The White Lotus (HBO) TV Show • Page 53

he went on a bender for the entirety of the trip then almost committed mass murder / suicide and only after stopping short nearly killed his youngest son by neglect anyways. there's no way he had time to sober up from those drugs and it's definitely not a positive ending...

 

I had a lot of issues but Rick being capable with a gun is not one of them.

 

Ambiguity is often good, but it’s hard not to read it as a crutch when so much of what we actually did see involved the biggest logical leaps in three seasons.

 

i wanted the white family to die

 

If he shot two and a half hours, he should’ve simply made another episode.

this was my favorite season until the finale

 

I thought 90% of the finale was excellent. Great tension. Obviously making the audience go "who's going to be the one"...don't mind the choice of who dies...and yes I would have liked another 20minutes... but hey a great season in my opinion.

I love shows that make characters morally ambiguous too. Belinda becoming what she hates. I did that stuff

 

This makes sense bc it feels like there’s an episode missing so they squeezed whatever they could for the finale. Kind of wish HBO would’ve just given them a longer season then.

 

i don't think a longer season would have helped considering we had multiple episodes in the middle where nothing happened

 

I know it’s not the format of the show, but moving a good portion of the finale into last week’s episode and giving time for a true denouement would have worked a lot better for me. (Still would have had the problem of the Rick storyline ending so sloppily, but still.)

 

Yea... the RT scores from the audience on all 3 seasons are relatively low and I think the slow pace is an issue for a lot of people so slowing it down even further wouldn't have worked.

I am going to read interviews and probably listen to the podcast. I feel like this is going to a case where knowing what Mike Whites vision was, and what he intended but perhaps didn't quite nail, will make it a little better. No doubt there's symbolism and particularities that went over my head a little.

 

for me i go 2 > 3 > 1

I love this cast and the thailand scenery but it does feel like in the end a lot of the characters needed an extra beat or 2 to bring it all home. I'm satisfied overall with the season, with some reservations

 

I think the finale made me retroactively strongly dislike this season. Some storylines had the most tepid climaxes and others went from 0 to 100 in their insane and melodramatic conclusions, and all of them sort of simmered for 5 episodes with hints of something more interesting at play. Learning how sorta vapid and dumb Mike White is also kinda lowered my trust that there’s a real strong vision behind each group of characters’ story so much as kinda random musings that might not come from the best place to critique or satirize those themes. I think they paced the first two seasons a bit better and that minimized the issues that went on full display this season. Bummed! But Carrie Coon is still the HBO GOAT.

 

Kind of hilarious that we had to spend six episodes watching Tim Ratliff mope around in a benzo fugue state waiting for a major bomb to drop on his family, only to never see the bomb drop and have the payoff be Tim saying family is all that matters ~12hrs after he tried to Jonestown them all

 

Maybe already stated in here but I saw a funny Reddit post about how, after all the killings and chaos, everyone leaves happy at their scheduled time and employees are all there waving on the beach at the witnesses as they go back to their own country.

 

I can see being disappointed with the conclusion of the Ratliff storyline, in the sense that I think Lochlan actually dying would've been a solid ending. Seeing Tim go through the agony all season made sense to me and towards the end i was laughing? Especially when Piper reveals even she can't live being poor.

I thought they were gonna do the cliche that when they get their phones back Tim finds out everything got sorted and he won't get in trouble (I'm happy they didn't do that but that was my guess). The Ratliff family needed ONE more scene though i agree

 

This was my one critique. I'm one of 2? People here that liked the entire season and finale, but yeah there's definitely a much needed scene or two between the shootings and everyone on the boat leaving.

Belinda now knows this is the 3rd time there was a death at white lotus.... you'd think Parker Posey would have had some sort of off beat comment about Thailand being dangerous after all or something.

 

Yeah Walton Goggins can be the next James Bond if you ask me

 

Only if Sam Rockwell plays Bonds’ weapons supplier/quasi-sober kink-fiend friend.

 

Sam Rockwell was definitely the highlight of the season for me. Every minute he was on screen was fantastic.

 

The season finale took a very strong season to an endpoint that was made for the type of person that though the line "I would've voted for Obama a third time" in Get Out was an endorsement of the character. I couldn't think of a more uninteresting way to end it.

Vibes were great and the shots were amazing though as always.

 

Strong agree. That’s why I think it kind of ruined the season for me. The White Lotus only really works (IMO) if it’s a genuine critique/satire of these people and these lifestyles and not a celebration of them. The cruelty towards the staff and locals hits different when you imagine the creator/writers adding it in because knocking those people down is fun TV.

 

agree with this for sure. thought it was a pretty boring 1st episode, but as it went by i found myself much more drawn in to the characters. great cast, dug the ending too but echo the sentiment as others that another 20 mins or so would have fleshed it out a bit more. liked this much more than the second season

 

on board with the criticisms but I don’t know if I understand either of these points. What would have needed to change to fix your problems?

 

It’s a problem with the DNA of the creation of the show. A fixed version would have had different characters and storylines and I can’t write those in a post off the top of my head. I can only say that this concept in a different creator’s hands, one who is actually committed to satirizing these character types, would be a better execution of what White Lotus seemed to mostly be for 2 seasons.

It’s like a show about police corruption and you slowly realize over 3 seasons that the creator is actually pretty pro/lassez faire about law enforcement corruption and just thought it’d be fun/sleazy/entertaining to depict people being harassed and brutalized by police. Even if some good satire or critique incidentally occurred, you’d look back and question everything once you saw the attitudes of the people behind the show and the show itself got sloppy and just became an all-out power fantasy.

I give the actors props though. Almost across the board in all seasons, everyone was doing a great job and bringing the better parts of the show through their performance work.