
Amylou Wood
It would. Exactly. Exactly.
- [24:17]
Josh Bearman
Well, at what point did you find out? So obviously, this is. You're talking about the final, you know, shooting day. I don't know if you shot this on the last day, but when did you find out that you were gonna be one of the bodies?
- [24:28]
Amylou Wood
So when I did my call back for when I met Mike for the first time, we did this scene. I did the scene where Chelsea says to Rick, I think we're gonna be together forever, don't you? And he says, that's the plan. Or whatever. He says. And Chelsea's like, is it? We did that. And I kind of sensed, like, when I read that scene, I thought, oh, my God, it's them, it's them, it's them. And then Mike said to me at the end of that callback, he essentially said, I feel like you were picking up on the fact that maybe these two have the tragic ending, and they do. And he told me in the callback. And that's when I thought, oh, my God, if I haven't got that part.
- [25:16]
Josh Bearman
You must be in.
- [25:17]
Amylou Wood
I have. And then I thought, I didn't want to be cocky, but I was like, I feel like he wouldn't have told me that if I didn't get the part. But. So I knew. But I didn't know, obviously, how it got there in the story until the scripts got sent. And I was really surprised that, you know, they sent all the scripts. We got all eight episodes, and we could read them all from the beginning of shooting. I thought they would do a kind of, you know, two at A time vibe or something. But no, we got all eight in our inbox. And the pressure of that, the responsibility of that. When I got that email and it was all eight episodes, I was all of a sudden so scared of hacking. I was like, someone's gonna find them and it's gonna be me and it's gonna be. This is from Amy Wood's account. And we've got all the information because it's so, you know, important to people. And people don't want the story to be spoiled. And they don't want, you know, they want that. They think they do. Like on the street, people will think they'll be like, just tell me, just tell me, just tell me. Like, I've been getting it so much this week where they're like, just tell me, is it you? Is it you? And I'm like, please, guys, seriously, you don't wanna know. Because for this instant gratification right now, you're gonna ruin. You've been invested for eight weeks, you're gonna ruin it for yourselves. Just don't push me. But now I'm so ready for everyone to know. And I'm so ready for it to just be. Cause that is. I said, you know, I got told that secret at 29 years old. I'm now 31.
- [26:46]
Josh Bearman
My God.
- [26:47]
Amylou Wood
I have been holding the secret.
- [26:48]
Josh Bearman
The spycraft involved.
- [26:50]
Amylou Wood
Yeah, exactly. I have felt like a full blown spy.
- [26:53]
Josh Bearman
And I think you're living a double life.
- [26:55]
Amylou Wood
I know it feels like that. And also, it's so secret's corrupt. I know you're only as sick as your secrets. You know, it's like a. It's a relief that it's coming out. And I also think that it's odd. It's an odd thing to know that you're the sacrificial lamb. Especially when there's people coming over being like, you know, as long as it's you that doesn't die, as long as it's not Chelsea, I don't mind who it is, as long as it's not Chelsea. And I'm like, I can live my life.
- [27:26]
Josh Bearman
If Chelsea lives, she must go on.
- [27:29]
Amylou Wood
People coming over and just saying that. And I'm trying not to move my mouth or move my face in any way. And they're like, it's just. It's been a lot of pressure. Yeah. Yeah.
- [27:38]
Josh Bearman
Well, to that point, I mean, there's that kind of nice little kind of small soliloquy. And Chelsea says, like, well, I'm Hope and he's Darkness. And one of Us will win. It's a battle. But then darkness won. And I was sad about that. That made me genuinely sad.
- [27:55]
Amylou Wood
I know. And the thing is that Mike is. Cause as I've said a lot, you know, he. I think people think he's probably quite cynical as a person, because his writing is so searing and so scathing and so acerbic. But he is an optimist. He is so playful. He is so mischievous. He's so. Like Chelsea. And I would watch him on set, you know, running about, and his laugh just floating through the wind. That, like, majestic laugh. And you just feel so great when you hear Mike laughing. And it's. He's joy. He's very joyful. And I saw a lot of Chelsea. Obviously, he's in all the characters. It's the White Lotus. But it's like, you know, I saw so much Chelsea, and then I thought. And of course. Of course you're gonna kill Hope, Mike. It's like you're gonna give the show this warm, kind of, you know, optimistic person for kind of the first time, in a way, like someone that purely optimistic and that purely, you know, romantic. And you're gonna. Of course. Of course. Of course you have to kill her. Of course Mike White has to kill her. Of course he has to kill Hope because it's like, he can allow it to be in the show, but then he also has to be like, but it's still the White Lotus. It's still the White Lotus. And I think it is tragic, but I think in a really kind of macabre way, she does get what she wants.
- [29:28]
Josh Bearman
Ooh. So that's my. Okay, so that was one of my questions, because I was wondering, like, oh, well, wait, did I have it, like, misunderstood? Was Rick a lost cause and she should have left? Right? That was one of my questions. And I wonder if you contemplated that.
- [29:44]
Amylou Wood
Well, I think that Chelsea, you know, I had such Chelsea goggles on the whole time, so I was just in her. In that frame of mind of, this is my soulmate. This is cosmic. This is. I had to believe what Chelsea was saying and not really analyze it too much and just be. And then as time's gone on and I've separated from her, I've been able to see it in a more kind of complex way and a more objective way. And I'm going, you know, she is incredible at deflecting. So she's saying, one finger pointing, three pointing back. The whole time, she's like, rick, you're so mysterious. You're so secretive. You're so this. You're so. That. She is. She is so mysterious. And I think that she said, you know, it's that kind of. He's the avoidant one, right? She's avoidant in her own way, because she knows that pouring all of her energy into this tunnel vision mission of saving Rick means that she doesn't have to look at herself, she doesn't have to be seen. So, you know, she wants to be the seer. She doesn't want to be the seen. And I think that's what, you know, that is avoidant in her own way, but it's more. And actually, Rick and Chelsea are very similar in the sense that they both think that they're choiceless. So, like, Rick is like, I don't have a choice here. I have to do this. I have to seek revenge because that man decided my life for me. He decided my fate for me. And I. And now it's written. It's determined. Since I was a baby, this has been determined. This was what was gonna happen. And Chelsea's like, but you don't have to buy into that. You can just be here with me. But at the same time, she's going, this is determined. It's written. I have no choice. Rick is my soulmate. I have to be with him. There's nothing I can do about it. So both of them have, like, a very stubborn kind of commitment to this idea of fate and determinism and the fact that it's all written and that they don't really have choice. They don't have free will. And I think that's kind of Saxon and Chelsea. So interesting, because I feel like on the bed when, you know, I think it's such a great image that she throws the books about spirituality at him to block him. You know, that's her block. It's very clever because she's speaking about something that seems very vulnerable and intimate, but it's actually what she uses to not be seen. You know, she's all these external things like horoscopes and enneagrams and zodiac and books about things, but don't actually look at me for two. Don't see into. You know, it's intimacy intu me see, as my teacher used to say. And she doesn't. She wants to be the one looking out at Rick. Tunnel vision. She doesn't really want much of that.
- [32:25]
Josh Bearman
Reciprocal. Right.
- [32:27]
Amylou Wood
And I think she thinks she does, but I don't know if she would truly know how to hold that. I think that there's something she's running away from something in the same way that Rick is. And that's where they're very similar to.
- [32:42]
Josh Bearman
That point, I think. Also it's interesting because the moment with Saxon, I had sort of thought like, well, she could see where that there is a possibility here, but then is afraid of it because of just loyalty to Rick. But your sort of emotional explanation is interesting that she was not even sure that she would know how to sort of enter into what Saxon is ready for. And that's this kind of strange irony that Saxon is suddenly now they're ready to receive her message and Rick isn't. And so they could have had like, in some way her, her light and energy might have found more fertile ground with Saxon.
- [33:19]
Amylou Wood
Well, look at the way that he takes everything she says on pretty much immediately. He's like, I can be better. I can change. I can do that. And she's like, well, you should then. And he's like, okay, show me. Like, it is the antithesis. It's like he's there going, show me, tell me. Teach me your ways. Let me have it. Let me have it. And she's kind of like, doesn't want to give it. Like, she's kind of like, oh, okay, no. And then, you know, so I think it is. I think it's highly, you know, these, these attachment styles that everyone talks about. Anxious, attached, anxious, avoidant, all this stuff. Anxious attached is also avoidant because a lot of anxious, attached people go for avoidant people so that they don't have to have true intimacy. They have a mission. They have a, you know, Chelsea's got a rescue complex. She has got. She wants to rescue. And if he's okay, then she can't do that. So, you know, she is lovely and it is annoying and sad when Rick's mean to her, but she is choosing. She does have choice and she is choosing him and she is choosing that. And I think that that's where she doesn't understand that she's choosing, you know, in the way that she says to Rick, no, you are choosing to pursue this revenge. You are choosing to mess up your life. You are self sabotaging. This is a choice. This is not destiny. Stop. She can't apply the same rules to herself. She's like, but you're myself. They're the same. They're both blocked in their own ways. And they've both got tunnel vision in their own ways. And this is the kind of, you know, it's where they are kindred spirits because they are both. They both have this grim determination and this death drive. I think it's this scorpionic death drive that they have. You know, Chelsea says it from the beginning. She says, I will bring your joy back, even if it kills me. She says it the whole. It's like bad things come in threes. Da, da, da, da. She's obsessed with. She's always. Like, her proximity to death is. Oh, it's there all the time. She's constantly talking about it. She's constantly. And I think that when you see her on the boat with Chloe and she says, why is it all about him? Why is it all about his feelings? Bad things have happened to me too. And you don't see me walking around feeling sorry for myself. I think that's one of the most truthful moments you ever get of Chelsea, is cause she's present. She's with Chloe. She's not thinking about Rick. She's not. She's all of a sudden actually reveals something very true about herself. And it's a very rare moment for her. And I think that that's what she's scared of. When she stops focusing on him, these feelings come up and whatever her past is comes up. And so she's created this incredible distraction from her own stuff, which is Rick. I think she is tricking herself into thinking she can save him. But actually she's like, if he's going down, I'm going down with him. Peace out, everyone. We're out of here. We're birds of a feather. We're. You know. And I think that she's romanticized that. And I think that it is the whole Bonnie and Clyde of it all. It's Butch Cassidy and the sunlight. It's Thelma and Louise. It's like she's. I think she's actually quite game for that. I think she is, you know, very impulsive and purely about passion and feeling. And I think that there's a part of her that knows in her gut that it could end badly. And there's an almost quite scary fearlessness about that, because at least she'll then get. You know, she says, we'll be together forever. Let's stay in Thailand. You know, she is a mystic. And that was a lot of Mike's direction was like, Chelsea's weirdly calm. Like, she's weirdly calm about this quite. This thing that she's saying. She's almost, you know, resolute in a quite haunting way, because it's someone who's so full of life, but with such a. She's got such Life force, but such a death drive at the same time. It's. Both of them are really go in hell for leather.
- [37:32]
Josh Bearman
Yeah. And this frees her from having to make any choices as well. Right. She doesn't have to. She does not have to go live the complicated life that would have emerged with Saxon after they had some. After she initiated him into the spiritual path with some tantric sex.
- [37:46]
Amylou Wood
Yeah.
- [37:47]
Gia Tolentino
Yeah.
- [37:47]
Amylou Wood
You know, that is being truly vulnerable and having true intimacy is terrifying. It's terrifying. And we all do a lot of acrobatics to avoid that. Emotional, mental acrobatics to get away from that. And we convince ourselves that we're not doing that, but we are a lot of the time, because love and loss are. They go hand in hand. And if you're truly, truly letting someone in, the loss, the feelings of the potential loss, you can't avoid it. It's like grief is the admission fee you pay for love. It's all that stuff. So it's like, you know, if she loves him and she's not getting much back, there's something about this, you know, destined tragedy that makes her feel in control of the tragedy rather than what could arise with someone who.
- [38:42]
Josh Bearman
Which is fluid and unknown and uncertain.
- [38:44]
Amylou Wood
Exactly. There's a certainty that I think she craves. And Rick, weirdly, his lack of certainty about her gives her certainty. So if someone's certain about her, she then has to be uncertain. So it's like she's taking up the quota for certainty. And it's what Esther Perel says, you split the ambivalence. Couples do this one person takes up the, I have no doubt about this relationship end of the spectrum. And the other one takes. I'm not sure I have all the doubt. And the truth is both of them are in the middle somewhere. But we split the ambivalence. And Rick and Chelsea have done that. The truth is that Rick is probably like, I quite love this girl. And I actually kind of think she's great. And Chelsea's probably like, I love him, but he drives me mad. Right. But they've taken the. She's like, I'm 100%. You're my soulmate. And he's like, no, you're not. And so it's so tragic that the moment that they do actually meet in the middle, they only get that middle ground for a night.
- [39:44]
Josh Bearman
One second. Yeah.
- [39:45]
Amylou Wood
It's like one night only. And they're right there with each other. They're right in the middle, which we've seen little bits of their intimate scenes where they can be physically together, but you just get that glimmering moment and then Mike just takes it away.
- [40:00]
Josh Bearman
Oh, I've learned something thinking about the character from this conversation. So thanks so much.
- [40:04]
Amylou Wood
Oh, I'm so glad. Thanks, Josh. I really want to speak about this for hours. It's such a relief to be able to talk about it with someone I know.
- [40:12]
Josh Bearman
Right, Right.
- [40:13]
Amylou Wood
Yeah.
- [40:15]
Josh Bearman
Well, thanks so much.
- [40:17]
Amylou Wood
Thank you so much.
- [40:20]
Gia Tolentino
Thank you so much, Amy, for coming on the show. And thank you to everyone who's listening for coming along with me and Josh on this journey. And now we've come to an end.
- [40:30]
Josh Bearman
Oh, I know. It's so sad.
- [40:31]
Gia Tolentino
It is really sad. I'm sad the season is over.
- [40:34]
Josh Bearman
It's been fun to watch the episodes, watch them together, and then like, run right into the studio and record. We convinced our producer that this is the greatest season by virtue of our incredible analysis.
- [40:44]
Gia Tolentino
Thank you to everyone that has listened to us. Yap and yap and yap.
- [40:49]
Josh Bearman
Thank you for joining us.
- [40:51]
Gia Tolentino
Goodbye. The White Lotus Podcast is a production of HBO and Campside Media. This episode was hosted by Gia Tolentino and Josh Bearman. Natalia Winkelman is the managing producer. Our associate producers are Allison Haney, Anthony Pacillo and Aaliyah Papes. At Campside Media are executive producers Josh Dean, sound design and mix by Bart Warshaw at Cocoon Audio for the HBO podcast team, our executive producers Michael Gluckstadt, senior producer Allison Cohen Sirocach and producer Kenya Reyes. We'd also like to extend additional thank yous to the HBO concept and design team Lynn Kim, Brett Kraus, Tom Haskert, Marta Dwart Diaz, Nicholas Park, Kendall Thomas and Eden McDevitt from HBO Legal, Daniel Nmet Nejat, Nina Festa and Ariel Moge and Erin Tresco and Kelly Sheets from hbo. The official White Lotus Podcast is sponsored by Abercrombie and Fitch. Every five star getaway needs a five star wardrobe, preferably without the drama. Abercrombie and Fitch's long weekend collection has you covered. Discover versatile Mila dresses, classic skirts and the refined A and F Collins suit. Easily styled for dressier laid back looks. Perfect for any moment on your itinerary. Your vacation starts now. Use Lotus 15 to get an extra 15% off almost everything at checkout code. Valid in the US and Canada through April 13th. Exclusions apply C site for details. Pack wisely with Abercrombie and Fitch.