The White Lotus answers who’s in the box with a status quo-affirming season finale
Satire can be both a mirror and a mask, and The White Lotus has used it both ways.
TV Reviews The White Lotus
Well, our six-week-long cosplay as Detective David Mills is over. Did we all assume Rachel Patton was the body being loaded onto the leaving plane? The White Lotus has certainly leaned into that suggestion, with Alexandra Daddario’s sad eyes and Shane Patton’s trigger temper. But “Departures” doesn’t go the depressingly predictable husband-kills-wife route. Instead, it goes another similarly depressing, similarly predictable route: A rich guy kills a guy with less money, zero social connections, and no family name to hide behind, and no one bats an eye. “Crash and burn,” Armond had said, and he does—and does anyone care?
Police detectives shake Shane Patton’s hand. The White Lotus resort keeps on running. Another man puts on a pink suit like the one Armand used to wear, stands alongside Belinda and Dillon, and readies a smile and wave to greet the next boat of guests. The Mossbachers leave Hawaii, and Tanya leaves Hawaii, and the Pattons leave Hawaii. And the body that used to hold Armond—Tennyson quoter, mad pooper—is unceremoniously loaded into the back of a plane to go back to wherever he came from. A man dies, and most everything stays the same.
“We are world eaters,” another Brad Pitt character said in another Brad Pitt movie, and the voracious human appetites he was critiquing destroy lives on Earth, too. Armond bled out in an architectural bathtub in a White Lotus suite he could never afford to stay in on his salary. Belinda has her dreams of helping people just like Tanya crushed by Tanya herself as she chases another man to another place. Kai, encouraged by Paula to steal Nicole Mossbacher’s jewelry to try and battle the resort that stole his family’s land, ends up caught and arrested—and, probably, on his way to prison.
The details of these altercations won’t matter to most of the guests in a few days’, a few weeks’, or a few months’ time; everything we do is subjective, and the guests will spin these stories as they please. Like how Mark and Nicole described their altercation with Kai as an over-the-top saga of life and death, Shane will probably tell people about how he valiantly protected Rachel (even though she was in another room) from a deranged resort employee who had it out for him from the beginning. Tanya will speak glowingly of the woman who helped her at the White Lotus, but maybe she’ll eventually forget Belinda’s name—she’s been to a lot of wellness centers, after all, and they’ll probably all blur together after a while. And certainly the Mossbachers, and newly reinstated daughter Olivia, will talk about the vacation that brought them back together and punctured the lingering guilt, regret, and anger from Mark’s affair. What will Nicole buy Mark with her own money to commemorate his heroic moment as Superman in a scuba suit? Maybe the Mossbachers will end up a boat family after all!
The only person I can see truly regretting her actions during this trip to Hawaii is Paula, and even then, I’m not entirely convinced. Kai would have never thought of stealing from a guest if not for her, and now he’s at least fired, at most incarcerated. Did Paula think she was helping to facilitate something courageous and just and good? Yes, I absolutely think so, and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I empathize with that desire. But Kai’s life is ruined anyway, and Paula—although she confronts Olivia about being just like her parents, and although the blocking of that final dinner pits the two young women against each other, with Paula assessing Olivia’s joking and joshing with her parents—still lets herself be held by Olivia, be consoled by Olivia, be folded back into the fold by Olivia. Is she a hypocrite? A sympathetic one, but yes. And ultimately, like the Mossbachers, Tanya, and the Pattons, Paula leaves Hawaii. She gets to leave, and whatever laments she may have, she goes back to her college and her real life—and she throws away the memory of Kai by dropping his gifted necklace in the ocean, Rose Dawson style. At least she was honest with Kai in that way. But that honesty isn’t very much of a consolation for Kai, is it?
Satire can be both a mirror and a mask, and The White Lotus has used it both ways. First, in the season’s early episodes, as a reflection of the absurdity of “This vacation will heal me and reset me and make me whole” expectations, and the privilege that enables them. Mark and all his “humans are monkeys” stuff, Tanya and her hunt for new treatments, Shane and his obsession with getting the Pineapple Suite he “deserves.” But in last week’s “The Lotus-Eaters” and this week’s finale “Departures,” the show’s use of dark humor has functioned far more as a mask. Sure, Mark’s defense of imperialism and colonialism is laughingly out of touch. Yes, Shane and Kitty’s smug dinner conversation judging how other rich people made their money is Succession levels of toxic. And truly, Jennifer Coolidge’s line deliveries are a triumph in straddling the line between fragility and detestability.
Overall, though, “Departures”—and The White Lotus overall—are tragedies. The line between tragedy and comedy is very thin, and here we are on the other side of it. We may use laughter as a defense mechanism, but it’s to soothe the reality of what most of us don’t have. We don’t have second and third and fourth chances at finding inner peace. We don’t have $75,000 bracelets. We don’t have families who bankroll our extravagant weddings and honeymoons at suites that cost thousands of dollars a night. More of us are like Armond or Belinda or Kai or Dillon or the guy with the khaki face. We have dreams that are never going to come true, and we have a very limited ceiling against which our ambition butts up against. That’s not to say that Tanya is an entirely bad person, or Armond was an entirely good person. But it is to say that some people get to start over, and some people don’t, and at the end of the day, a lot of that is determined by whether you serve people or whether you are served by people. “Everything sucks at home. It’s all dead. I want to live,” Quinn says before he runs away, and yes, there’s some youthful naivete in that—but there’s bravery, too.
“Departures” begins with Quinn, who is once again invited by the Hot Canoeists to join their crew. “Don’t keep us waiting, you fucker!” they yell, and so Quinn hops back on—but he’s only one of the few resort guests having a good morning. While Mossbacher parents Nicole and Mark are having sex for the first time in forever, Olivia calls out Paula on her lying, Rachel looks positively horrified by Shane’s pawing and cuddling, and Tanya begins to worry about Greg’s omnipresent cough. And two very monumental altercations take place: Natalie and Mark tell Shane about their encounter with the jewelry thief, hyping him up and giving him me-against-the-world syndrome, while Rachel flees to the resort spa, where Belinda offers her support for whatever she’s going through. “It’s just my marriage, you know, whatever,” Rachel says through her endless tears, and when Belinda offers her a business card with her cellphone number on it—clearly hedging her bets given Tanya’s sudden disinterest—Rachel takes it.
It’s the last day of vacation for the guests, and minute by minute, things are getting more intense. In a reversal of the Mossbacher children’s alliances, Olivia chastises Paula for the heist scheme and aligns herself with her parents (I guess Olivia is a lot more like father Mark than she though, and redistributing the wealth was only an acceptable ideology for Olivia when it didn’t affect her wealth!), while Quinn spars with his family after announcing that he wants to stay in Hawaii and join the canoeing team for a hōkūleʻa expedition through Polynesia. Shane uses the jewel-thief news as inspiration for Tough Guy cosplay (“I just wish I had a gun, or like a baseball bat at least”), while Rachel finally admits to Shane that she thinks she made a mistake in marrying him. I can understand people who think Rachel is acting foolish now given that she willingly married into the Pattons, but I also think that Daddario is doing great work here as someone whose sense of self is shattered and who doesn’t quite understand her own reactions as they occur. That little pause Daddario adds between “getting married” and “to you”? It’s perfectly countered by the acidity of Jake Lacy’s “Now we are starting down a very dark road. And you better be sure you really want to go there.”
Armond certainly does once he learns that he’s about to get fired because of Shane’s myriad complaints. “I don’t care,” Armond says numerous, numerous times, and he gets impressively high on the last of Olivia and Paula’s stash (“They exploit me, I exploit you… Fuck this place!”) before deciding, on what seems like a whim, to waltz into the Pattons’ suite and leave Shane a parting gift. Do we ever need defecation shots in profile? We do not. But this scene was fascinating to me because of how accurately it captured the contrasting levels at which Armond and Shane are playing this game against each other. Armond is irritated by Shane, and he thinks he’s an asshole, but he doesn’t break into the room to steal anything, or to attack him, or to otherwise threaten him bodily or monetarily. Armond simply poops in Shane’s suitcase. It’s gross, but also? It’s kind of harmless.
Shane, though? Shane, as he has during this entire vacation, sees himself as a victim at all times. People have been coming at him his whole life, remember? Women have always been chasing him, as Kitty says, and other people have always been intimated by him, right? Shane’s wealth has convinced him for a long time that he’s special, and that he should be untouchable. And so this situation goes from darkly humorous to irreversibly dangerous so quickly; once Armond bumps into the wall while trying to peek around the corner to see where Shane is, he’s doomed. “There’s a violent criminal running around the hotel,” Shane had told Rachel, but that person ends up being himself. He assumes that whoever is in his suite is so dangerous and so threatening that he needs the pineapple knife. He attacks first. And when he stabs Armond in the chest, we don’t hear him immediately call 911. We hear him apologize, but not offer help. Instead, it sounds like Shane leaves—flees, really—because he can.
The freedom of mobility for a certain kind of person is all over “Departures.” Tanya uses Belinda’s teachings against her when she says “The last thing I need in my life is another transactional relationship. It’s not healthy for me,” effectively catapulting Belinda’s dream. Tanya had complained about men throwing her away after they got what they want, but here she is, casting Belinda aside as soon as Greg, nicely but essentially shruggingly, agrees to keep the party going. And although I want to throw kudos to Belinda for refusing to be a shoulder for Rachel to cry on, what that choice also means is that Belinda is giving up on something more than the White Lotus. She will stand there and smile for the incoming guests, just like the new person who slides into Kai’s spot blowing the conch at the performance for dinner guests, and just like the new person who slides into Armond’s spot running the resort. And while Belinda is stuck, it’s Rachel, although she acquiesces to this awful marriage to Shane—much like, it seems, Mark did by staying in his collapsing marriage to Nicole—who has the power to join him at the airport, to get on the plane to Tahiti, to give into a life of ease and access and wealth. “When I’m with you, I just feel weirdly alone,” Rachel had said, but there she is, promising to be happy while her eyes shine with tears. No, life might not be easy. But it’s certainly easier when you’re rich.
“This is your tribe: your family, the people here,” Paula said to Olivia in their final fight, and The White Lotus ends mostly quite cynically, doesn’t it? I discussed in a previous recap how much this season has been obsessed with the cynical nature of familial identity, and sure enough, The White Lotus concludes with most everyone assuming their rightful place. When it really mattered, Olivia abandoned her alleged rebellious ideals. Tanya acted like her romance-obsessed mother. Shane, and now Rachel, embrace the Pattons’ “money, money, money” ideology. “Something bad did happen,” Paula said about what she did to Kai, but that wasn’t the only devastation she and the other guests left in their wake. The status quo remains the status quo with the lone exception of Quinn, who dives headfirst into the unknown. Recall the boat from the series’ opening credits: The battle against the wave is overwhelming, and it is endless. Good luck, Quinn.
Stray observations
- “Bubba, you wanna get some breaky?” might be the most loathsome line uttered in all of The White Lotus, but then I remember the phrase “cool chick.” How dare you, Mike White?
- The “very pretty man” who Tanya rejects is Austin Stowell, from The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Not a teenager anymore! (I’m sorry.)
- Kudos to the show’s editing team for that cut between the pristine underwater world while Mark and Quinn were scuba diving and Paula throwing up above them on the boat.
- Do we really think the Mossbachers wouldn’t just come back to Hawaii and drag Quinn home?
- The Hot Canoeists never get character names, but they are played by actors Brad Kalilimoku, Shea Lokahi Timothy Fabiana, Nathan Feitos, Imani McNorton, and Denton Kukahiko.
- Sydney Sweeney is an excellent accusatory squinter. A real mind blower to realize she was the hospitalized Alice on Sharp Objects.
- Natasha Rothwell’s many “So help me” eyerolls and blank stares were similarly exceptional.
- Speaking of Belinda: She didn’t leave Tanya’s envelope stuffed with money in the spa foyer drawer, did she? Take it home!
- The final books of the season: Paula reading Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism and Olivia reading Jacques Lacan’s Écrits.
- While Armond is tripping out, we cut to a shot of the Hawaiian wilderness, with a swing hanging from a tree and a bridge in the distance. Did we get any context for what that place was? Was it what Kai’s familial land looked like before the resort was built? Was it the island from Tennyson’s “The Lotos-eaters” poem, which Armand imagined after quoting the poem last week? Or was this explained as something else entirely and I just missed it?
- That shot of Connie Britton’s hair blowing in the wind while the Mossbachers were on the dive boat—we deserve this!
- Hanh Nguyen at Slate did a great interview with Katrina Crawford and Mark Bashore of the studio Plains of Yonder about the symbolism of the show’s opening credit sequence.
- Thank you for reading this season! See you for the recently announced season two, in another expectedly beautiful location with expectedly awful people.
483 Comments
After Shane Paula is the worst person on this show. She ruined Kai’s life and if she had any courage she would have admitted that it was her idea. Instead she feels sorry for herself. I found her a terrible person at the end of this show and not at all sympathic.
Yeah she could have admitted she had goaded Kai into it and explained why. She was never going to be turned in to the police by the Mossbachers, and she and Olivia could have probably convinced them not to press charges.
she and Olivia could have probably convinced them not to press charges.
This is a myth from cop TV shows. There is no such thing as “choosing” not to press charges. Kai committed a violent crime (burglary and assault/battery). His arrest and indictment by local LEOs would proceed no matter the feelings of the victims.
Welp. The “Bury Your Gays” trope is alive and well in 2021.
Your recaps have been brilliant! Glad to have been able to read them after every episode. Also, ugh, I feel so bad for Belinda. I knew this ending was coming, but it still hurts.
I feel like they cut the scene where Armond threw a bunch of pineapple bric-a-brac into one the cheap rooms because that Pineapple Suite sucked. Their first room was much more of a suite. I picked Armond in the box—do I get a hula girl dashboard ornament or a coconut or something?
The suite being bad was the point. Shane didn’t even care as long as he “won”.
There’s a fun article in Architectural Digest about how the show’s design team found the Four Seasons’ actual rooms to be too modern and tasteful, but the hotel didn’t allow them to paint anything, so they scoured the island’s fabric stores and antique shops for louder, tackier “tropical” kitsch to dress the set with.
I figured that was part of the message- the Pineapple Suite was bigger, but uglier and colder
And to Molly Shannon’s point, you can barely see the ocean. But hey, baby boy got his plunge pool! That suite would make more sense if you had kids, what with the private grounds and all.
Their first suite kicked all kinds of ass.
All stray observations:
Bleak, bleak, bleak. Even the one grace note – Quinn’s escape – is, as noted in the review, likely to be very brief.I was really hoping that Armond might be the one character who came back for season 2 (transferred to a new property?) but, alas. Even so, I think the bigger tragedy was Rachel coming back to Shane. Being a trophy wife is one thing; being the trophy wife of a toxic asshole is something else entirely.After the dinner scene, did it cross anyone else’s mind that Paula might try to hook up with Quinn and/or help him stay in Hawaii to spite the Mossbachers?I understand Belinda being crushed about the business, but given the kind of person she knew Tanya was, a huge wad of cash seems like a decent consolation prize.
Rachel’s final scene at the airport felt exactly like one of those bleak horror movie twist endings where our hero has finally defeated the serial killer… but then the last minute reveals that he survived somehow, he stabs her, and then the credits roll.
Paula’s psyche is completely broken right now. She won’t be trying anything enterprising, any time soon.
She got mugged by reality. One that she created.
I was really hoping that Armond might be the one character who came back for season 2 (transferred to a new property?) but, alas.I have a feeling Season 2 might be a prequel featuring Armond again (especially if he and Mike White enjoyed working together this time).
Season 2: Paddling to Fiji.
Dear Internet I am begging you please do not let anyone ever make any suitcase-related Armond GIFs.
It’s going to happen and you need to accept it.
heck I just want to know if he either (1) actually shit in a suitcase (probably not) or (2) someone digitally created him pooping in a suitcase, which must have been a hilarious assignment to give someone. It looked awfully realistic.
It was CGI, thank god.
Didn’t matter, I watched the scene through my fingers like a horror movie and couldn’t believe they went back to the shot for a second turd.
Me: “oh no, oh no, jesus…WHAT? NO! COME ON! (hysterical laughter)“
Just when you think you’ve seen it all on television…
If you’ve ever tried to take a dump with your pants around your ankles you always end up with poop landing on your pants definitely cgi.
In a reversal of the Mossbacher children’s alliances, Olivia chastises Paula for the heist scheme and aligns herself with her parents (I guess Olivia is a lot more like father Mark than she though, and redistributing the wealth was only an acceptable ideology for Olivia when it didn’t affect her wealth!)Now this is this a reach. Not that Olivia isn’t obviously a poser, but it’s hardly some damning reversal that Olivia does not support helping somebody rob her family in a manner that directly lead to her father requiring medical attention and (as she says) could easily have harmed her mother as well.But this scene was fascinating to me because of how accurately it captured the contrasting levels at which Armond and Shane are playing this game against each other. Armond is irritated by Shane, and he thinks he’s an asshole, but he doesn’t break into the room to steal anything, or to attack him, or to otherwise threaten him bodily or monetarily. Armond simply poops in Shane’s suitcase. It’s gross, but also? It’s kind of harmless.Armond is the one primarily responsible for this entire situation. Shane didn’t do anything beyond complain about being lied to repeatedly and then being deliberately sabotaged by Armond in petty ways. Literally all Armond had to do was acknowledge the mistake upfront and refund the difference between the cost of the rooms.once Armond bumps into the wall while trying to peek around the corner to see where Shane is, he’s doomed. “There’s a violent criminal running around the hotel,” Shane had told Rachel, but that person ends up being himself. He assumes that whoever is in his suite is so dangerous and so threatening that he needs the pineapple knife. As we were shown earlier in the episode, Shane knows that there was a violent robbery in the hotel earlier. He has good reason to believe that whoever broke into his hotel room and is obviously hiding there is a physical threat to him.These kinds of issues are examples of how I find a lot of viewers take the obvious general thematic point of the show (obviously rich tourists have numerous social and economic advantages) but then exaggerate it to such an extreme that it flattens every interaction on the show into fitting that one-word summation.
Roxana was a bit harsher on the characters then they deserved. Olivia is wrecked by Paula’s words about her being a fake friend and cries in her mother’s arms. Later, in bed, when Paula is crying, she tries to comfort her. It was a sweet scene.Yes, Shane wasn’t wielding the knife as a demonstration of his power, but because he thought there was a violent robber in hotel rooms. Assuming the suitcase shitter was that guy was a logical assumption. And he didn’t flee when he accidentally stabbed Armand, he went to get help.
Olivia and Paula’s relationship is one of the elements of the show I have the hardest time getting a read on. Particularly in the early episodes there seemed to be a sexual undercurrent to how Olivia interacts with Paula, but that doesn’t go anywhere in the later episodes, which makes it all more about class power dynamics. It does seem like Olivia is genuinely hurt by Paula’s anger at her, and certainly she doesn’t turn Paula in or even seem to reject her as a friend despite having pretty good grounds to do so. We don’t get any real closure on where they stand at the end.
White chose not to tell how they became friends or what they see in each other. So to me that indicates they’re just two kids who became friends and while there may be some class disparity, they genuinely do like each other, or did a lot more before Paula realized how privileged and offensive in their opinions the Mossbachers were while on vacation. We’re meant to believe that their friendship is restored by episode’s end, and I don’t think it’s supposed to be a unhappy ending.
I saw is as another return to status quo. Paula was devastated over what she had done and the situation she was in, but chose to slip back into the arms of the Mossbachers and do the whole passive-aggressive teenage ennui-thing with Olivia again. It’s unhappy in the sense that Paula discarded any insight she might have gained for a return to comfort and privilege.
It’s also indicated that they had a bit of a chemical romance- getting high seemed to be their shared interest, and in absence of that, they had to figure out if they could relate to each other while sober.
Don’t forget cutting other people to shreds. They seemed like fun.
I think the closure is that regardless of Olivia’s friendship towards Paula, it will never be a fair relationship. It’s messy and there are tender moments, but Olivia is no different than her parents and Paula will always be an outsider to them.
I think it’s a relationship steeped in jealousy on both ends — which can read as sexual but doesn’t have to be
I think Olivia is very lonely and longing for human connection the same way her brother is. She’s broken but is able to find a glimmer of it with the hug to Paula. Once you strip it away she perhaps is capable of some empathy and a little bit of hope.
Guessing Olivia doesn’t have any other friends. Probably because she is such a Negative Nelly.
>We don’t get any real closure on where they stand at the end.
I think they are back to where they were by the end. I think their arc is simply that Paula told Kai that Olivia (and her family) aren’t her “friends”. When she verbalizes this to Olivia, she has a breakdown. Paula (and the audience) are likely thinking about the power-class dynamic—that Olivia possesses Paula, but it seems like Paula has more agency in the friendship. So a lot rest on Paula, and she seems willing to just forget about it and continue being near Olivia’s family. This tracks. Paula wanted Kai to steal from the Mossbachers, but that’s impossible from his position and not likely to do much. She had the mindset of people like Olivia’s family. Those bracelets were there for the taking—whoever gets them, gets them, fuck rightful ownership.
>Shane wasn’t wielding the knife as a demonstration of his power, but because he thought there was a violent robber in hotel rooms
And yet he went straight to where that violent Robber was, with a knife, instead of exiting and getting help. His priority was being a badass hero, not doing what was actually best or right. He was wielding the knife and going toward the perceived danger because in his mind he is incapable of being wrong>Assuming the suitcase shitter was that guy was a logical assumption.No it’s not. A person breaking in to steal money and valuables wouldn’t leave their own shit in the room.>And he didn’t flee when he accidentally stabbed Armand, he went to get help.Help for who though?Shane bears the majority if not full responsibility for Armond’s death. He wasn’t attacked, wasn’t in physical danger, literally walked towards the potential threat with a weapon and then straight into Armond
I’m an optimist but didn’t find that sweet at ALL. We have no evidence Olivia will try and change and the entire episode is about NOT breaking patterns. I read it as Paula unable to extricate from Olivia, like Rachel from Shane, etc.
Yes, even Tanya simply found someone who will tolerate her terrible patterns instead of actually working on changing them.
Yeah, I have to say I understood Olivia’s confusion that somehow thinking it was bad to set up a situation where her parents were involved in a frightening moment of violence …made her asshole? She had many asshole qualities but that surely wasn’t one of them. I feel like this story was more about Paula realizing she still had enormous advantages she wasn’t willing to give up either.
100% – Paula watching Olivia laughing and having a light-hearted conversation with her family over dinner after everything that just happened was the final epiphany that Olivia was, ultimately, going to end up just like the rest of her family. She and Nicole have all the current social critiques and lingo down cold, but it doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s what Olivia as a college student and Nicole as a public company senior officer are expected to say.
She was all “eat the rich” until she found herself and her parents on the menu. As Paula said, she’s a poser. Paula didn’t think anyone would be in the room and Olivia’s parents’ bracelets would be covered by insurance. It’s not like she arranged a hostage situation.
That problem, which permeates the entire review, was certainly telegraphed in this line, “A rich guy kills a guy with less money…”
What an odd lens to view that through.
“flattens every interaction on the show into fitting that” …Indeed.
Yes!! I’ve been irritated by how myopic these analyses have been. I felt many of these characters were in a prison of their own making, albeit feeling the weight of their circumstances to varying degrees based of their varying degrees of privilege. There’s endless conversation to be had about whether that’s fair, or how to address the injustice of it all. But to neglect the responsibility we bear to the choices we make is reductive. Every single one of these characters was a mix of good and evil, given different decision trees.
Well said. While I liked Armond and hated Shane, and I acknowledge that Shane stalking around his room with a knife rather than fleeing was some macho bullshit, in the end Armond’s death was a tragic accident that had a lot more to do with Armond committing a coked up B&E than Shane being a privileged white guy.
“Armond is the one primarily responsible for this entire situation. Shane didn’t do anything beyond complain about being lied to repeatedly and then being deliberately sabotaged by Armond in petty ways.”honey if that was your takeaway from the show, then maybe dig a little deeper then taking things so literal. Armond’s met a 1000 Shanes before, who treat him as less than a human. Shane’s of the world are pieces of shit and don’t need you validating them that they are entitled to their constant complaints.
Literally all he had to do was acknowledge that they had accidentally double-booked the room and refund the difference in prices. Shane is in fact entitled to complain about being lied to and ripped off, no matter how much of a rich asshole he is otherwise. Armond is responsible for all of that, and was also the one who chose to escalate it further by deliberately trying to make Shane miserable.
The guests were the literal death of Armond. You sound like one of the guests who think Armond deserved to be treated terribly day in and day out because it’s his job. Nobody deserves that treatment, that’s the point, not the logistics of the hotel. You think Shane wouldn’t find something else to be terrible about? Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile of Armond’s dignity.
Armond is a reasonably well-paid hotel manager. We are not shown anything particularly “terrible”. Some people do get burnt out working in hospitality, as in any job, but none of that makes him justified in picking a fight with one of the guests or shifts the blame onto said guest when all of his complaints are justified.I’ve worked in customer service too. If I started spitting in the hamburgers at Dairy Queen because some of the customers were rude (as they were, reliably), it’s not the customers’ fault that I got fired.
I mean it’s a lot bigger than that, Shane’s of the world deserve their hamburgers spit in because they are spitting in the face of everyone. I know it’s spiteful of Armond, but that’s the point. He’s rebelling how he can, and it’s really weird people are coming to the defense of Shane when he literally killed the dude lol lol. Ya’ll are fucked.
Yes, I’m really having a hard time understanding this defense of Shane — he was a total prick about an error and wanted it fixed in a way it couldn’t be fixed. Armond told him he was only being charged the rate for the suite they were in, not the Pineapple Suite. So what was he looking for? Seems to me he was looking for groveling and for him to be the chosen one, for Armond to kick the people out who were currently in the Pineapple Suite. I feel like everyone keeps talking about a refund, which was never at play? He wasn’t asking for one nor was he turned down for one. (Unless I missed a bit of dialogue, which I suppose is possible)I’m not defending Armond’s escalation of the situation with the boat debacle, but that was when Armond went off the rails (albeit entertainingly). But Shane was not somehow perfectly reasonable before that.
Shane was quite reasonably believing he was defending himself against a violent burglar.That’s why we’re shown him learning about the robbery of the Mossbachers earlier (even beyond that nobody is required to assume that somebody who broke into their hotel suite has non-violent intentions).Obviously what happened is very sad, but one can’t blame Shane for that.He isn’t a remotely likeable character, but that doesn’t make what happened his fault.
You literally can blame Shane for what happened though, on a bigger level, that’s the entire point lol. Kai had to steal because of rich white people exploiting the land and the people. Armond wouldn’t go off the rails if he hadn’t internalized so much of the guests apathy for others, with him ignoring the pregnant employee as trigger into relapse. The whole incident wouldn’t have occurred if rich white people hadn’t demanded a resort on stolen land. It’s a lot bigger than your literal understanding of events.The point is don’t be a Shane because whether passively or actively, you cause so much pain in this world, that you may as well be sticking people with knives.
We’re discussing the characters here. A character can’t be blamed for things they literally did not do, or for things that the narrative explicitly gives them reasonable justification for. That’s why we’re given a scene of Shane learning that the hotel had just had a violent robbery occur against one of the other guests.
The show is how the system is set up to coerce people to do “bad things” and then we blame them for rebelling against a system that has and will continue to fuck them over. And yes, people can be blamed for things they did not do, because as long as people have to exist in this system that only benefits a select few, then we have hold those select few responsible. Peoples motivations are not as individualized as one likes to believe, and to act like this isn’t literally the theme of the show is kind of missing the point.
No, people can’t be blamed for things they didn’t do. That’s a pretty fundamental moral principle.And please, Armond was not “coerced” into doing anything.
You have lots to learn about how privilege works my dear.
That’s a very simplistic understanding of morals.
Kai did not have to steal. You’re wrong. And Shane is not responsible “on a bigger level” just because he happens to be white and wealthy. You’re wrong again. Whether the resort was stolen or not (which is probably much more complicated than Kai’s story), Shane had nothing to do with it. Blaming people for the sins of other people just because they happen to share the same skin color is just plain racism.
If I may jump in here. I think White was writing very flawed people who were made that way by the inplacable systems of class, capitalism they either grew up in or took as jobs. Shane had a mother like Molly Shannon’s character. He almost had no choice but to be conditioned to be like that. We never saw Rachel’s parentage but we can assume her self-esteem issues came from them. Armand, too, with his gayness, growing up in a homophobic culture influencing his rebellious nature and substance abuse. And both in a luxury hotel resort environment, where one has all the power and can literally order the other one around, who has to do what he says. A good representation of capitalism and power’s negative effects on those who aren’t privileged. Yet the two, and all the other characters, were in the margins vulnerable, empathetic humans dealing with a force greater than them.
Yes, thats a good assessment, capitalism is at the end of the day the villain for how all these characters interact with the world. But it’s a bit hopeless to never hold people like Shane accountable while trying to hold Armond/Kai/Belinda because they did tangible actions viewers can point to as “bad”. But I think Shane and his mom don’t have a shred of humanity in them, and that’s the point too, everyone else has to pay for the misdeeds of the rich in ways that don’t involve money.But if someones takeaway from the show is that Armond should have to tolerate people like Shane because it’s their job, then they are upholding some really insidious beliefs.
Oh, I liked Armand much more than I liked Shane. His story is a much greater felt tragedy. When Rachel called Shane a “big baby”, I realized he couldn’t help himself. That doesn’t excuse his behavior, it just, for me, fatalistically locked it in to a certain extent, since he isn’t capable of self-reflection and getting out of his cycle of personality. Plus the clockwork structure of the show putting these characters into a tragic design. The pathos of the show was existentialist. These characters being in the systems they were always in, encountering each other in the greater system of capitalism and privilege, and how they, with their formed personalities, dealing with that and making their choices. Many made bad ones. Really Quinn’s was the only good choice. Tanya, too, to the extent she could change her life for the better, she did. Belinda, like Rachel, chose to aquiesece. We don’t know how much money Tanya gave her, but maybe it was enough to do something different and she didn’t take it.My point is I think White didn’t want us to blame his characters: they were both good and bad, a product of the socioeconomic, class and cultural systems they couldn’t fight by themselves (Paula disastrously tried and failed).
I think White is showing how futile it all can be, but I still think he’s asking the audience to think of the broader implications of accountability, and that the only way to regain the narrative is literally to recentre it away from rich white people. It’s ironic he chose to use them to deliver this message, but it was effective. We watched the hierarchy play out in terms of screen time, ending with the indigenous character who is the most tragic. People like Kai, who represent a different reality are a threat to the system, and therefore are often pushed out of the story.I think Tanya didn’t grow as a person because her empathy can’t extend past herself. She found someone simply who will allow her to be as selfish as she wants. She’s even worse now.
I think White was castigating “rich white people” certainly, but the dramatist in him did try to portray them as people, with their own virtues and failings, their own responses to the world they lived in. I thought they were trying to do the best they could to lead happy lives. Some failed more than others.I disagree about Tanya, because White cast her with a likeable actress and gave the character an emotional obstacle that wrecked her, causing sympathy in us. To that end, I don’t think Greg was meant to be another way she didn’t change or grow. I think she is trying to grow, and that starts with making herself less miserable, less beholden to the personality patterns her mother conditioned in her. In my opinion, she deserved a happy ending and got one. Even if it meant Belinda didn’t get one. But then, only six days prior, Belinda didn’t expect a rich person fairy godmother to improve her life, so to end up in the same place isn’t such a loss. At least now, Belinda has the cash to make a go of it. If she doesn’t, that’s on her. Every character, rich and poor, had the agency to try to improve their lives with their choices, even under the system I talked about.
I guess even if Tanya and Quinn got a happy ending, then that’s also sad that we come to expect that only the elite guests leave happy. Belinda is now just as stuck as Armand, even if she’s a little bit richer, and his breaking point will make more and more sense to her every day. Tanya might be showing up for herself now, but she’ll probably never show up for anyone else. She’s a sad character with the ability to actually change things, but will continue on her cycle of abuse, but not one I sympathize for. Essentially expecting any room for agency from the other characters means that people like Tanya have to stop using people like Belinda. Rachel is just as guilty.
Given what we know about how Tanya was raised, it’s going to be very hard for her to change herself. She’s how old in this series and is still traumatized by her mother. We’re not meant to blame her too much, I think. I think Belinda has more choices available to her, and more power, than she thinks. Same with Rachel. The pathos of both women is that they don’t recognize it.I guess I’m not interested in blaming any of these characters. I don’t think White is, either. What I liked most about the show—after not liking the first couple of episodes because of the awful people—was the human comedy about people trying to find happiness in the situations they were in. Even with rich, privileged people who are oblivious about how they treat those with less power, that struggle to live a happy life is universally relatable.
Belinda is essentially like “fuck these white women and their need to be at the centre of every story”. That’s what White I think is calling for. He subverted the entire story with Belinda essentially not allowing Rachel to make it about herself. We don’t need to blame them, we need to blame ourselves as viewers for always allowing the same stories to be told.
The ironic tragedy of Belinda being so fed up with rich people talking about themselves to her and expecting comfort, is she refuses help to a woman much like her, before she got married to a rich jerk, and who now will stay married to him. While Belinda advising Rachel may not have done anything, I think White was writing that irony and implying that Belinda could have given this scared, weak woman some backbone to leave her husband. That she didn’t isn’t her fault or Rachel’s for not taking the initiative herself, but just part of the system these characters are trapped in.
It isn’t tragic, she regained her own story by not making room for women like Rachel and Tanya. She said it’s my story now, no more room for this white nonsene.
Right, and while that was her victory, it came at the cost of not truly helping a misguided, lost woman who was honestly reaching out for aid; a character much more like Belinda, class-wise, than Tanya. Rachel had the much greater problem to fix than Tanya did. And she wasn’t self-centered. I think White was depicting how bear-trap-like the situation was, so that Belinda exerting her agency not to listen to rich white people’s problems landed on the unfortunate choice of a woman who needed to escape being newfound rich and becoming one of those trophy wives like Shannon’s character, who will eventually treat the Belindas of the world like crap. Rachel needed real human connection and aid. The tragic irony is that Belinda, for good reasons, didn’t provide it. She helped Tanya, which was good, but she, Tanya, was in a much more powerful and free position than Rachel was in. You can’t win in this system. And the last shot of Belinda, she’s changing her unhappy face into a forced smile,to greet the new gaggle of rich people she’ll serve. So that victory was short-lived anyway.
Yeah, but she didn’t know that Rachel was anything more than a junior Tanya. Woe is me, fix my life, thanks see ya.
She most definitely was, although White wrote as initially very sympathetic. Yet Belinda was perfectly willing to cozy up to them as long as the could potentially fund her. She was looking for a White Savior.
I was very annoyed with Belinda that she just gave up, throwing her business proposal in the trash. Just because Tanya doesn’t want to invest doesn’t mean no one does.
…and his rebellion ended with an absolute nothing! I thought it was quite poignant. “Sure, you can always go out in a blaze of glory, weaponize the one advantage you have over these people in that you have nothing to lose, but in the end, despite your sturm und drang, you end up dead, replaced at your job, and the rich guy gets off scot free and even fixes his marriage!”
No, the Shane’s of the world do not deserve their hamburgers spit in. I say this as someone who works in the service industry. Your world view is what’s fucked. Shane’s complaints were justified and the way he got them across wasn’t even particularly rude. I’ve seen far, far worse. If you’re in customer service with that attitude, you need to get out now.
But I also wouldn’t be in the comments trying to defend the rude assholes who pushed you to that point. Sorry, but the world is made up of way more Armonds than Shanes and I’m going to always, ALWAYS, root for the Armonds. Plus, it’s not like fuckin’ DQ has the same type of clientele that a high end resort does. Different levels of shitty people deserve different levels of shit coming their way.
Are we just going to ignore that Armond is quite clearly a sexual predator who is not above exploiting his underlings for his own sexual gratification? Shane was worse than that? HOW?
Nothing Shane did was treating Armond as less than human to the extent of Armond pooping in Shane’s suitcase. You’re also sticking up for someone who’s clearly a sexual predator willing to exploit his power over his underlings for his own sexual gratification. But Shane’s the bad guy, eh?
Nobody pre-pays for a room, even at elite resorts (I stayed recently at the Grand Wailea Waldorf-Astoria next door to where this show was filmed). You pay at the end of your stay for services rendered. Shane was not being charged for the more expensive room, he was agitating the whole time for compensations to perceived slights, a wealth-preserving tactic he definitely learned from his mother.
Except Shane kept saying “I’m getting that room” not “I’m getting that $300″ or whatever it was.
Because that was the room that Shane booked, and instead of acknowledging that, Armand kept lying over and over saying he booked a different room. It actually wasn’t about the money. It was about the fact that Armand wouldn’t simply own up to an honest mistake and instead tried to make Shane feel like he was crazy.
Not at all. After the initial lie, Armond tried several times to give Shane perks to make up for the confusion. Even eventually saying he could be in the Pineapple Suite. Shane repeatedly refuses to let it go “on principle.” This is his honeymoon. His priority should be to spend time in paradise with his new wife. Instead, he stews and obsesses over the room. He is so distracted by it that several times he ignores or abandons his wife in pursuit of this vendetta. To the point where when he learns about the robbery, his reaction is sadistic joy that he now has something more substantial to complain about. He doesn’t actually feel any empathy or concern for the other family- he just loves that he has something else to hold over Armond’s head. This is the behavior you see from entitled customers where the moment they are unhappy, they become determined to get someone fired. They decide that their *minor inconvenience* can only be balanced out by *costing someone livelihood and possibly ruining their life.* That is completely odious behavior.I have been at hotels and had my room reservations mixed up. They comped me a couple other things without me ever making a big deal out of it and then I let it go so I could enjoy the rest of my vacation. Only a petty, vindictive and exhausting person would do otherwise. In the words of The Dude “You’re not wrong, Walter. You’re just an asshole.” Never be an asshole over a minor inconvenience. It’s not justified, right or understandable.
But unfortunately he was entitled to his constant complaints. That’s the most basic element that keeps all society together: legal contracts. If you enter into a legal contract, it doesn’t matter if the other person is rich, it doesn’t matter if the other person is poor, it doesn’t matter if the other person is nice or completely insufferable. Everyone, regardless of their wealth, condition, moral standing, political office, etc. is equal when it comes to having to abide by legal contracts. If you sell someone a stay in a particular room and they pay for that, you can’t unilaterally give them a different room.I know. I work in customer service and I get at least 8 Shanes every month. Some of them don’t even have wealth or privilege but they’re real pros at being abusive. And when they’re asking for something they’re not entitled to, it’s a real pleasure to deny them. However, if they are entitled to what they’re asking, I have to make sure that they get everything they are entitled to, according to the warranty. If they’re not using foul words that you can tell them prevent any further communication, they are entitled to their constant complaints until I fulfill the contract.When I leave work, I leave all the Shanes behind and unwind with people that actually matter to me. Armond’s death wasn’t caused by the guests; it was caused by not having any close friends outside of work.
Where do you get this “less than human” thing? He was mad because he was lied to numerous times. Getting mad at someone for wronging you and then calling his boss is nowhere close to treating someone as less than human.
Shanes of the world are the ones who keep POS like Armond employed.
Shane was entirely entitled to his complaint. They were being charged for a room that they did not get. He never treated Armond as less than human. He treated him as someone who’s job is literally to facilitate him getting what is being paid for. Armond repeatedly dismissed Shane’s entirely justifiable complaint instead of owning up to it and genuinely trying to make it right. Armond was about to get fired and, boy, did he deserve it. And I say this as someone who’s profession is much closer to Armond’s than Shane’s.
Yeah, I thought this write-up in particular was a little strong in ignoring some of the shadings of character that are there to complicate the general thematic point of the show. Olivia learned something important about herself in observing Paula’s “fucking everything up” (which she most definitely did) and is likely to try harder both as a friend to Paula and as an advocate for those who can’t afford Hawaiian resort vacations. Plus, who cares—they’re both bitches who giggle at people who haven’t read Nietzsche.It’s even apparent to me that Shane is or at least may become a different person, and there’s a decent chance, I think, that their marriage will work a bit more on Rachel’s terms because, after all, Shane killed a guy. If nothing else, that’s a huge scandal among the country club set he was born into, the kind of thing that causes people to move to another city and start over. (And to assume that he just ran away without looking to get help “because he can” is a stretch.) But again, who cares—Rachel is, to be sure, a mediocre journalist with boring-ass problems.
Speaking of scandal, a burglary/assault and (mistaken) attack on a guest, each by members of the staff, is going to be a HUGE black eye for a resort like White Lotus among people with the money to stay there. “What, the place with all the killing and robbing? Why would I ever…”Also I think Paula’s actions had the opposite effect on Olivia than your take. Paula’s condescending meddling into Kai’s life was a catastrophe.
It’s kind of bizarre how people see Shane in regards to what Armond is doing.If Shane was just from an average income family and his parent(s) had gone all out (Your grandfather left us some money and we want you to have a wonderful start, whatever the reason) and booked them the better room, no one would be wondering why he was upset that a refund wasn’t automatically given and that he had to jump through multiple hoops to get the refund.Which is kind of Shane’s point; he’s rich, he’s just supposed to let it go and let people take advantage of him. It’s only money.
And it’s really on Armond, for taking every opportunity to escalate.
Which doesn’t excuse Shane’s general cluelessness when it comes to dealing with Rachel or her own cluelessness in who she is and who she was marrying.
Yeah, unfortunately I feel like most of my family would have similarly been upset if we paid for a nicer room and got the wrong room without a refund or even an acknowledgement that there was an error because we don’t believe in wasting money. He should have been more attentive to his wife and responded to how much it was upsetting her though. Armond did a lot of things that were bad decisions. He kept and went through an entire bag of drugs without calling his sponsor or going to a meeting. He slept with an employee on company grounds. He purposely tried to sabotage a guest and gave him false contact information. Shane was a jerk, but Armond didn’t do himself any favors
I’ve had situations like this on a much lesser scale. In between trips to the beach and bar, I went by the office and talked calmly to the manager on duty. If they didn’t have authority, they told me to come back at a certain time when someone would be there who did. Exactly zero problems any of these times, plus I didn’t let it ruin my day.
Shane should have known that at the end of the day the money would work out. This is a high-end resort and refusing to refund a few thousand of the million they take in per night isn’t worth the reputational risk. It was about him losing his shit at not getting the Best Room that mommy booked for him – an unusual experience in his life.
Shane was only charged for the room they were staying in, not the Pineapple Suite. Armond told him that. Shane wasn’t asking for a refund, he wanted the suite.
Armond also told him he had not booked the Pineapple Suite, so I’m not sure why we should believe him on that point. You’re charged for the room that you book.
Because Armond then acknowledged that the suite Shane was in was a lower cost than the Pineapple Suite, and that he was now being charged the cost of that suite. Shane kept pushing after that, his issue did not seem to be disbelieving the cost differential was being credited back. If it was a partial refund he wanted and doubted he was getting, he did not make that at all clear from where I sat. He wanted a thing that couldn’t happen. Yes it was the hotel’s fault, but there was nothing else to do about it.
It doesn’t matter what room he was charged for. He booked the Pineapple Suite so of course he wanted that room. Armand repeatedly lied and said he booked the lesser room.
Armond said that, but I think he was lying. I could be wrong there, I thought there was some later dialog where Shane was talking to Rachel about the travel agent getting the refund.
thank you. I’m catching up on this show and I’m surprised to see how guilty people think Armond is in all this. He escalated with the boat trip and the mad pooping, but when it came to the Pineapple Suite he did everything he possibly could. There were many points where Shane could’ve dropped the issue and moved on, and Armond may not have reacted great to every one of them, but he was mostly gracious in the face of assholedom.
Shane’s of the world look for any moment to be a baby, if it wasn’t the mix up with the rooms he would find something else. That’s Rachels point. Shane’s ability to only put his money first and his sense of entitlement has ruined a mans life. Jesus.
Armond ruined Armond’s life.Though I do wonder why they’d give such a sharp knife to tourists to cut a Pineapple with, seems like there’d be a ton of guest missing fingers.
Dude, have you ever tried to cut a pineapple? You need a pretty goddamn sharp knife!
First, I hope you appreciate that I took minutes of my day to find this and respond.Second, let’s all take a moment to wish a rash, of varying intensity, on everyone involved in the deployment and updating of Kinja.To your question.I have and that’s why I would never run a business in which I would not only encourage customers to cut their own Pineapple, but provide them with the sharpest knife possible.People will loose fingers or stab the resort manager that broke into their room to take a shit in their luggage!Seriously that knife went in like it was hot and Armond was butter.
actually there’s a thing you can read online about how you can take a pineapple apart using only your fingersyou basically put your fingers in the pineapple’s butt and pull, it’s super gross, would have made for great television in the pineapple suite
Have you ever tried to cut a pineapple?
Right? There are so many commenter defending Shane, when he was truly the worst of the bunch. His only redeeming quality seems to be that he genuinely loves his wife.
Armand was caught between an unusually aggressive asshole customer and sudden falling off the wagon. His frustration is understandable but lord knows he was a victim of his own terrible, terrible decision-making. Granted his “going out with a bang” mentality only exacerbated things at the end.
Is this like that thing where tv shows sometimes make real life social media accounts for their characters? I’m convinced that this is Mike White writing in the style of Shane. Just a perfect after-credits scene to finish the season, bravo Mike.You’re right, I wish more people were capable of seeing things from Shane’s point of view.
Shane was eventually handed the keys to the Pineapple Suit, and he was still hell-bent on destroying Armond’s career. He keeps going on about how he’s prepared to support Rachel’s ambitions and that she doesn’t need to work another day of her life, since he’s just got so much money, but it’s too much of an ask for him to put aside his concerns with Armond; even his mother (who, I presume, paid for the suite) did not give much of a fuck about the booking.
I find it strange that people simultaneously feel that Paula is the bad guy here for pushing Kai into doing the heist, but Shane is somehow not worthy of condemnation for creating a pissy contest with Armond that irreversibly ruined his life because he made some shitty mistakes. Either Kai and Armond both reserve all the blame for their actions, or not at all.
I agree about Shane, he’s a total dbag, but he didn’t murder Armond. The guy broke into his room and hid around the corner, and then practically walked into the knife. If Shane had seen his face before the knife went in, he wouldn’t have stabbed him. In fact he would have been gleeful at catching him in the act. There’s zero reason Shane shouldn’t have walked. I have seen so many what to me are crazy takes on that part. But Shane IS an ahole.
HELL YEAH, right on SEAN C. This author is delusional and suffers from Elite WOKENESS. It doesn’t matter what one does, she will judge you on what your race, gender, sexuality first and forgive or condemn depending on that. She would be the first to freak out if someone gave her a crappy room, stole her jewelry or SHITE IN HER SUITCASE. Shane was an insufferable a-hole but he pales in comparison to Armond and Paula.What a parody she is.
Shane’s mother was not charged for the Pineapple Suite. Shane (and his ilk – with their unearned power and self-delusion) will accept nothing less than complete submission from those whom he considers to be less than him: the hotel manager and his wife. It’s almost like somewhere in his deep subconscious he knows he’s an asshole with few, if any, redeeming qualities. This is where his violence comes from.
To give credit to Rachel, I read her staying with Shane as not being courageous enough to really hurt him after he accidentally killed a person (and also simply not knowing what to do since she’s never had the experience of marrying and then divorcing a husband). I don’t think it was about wanting the privilege of being a trophy wife, even if Mike White (in the after-show interview clip) said it was. That’s being unfair to Rachel. Daddario was all-around phenomenal. Her faces in this episode alone.I loved how Larry-David-ian this show was, with all the comic stories coming together, some in tragic ways. Poor Armand. Murray Bartlett (whom I hadn’t seen before) was also phenomenal. I have to check more of his work out.
While Tanya letting down Belinda was bad, if not unexpected, I think Tanya got a nice happy ending. Seeing how Greg dealt with his own assured mortality, she was able to become happier and more free, as seen when she happily scattered her mom’s ashes on the beach. She was right about how she couldn’t really help Belinda, as seen a second later when she gave her the wad of cash—still doing transactional relationships, but at least aware of it and we assume will try to change now that she’s happier herself. Jennifer Coolidge was the third actor here doing exceptional work. Though all of the cast was great.
I think Rachel maybe doesn’t want to jump ship right away. It’s the sad reality of feeling obliged to go back to him when no one would give her a shoulder to cry on.
Right, the Seinfeldian, or Curbian cascade of unintentional consequences coming to a head. If Belinda doesn’t get supremely tired of listening to wealthy people asking her for advice and comfort, she talks to this woman who ironically isn’t rich, is in fact trying to get out of that lifestyle, and Rachel does leave Shane. It was sad seeing her stay with Shane since she’s the closest the show came to depicting an innocent hero whose travails we cared about.
And even Belinda might not have been enough. Because Belinda was a total stranger to Rachel so how could she have helped? It was obvious that she was in a position that leaving would have left her worse off.
Rachel thought Belinda would be her Magical Negro, and Belinda “noped” the Hell out.
That’s more than a little unfair. Rachel didn’t initially ask for Belinda’s help. Rather, Belinda offered it in the form of her business card and personal cell number. After having tried, and failed, to lean on her mother for advice, she essentially had no where else to turn for a shoulder to cry on. As an aside, The White Lotus shows us that Natasha Rockwell was sorely under utilized on Insecure. Clearly Rockwell is capable of being much more than comic relief — even if she was brilliant in that role.
This. Shame, I do think Belinda would have talked her down from the shame of Shane, but she would have been used and discarded again.
And as Midsommar taught us… that’s always a good idea
Her actions were an acceptance of brutal reality, and an absolute gut punch. Curious if anyone else detected the slightest bit of hope for improvement in their marriage from Shane’s “oh thank God” response?
Daddario agrees in her Time Magazine interview that Rachel doesn’t necessarily stay out of a newfound willingness to be a trophy wife and that she might eventually leave Shane.
She did say there were time elements to the pre nup
If you like Bartlett, he’s great in both Looking and Tales of the City. He’s also weirdly good in a nothing part that elevates random episodes of Iron Fist.
I think his performance here will likely become the most memorable of the series. I’d give him an Emmy nod for sure.
Drugged out Armand busting back into the office after the “BEST SEATING EVER” made me laugh uncontrollably.
Be sure to watch Murray Bartlett in the canceled-too-soon series “Looking.”
And the HBO movie of the same name.
Is it possible Rachel stayed with Shane because she was now afraid of him? The last time they spoke he mentioned going down a dark path. He then kills someone he despised, gets away with it without going to the police station or even having to miss his flight. Maybe she didn’t want to be next.
I didn’t get the sense she liked the money itself as much as the social pressure to be with a “great guy” and self-esteem/self-identity issues (she mentions she basically fell into the marriage after a break up which in the 21st century suggests she’s a passive person or someone who feels uncomfortable being alone). He’s rich, he’s handsome, he loves her, he’s everything Hallmark movies say you should want in a man, but he’s also a jerk
I’m hoping Rachel lays down the law in her house. Not that Shane will go for it, ‘cause he’s too much of a baby-man, and his mom will legally own it.
Maybe her nearly leaving him in the middle of their damn honeymoon will give her a bit more power in the relationship. Maybe.
That was my initial read on Tanya, but during her speech to Belinda, I said to my spouse: “she’s trying to break patterns while repeating them, and choosing the pattern that doesn’t benefit Belinda.” Her jumping into a relationship with Greg isn’t really healthy either. She’s not breaking patterns, she’s only under the illusion she is.
I thought that Rachel hadn’t believed the story of the accidental killing. When I heard her say, “I’m happy. I will be happy,” I didn’t hear, “I’ll be happy I want in on your wealth;” I heard, “I’ll be happy, please don’t kill me.”I mean, her husband got into this petty rivalry with the hotel manager, who ended up fired and then killed in their own room and there were no repercussions. If he could kill for something so petty and get away with it, how much more likely would it be that someone who broke his heart would end up in the dark path of a pineapple knife in the chest?If I hadn’t seen the killing scene, I would have been thinking that.
I took Paula’s “Something bad did happen” to be in reference to the ancestral land being stolen from Kai and from native Hawaiians in general, rather than the robbery, but I suppose it applies as an all of the above.
I think she was more talking about Kai being arrested. I’m not sure she feels that deeply about the history of Hawaii’s native people.
I agree; the “something bad did happen” is about Kai being arrested and her guilt over letting him take the punishment that she should be sharing. (I mean, Kai still has a brain and he could have chosen not to go through with it. But Paula organized, aided and abetted the crime.)
Armond’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day WeekThere were so many moments that taken collectively I felt really nailed the finale. Shane making Rachel’s admission of loneliness about him, only for her to acquiesce to live with the pain, Tanya’s excruciatingly return for her designer sunglasses with Belinda weeping, the Mossbacher’s exaggeration of the attack in their first telling, Armond’s last dive into hilariously debauched coke binge with his staffers (just how much coke did those gals bring?) but ultimately the show fell to Quinn. He is just about the only true happy ending and for some reason from his first glimpse of the whale, I was rooting for him. Pretty much ignored at the airport, proving once again his being almost invisibly, I honestly feel his parents ultimately have let him pursue this personal quest. He was wanted by the canoers, he went from “dead weight” to being a part of something. I smiled so wide at that last shot.
Great filmmaking by White throughout the series. I especially liked in this finale when the camera focused on Armand in his office while the half-naked boys were partying in the background.
Tanya’s excruciatingly return for her designer sunglasses with Belinda weepingThe most realistic and best acted moment in the series for me. Gut-wrenching and just so, so real.
Regarding the partying Armond and staff boys – I don’t think they were doing the drugs from the girls’ bag by this scene: Armond and Dillon’s first dalliance featured them doing the girls’ ketamine powder, which resulted in everything slowing down around them (same when the girls indulged on the beach and interacted with Tonya). But in this last scene, Armond and company are far more “keyed up” as it were, and there are other unnamed staff dudes in the mix. I’m assuming one of those guys supplied the coke for this particular binge.
Armand was crushing the pills from the bag into powder with the bottom of a beer bottle. he was just all-in.
I was happy for Quinn. It took courage to do what he did, but then again, he will have his family and their wealth to fall back on if things don’t work out. He could likely end up some rich guy taking his kids on vacation to the island telling them epic tales from when he was a teenager.
It’s unfortunate that Nicole won’t be able to appreciate her white male child winning.
Hey, it’s almost been a year but glad you took the time to watch the series. You are nicely teed up for the second season which had brief scenes in the preview for upcoming HBO productions on YOTD
I’m still really struggling to sympathize with Paula. While I believe how upset she was about what happened was sincere, she could have just given Kai the damn bracelet. I still cannot understand that.“And certainly the Mossbachers, and newly reinstated daughter Olivia, will talk about the vacation that brought them back together”
I’m guessing they’re more likely to talk about it as the vacation in which their child ran away, literally into the ocean? One imagines he won’t be easy to find quickly.Belinda just crushed me. But I really want to know how much cash she got. It’s no substitute for having a primary investor with unlimited resources, but I just really want to know. We knew it was coming but I loved the way they did it, it was so agonizing. Tanya trying to make healthier, more cautious choices to treat herself a little better. Ouch.Murray Bartlett was just spectacular.
Exactly. If she wanted to be such a rebel SHE could’ve lifted that bracelet a lot more easily than Kai.
There is a non-zero percentage of people (especially in their 20’s) who want to fight the system, but have someone else do the dirty work. Paula is very much the avatar of that world, even when contrasted with the fake wokeness in Olivia.
I think the point is that Paula is just as fake as Olivia. She just has a better tan.
She’s half Black, not tan.
We all know she’s a woman of color…the point of her is that pieces of shit come in every shade.
nah, the point of her is that she’s an outsider compared to the Mosbachers due to being a POC, no level of class will change that. She’s still able to be not held accountable for things though due to some assumed wealth though.
She’s also not rich either, right? With Olivia’s “do you need money?”
Exactly. She wanted to get back at the family for their white bullshit and he was the perfect person to do it so she didnt have to.
Her constant insistence that Kai was being victimized and needed to take on the system, while he was at relative peace with the situation, was a spot-on indictment of a certain type of social busybody.
Paula had good intentions, and her words to Olivia were true. Regardless Paula will always be an outsider to Olivia’s family who are the reason Kai needed to steal in the first place. But in the hierarchy of things she won’t be held responsible even if she can understand Kai’s pain more than Olivia. I don’t think there’s any easy answers, Paula got on the plane in the end like the rest of the shitty guests.
I feel like there was some sort of assumption on her part that someone who was poor would naturally be good at crime. There was so little discussion of the logistics.
I think Paula is somewhat sympathetic but agree with your analysis. A writer pointed out that she wanted clean hands, to not actually risk anything, and was stuck in savior mentality (even though seh wasn’t white)! I have sympathy for naivete but don’t think our feelings about her need to be simple.
I also really want to know how much money was in that envelope!
It depends on the bills. There was 2 banded bundles so if its hundreds it was 20 grand if it was 20s 4 grand etc. Regardless a huge tip for about 20 hours of her time
I kind of figured Rachel and Shane would end up back together after that Armond-knifing but I’d hoped it meant we would see some beats where the incident started to give Shane a little humility and Rachel, a bleeding heart, would be sucked back in. But I guess not. How depressing.
Rachel’s ending was particularly soul-crushing. Shane killing Armond no doubt contributed to her staying by his side, and I feel like this was her last chance to get out for a long time as she was given perspective and opportunity by the honeymoon. Once they are back in his world and more and more time passes… :(And poor Kai, while we’re at it. This was not feel good tv, but excellent nonetheless.
I was talking to my mom after the show aired, and she was wondering why there was no mention that a check of Kai’s cellphone would reveal texts from Paula. How is she not implicated?
Olivia pointed this out – that the texts will exist and she knows it was her. I can’t imagine things getting easier for Paula after the trip is over.
I have no real basis for this (thanks a lot, show), but I’ll just go ahead and assume that Kai cut a deal to implicate himself in exchange for keeping Paula out of everything.
I think she only would be if Kai indicated he had an accomplice and because he’s a loyal, stand up guy who thinks himself in love, he’s not going to do that.And even if he does, once the texts reveal that he was working with a hotel guest and that that hotel guest was staying in the suite that was robbed, it starts to look a bit more like insurance fraud. At which point they’re implicating the powerful, rich, white couple that the hotel is trying to appease. No bueno.
Depends on if the Mossbachers drop the charges once these facts start to tease out. You know the resort sure wants this kept quiet.
I still can’t get over the fact that she didn’t text Kai as soon as Nicole bailed on the boat excursion to tell him to abort the mission. It would have been so easy to exercise caution there.
Unless Kai tried to implicate Paula, I’m sure the cops were plenty satisfied with finding the thief and the loot.
why there was no mention that a check of Kai’s cellphone would reveal texts from Paula. How is she not implicated?
Unless Kai himself volunteered the information that he had a secret accomplice, no one would check this for any reason. A single assailant committed the burglary and assault, and they caught that single assailant. Case closed.
The texts would actually strengthen the case. The texts wuld point to Kai seducing Paula to find out what valuables were in the room.
Still has to explain how he knew the combination.
He more than likely had to explain how he knew about the bracelets in the first place but it’s not like that couldn’t have come up in conversation with Paula and it doesn’t necessarily implicate her in the robbery. All the information he used to plan the heist could have happened during “innocent” conversations with Paula.
As the investigation can’t actually be closed so quickly, I think that there would a lot more to uncover, but we won’t see it.
Did we see her actually send the text?
Kai is the kind of guy who would immediately confess everything and say Rachel had nothing to do with it. The texts would just look like Rachel was a mark that Kai bedded to get info for the robbery.
She may still be. Once he knows she blew town he’s going to tell the cops how he got the safe combination.
My guess is the Mossbachers then decline to press charges in order to keep Paula from being charged as an accessory.Oh, and they’re definitely on the next plane back to get Quinn. No one’s leaving their 16 year-old in Hawaii just because he discovered nature.
Anyone who’s ever met rich people has met Rachels, and it was great to see this look at how they come about. Some trophy wives couldn’t care less about how much of a jerk their rich husbands and just bang a tennis pro on the side, but others just can’t get past it. I see Rachel having a kid thinking that will give her some purpose (and also cement her position) but finding that doesn’t quite do it and then starting to drink a little earlier every day. . .
Nailed it. So depressing.
I don’t know about Rachel, her pain is legitimate, and she is being coerced through the power structure, but at the same time she’s a perfect example of the danger of white women tears. Her story took precedent over the pain of others and the most emotional labour out of us viewers, and Belinda said nope, you don’t get be the centre this time and I’m tired of hearing your narrative.
Coerced? Was it an arranged marriage? Is she 13 years?
She told him it wasn’t his fault..it wasn’t.
Belinda was tired of the narrative probably because she never cared in the first place. She was just looking for a handout.
Rachel coming to the airport broke my heart. A lot of this show deals with what we as people will do for the freedom and security that money provides. Kai ended up in jail for grabbing on to a hopeless dream. Belinda ended up with her heart broken and her dreams crushed. And Rachel walked back into what she knew would be a loveless marriage with an infantile asshole. Her choked-up “I’ll be happy” had me crying too.
I dunno. Belinda has a great plan ( I hated that she tossed it in the trash) , a big wad of cash and should get herself a couple more backers and bingo, she’s got her own shop.
I saw it as her no longer being his “plus one” and the cards are stacked in her favor. No one believes he’ll be convicted or charged with any crime, but he’s openly tainted now. He needs his doe-eyed bride to save his social standing.
I thought this episode’s interactions with Belinda, Tanya, and Rachel were particularly compelling.
I’m not going to let Belinda off the hook as easily. When put upon she makes herself available, every time. And with Rachel, it certainly seemed like she thought she may be getting a better Tanya and hedging her rich white clingers to give herself better odds. Sure, she is naturally a person who lends a caring ear but there certainly seemed to be at least a hint of “I’ll see if this works out if the other one doesn’t” aspect to it too.
And when it’s called upon this time, all of a sudden that caring ear isn’t there at all. Turns out bad days can do that to good people too.
But I’m certainly not going to applaud her for offering help to Rachel when the offer is beyond gracious and then snatching it away because it’s all a bit much.
And that’s absolutely how those scenes should’ve been written because Belinda was definitely all done with other people’s nonsense.
For Belinda and Tonya, again well done. There’s no way $150K (or whatever) with Tanya’s all-strings-attached would actually be better for Belinda than $25K with none of Tanya’s nonsense, but it Belinda’s being crushed by Tanya bailing rings true.
Ugh, Paula. What a wreck.As another has said, “And certainly the Mossbachers, and newly reinstated daughter Olivia, will talk about the vacation that brought them back together…” perhaps, or perhaps it’ll be a little bit that and a lot of remembering it as when their son/brother ran away on an island two thousand miles into the ocean.
This reading of Armond and Shane I don’t see at all. Shane is undoubtedly worse of a person than Armond, and yet Armond (as also noted by another comment already) is the instigator in the entire showdown. Is Shane petty to not let the suite issue go as Rachel suggests, absolutely. But, and it’s apparently extremely important to remember this, the hotel manager’s job is to manage the hotel effectively and accidentally screwing up the booking and then lying about it the entire time is squarely outside of what effective management would entail. That Armond allows himself to let this one thing turn itself into an all out spite-fest is really Armond’s failure to own. Going on all out drug fueled benders and lurking in people’s rooms is probably not the best judgement ever, but particularly for someone who should be acutely aware that a robbery had also taken place the day (two?) before. How Shane accidentally stabbing him, realizing he hasn’t stabbed a dangerous thief but a petty suitcase dumper, and then running to get help (which is how I read that) translates into what you described is a bit befuddling.
I agree that on principle, Armond should have admitted to the screw-up, or refunded the difference.But I think he probably applied his usual tactics and they failed with Shane. I bet that usually at the White Lotus, if the management makes a mistake, the standard procedure is to avoid admitting the mistake, but to offer a free boat cruise or bottle of expensive liquor or spa session, and most people are flattered and placated. Perhaps most guests at the White Lotus are like the Mossbachers, where they can technically afford it, but it’s sort of aspirational for them. The kind of vacation where they might remind themselves that it’s costing them a lot of money and they’d better make the most of it. Or where some of them have to sleep on the couch or cot. And for them, being sucked up to and offered a bonus experience is enough to make them feel like important guests.
But Shane was the exception, through a combination of being too rich, too attached to his Mommy, too principled in his own way, and too entitled.
And Armond didn’t charge them for the Pineapple Suite, he made it clear they were only being charged for the room they were in. Shane kept pushing it, demanding something could be done when literally nothing could be done. Obviously once Armond pulled the business with the boat, he was the one escalating it beyond all reason. But before that? It sounded like the only thing that would’ve satisfied Shane is Armond telling him he personally was the monster who made the error and beg forgiveness for such a grave error committed against such an important man, and then kick out the current guests in the Pineapple Suite (who also booked it!).
I think I missed the part where he refunded the difference! I remember Shane looking at his emails and saying, “We definitely DID pay for the pineapple suite.” But it’s possible it happened later or I just missed it.
Yes, he checked his emails to make sure they really did book the Pineapple Suite, and they had. Armond told him the current cost, the actual amount they were being charged for being there, was for the suite they ended up in.
And we know Armond is a convenient liar so we don’t really know if they were charged more or not. Doesn’t Mommy’s travel agent/hit man try to get a refund?
I agree. I don’t see any way Armond could have initially resolved the issue at the beginning which would have been to Shane’s satisfaction. He apologized, he told him that they wouldn’t be charged for the Pineapple Suite and he moved them in there as soon as he could.If Shane had said, “ok, man, I get it; things get mixed up. Thanks for working on it,” then the whole thing would have blown over.But because Shane was so pissy about it, Armand got pissy, and then it became a battle of who can be jerkier and more underhanded.Armand took a shit in Shane’s bag but Shane GOT ARMAND FIRED. (and then killed him)
He didn’t move them as soon as he could, though. He said the German couple was there until *whatever* date, which turned out not to be true. He also started out by lying about the suite that was booked. He told Shane they did not book the Pineapple Suite, only to immediately respond to a coworker that he had screwed up and double-booked the Suite. Shane may have been a gigantic jerk even if Armond had done everything correctly – been honest about the whole thing and not attempted to exert revenge against Shane – but that’s not what happened.
Well, someone ironically for Armand, that he lied to Shane in the very beginning helped feed into Shane’s attitude of feeling gaslighted and paranoid, which might be why he skulked around his hotel room with a knife.Armand definitely could have handled it better. But at any point, Shane could have just shaken it off and refused to escalate it further. Instead, he intentionally got Armand fired.
He escalated it because Armand put him on that psycho cruise
He could have said what he told to his subordinate “I think we double booked that room”
Armond got himself fired: double booked a room, intentionally put two parties on a private boat cruise, and then pulled a Stephen Glass and created an imaginary boss and business card.
And he got himself killed too…by breaking into a customer’s room (one with whom he had a hard on for) while on a drug-fueled bender… Yeah, he can blame himself for his own demise.
Armond is only bad because he’s been treated as less than a human being by 1000 Shane’s before. Stop defending Shanes, have sympathy for the Armond’s of the world because the guests literally were the death of him.I can’t believe people are getting hung up on the logistics of the resort lol.
If Armond wasn’t shook up by the fact one of this staff went into labor during her shift, he might have been able to deal with this Shane the same way he did all the others instead of falling off the wagon and spiraling out. But she did, and he didn’t, and now he’s dead.
You really are a Shane in this world, having no sympathy for someones relapse? Jesus. People first, not their labour to make some douche happy because he didn’t get the Pineapple suite.
Generally speaking, a character’s actions are important in how one assesses them. That’s not getting hung up on logistics, that’s the meat of the show.
Misplaced sympathy. Armond treated other poorly: the girls (thief), Dillon (sexual misconduct), Shane (liar, vandal, saboteur, etc). The only time he shows remorse is at the beginning when his new hire is in labor and it’s oblivious to him.
To the extent his guests were the death of him was due 100% to his own actions (B&E while on a drug-fueled last hurrah)
Christ, this was depressing.
I’ve been seeing some Twitter anger that Paula didn’t get a ‘happy’ ending, but she’s just another destroyer to come to the island and leave. If we’re supposed to feel sympathetic because she’s a WOC and presumably doesn’t have Olivia’s advantaged background, that ain’t working on me, bubba.
Yeah honestly plenty of wealthy POC mainlanders go to Hawaii to live out the same tourist fantasies as white wealthy people. Often with the same delusions of “finding themselves” or “experiencing the local culture” or whatever. Paula may not be from Mossbacher-level moolah, but I don’t buy that she’s financially struggling. She saw a life with Kai on the island as a life that was beneath her.
It was interesting to me how Paula immediately rejected the idea of staying on the island with Kai, when he suggested it. But Quinn just went ahead and stayed.
Quinn is the only one who learned anything.
She doesnt want to live like Kai. She wants, probably already has privilege
Paula destroyed more on that island than anyone. Kai had some trouble in his life but was generally doing fine. Now he’s looking at years in jail because she got it in his head to commit burglary (and assault).
All the white people on the island have committed burglary of the Indigenous lands and continue to do so. Kai wouldn’t have to steal if the White Lotus hadn’t literally stolen his culture and identity.
Hawaii isn’t owed to anyone, no land is. If America didnt take Hawaii is there really any doubt that Japan or Russia or China would’ve? To think that they are owed that land is nice, but its fantasy. Land all over the world has been fought and lost over since the first caveman hit another over the head. Egypt, Greece, Rome, Russia, Napoleon all have conquered lands. Do you really think Napolean or Caesar Augustus would give land back to people they conquered? Get Real.Look how many times France or Poland, Italy, Egypt has been conquered. Thats the Human condition.
First sentence correct, second sentence: Kai did not have to stealhe wasn’t Jean Valjean dude
Ohnoray seems like a Madame Defarge type
“wouldn’t have to steal” He didn’t have to. Probably never did until he did so for Paula in a scheme that most 12-year olds would have thought was far-fetched.
Which were instigated by Paula, who was also an accomplice, in giving him the safe combination. Do we think he hasn’t confessed that to the authorities?
She’s also arguably responsible for Armond’s death. The only reason Shane was so keyed up and armed with a knife was because of the story of Kai’s invasion.
What kind of happy ending were they hoping/expecting, after last week and the robbery going down in such terrible fashion?
I think she’s meant to be the proxy for that audience that wants to overthrow the power structure and ends with her realizing the futility of doing that with grand, cinematic gestures. Whether or not that is a relatable, sympathetic, etc. character is a reflection of the viewer more than the writer.
I also think Paula’s insistence for Kai to commit the robbery may have been born more from spite at Olivia and her insufferable family than an actual concern for Kai and his situation. Kai ultimately was manipulated by Paula, who took advantage of a naïve and desperate kid to fulfill her own revenge fantasy.
I think she’s White’s way of showing how shitty the “woke” side of the current culture war can be. The privileged people all behave like shit but guess who else does…Paula.
Paula = callous and manipulative
She didn’t even try to text Kai when the Mossbachers were returning to the room- eff her. If she really cared she would have stolen it or the money for him (though the jewelry probably wouldn’t be that helpful since you need to have a connection to someone who can fence that kind of stuff- the value comes from knowing it’s legit)
Yeah, she should have texted as soon as the mom left. You’d think she’d keep in constant contact then.
What’s even worse is that she doesn’t come clean to the authorities about how she masterminded the heist. Kai obviously kept his mouth shut about her involvement, but this was a crime that she orchestrated. Kai was no different than a hitman hired by a disgruntled husband or wife. The main goal was to inflict harm and misery upon the Mossbachers. When it came down to even helping the single native islander that she claimed to care so much about she failed miserably. In a show that had its fair share of awful, self-centered humans she was the worst of them all.
I didn’t want a happy ending and don’t think she’s necessarily GOOD but wished she could’ve at least extricated herself from Olivia, but alas, the ep is all about the futility of pattern breaking.
It seemed folks were disappointed in some aspect by the return to the status quo for these characters – but it seems that was precisely White’s point. Even Armond’s horrible death is easily glossed over by the appearance of a new guy in his place. Pretty damn depressing!
I found it ended in some decent cosmic justice, not depressing at all. The people trying to leech off of others ended up with nothing for the most part.
Her dropping the necklace into the ocean was a beautiful underscore that no matter where she felt she fits in the social hierarchy, she’s still far enough up that she can just wash her hands of what she caused to happen to someone like Kai with no consequences. She became just like the Mossbachers.
I was surprised the term “sex tourism” didn’t come up about Paula; and I thought Mike White was delightfully relentless on Paula
She was working downhill from the way she felt about how POC are treated in America. Olivia had a wealthy white savior complex, and Paula in turn latched on to the treatment of native Hawaiians to show her bona fides.I honestly have no idea what she thought was going to happen. A $75k lawyer is going to force the White Lotus to be given back to native islanders??
Am I wrong? That plane would not take off until Quinn was on board. This is 2021, not 1981. It’s poetically romantic, but a frustratingly inaccurate way to end the series.
In a post-show interview, they asked Mike White if the Mossbachers probably would’ve just rushed off the plane and found Quinn pretty quickly and White’s answer was “they don’t let you off the plane anymore.” That seemed a bit of a cop-out. Of course they do. There was a missing child.
It would have been touchingly comic, if Quinn’s Dad had said something like “ah, let him go.” But that would be a melodramatic cop-out, when his parents expressed nothing but complete disinterest in Quinn’s newfound passion.
My head canon is that through the vagueries of airline ticketing Quinn was seated far enough away from everyone else that they didn’t notice he was missing until mid- or post-flight.
The Mossbachers are definitely the kind of family where Mom and Dad sit in First class and the kids are in coach. (which, hey, not knocking it. If I ever get the chance to fly first class overseas I’m taking it.)
100% on that, even middle class families don’t always fly seated together. Olivia and Paula surely wanted their own seats away from the parents and the parents were probably happy to oblige. Quinn as always was probably an afterthought and seated wherever.
Quinn was seated far enough away from everyone else that they didn’t notice he was missing until mid- or post-flight.This was also my theory
Except the plane wouldn’t take off if he checked a bag without removing it and likely questioning his parents
If my minor child wasn’t seated when the doors closed, I sure as shit would raise hell and get off the plane.
And they would let you. No airline wants to be sued for losing a minor.
I guess it might be different because he’s a minor, but I’ve had unfortunately had a couple instances where I missed them closing the plane door by minutes and they wouldn’t let me in and had to reschedule my flight.
fiction
I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have noticed he wasn’t on the plane until after take off. They were too wrapped up in their newfound happiness. And if Olivia noticed, she would have just kept her mouth shut.
Going out on a limb, I’m giving Shane a little credit. I thought for sure he was going to assume Rachel befouled his luggage on the way to her new room. I also think that Rachel believes that homicide might be the catalyst to instill the seeds of change in Shane, so she gives him a chance.I also thought we might be delving into Quinn’s homosexuality at some point. I mean, was I the only one who took his initial ogling of the canoe boys as Grandma’s proclivities skipping a generation?
I definitely thought he’d assume it was Rachel’s at first. I knew he was about to kill Armond, but I figured he’d first assume Rachel did it before hearing a noise.
My take was that Shane never would have assumed the gift in his suitcase was from Rachel, because he didn’t take Rachel’s grief as genuine in the first place. He was just humoring her as she had what, in Shane’s eyes, was just a temporary depressive episode (“after you’re done spiraling…”), but figured she’d sort herself out. What makes him a terrible husband is that he had zero empathy and zero desire to help her or figure out why she was so sad on her honeymoon.
Exactly: her crisis and resulting depression were mere irritants getting in the way of his “perfect” honeymoon. His shallow nature only allowed him to fixate on addressing the problems that he knows could leverage his wealth and privilege to fix (i.e. his obsession with getting the Pineapple Room). Rachel, to him, is meant to be an attractive, mostly silent, and always deferential sidekick.
I’m not sure why Quinn’s sexuality matters. The only time it’s brought up is when he’s accused of jerking off a ton to porn (teenage boys do this) and then later it’s confirmed when he’s jerking off to what appears to be straight porn on the beach at night. It sounds more like you want Quinn to be homosexual as opposed to there being any real reason or evidence that he may be.
If anything, I think Quinn not being gay makes his story more coherent. Per his last-episode insistence on wanting to live, I thought he saw the rowers as viscerally alive, not (primarily) sexually attractive. In contrast to the life he’d led on screens, in a “dead” city, these men worked with their bodies in a lush, ever-changing environment.
Why would I “want” Quinn to be gay? That just doesn’t make any sense. My observation is based on the long, thirsty look he gave the rowers. It seemed like that was the direction the show was going to go. That, and the fact Mike White is gay. I thought we deserved a sympathetic homosexual character to balance out the derision being heaped upon the grandpa. And it doesn’t matter if he is – not any more than Mark’s Dad being closeted mattered. It didn’t really impact the story. Sure, they were trying to show how shook Mark was, but that never really came to anything.
yeah i think it’s funny how baffled people seem to be by this take. i didn’t *want* him to be gay, but based on how much the show seemed to be about sexuality (particularly homosexuality!) at that point in the series it wasn’t exactly a reach.didn’t end up going that way, and i actually really liked what they did with quinn, but that scene of him looking at the rowers, placed in context with everything else in the series up until that point (another commenter pointed out he was watching straight porn, but he was very clearly frustrated and not aroused by it), definitely had me thinking ‘oh i wonder if he’s going to be gay’ for at least a little bit.
The notion that Quinn might be gay has been mentioned before, but it still doesn’t scan for me. Nothing in the story suggests he has those kinds of feelings for men. His fascination with the boat crew is about camaraderie and adventure, not sex.
Yes, as a queer person, it’s a bizarre suggestion.
I might be in the minority here, but while I sympathize with Belinda for Tanya flaking on the investment, she did hand her an envelope with what appears to be $20K in it (2 straps of $10K) and she didn’t seem the least bit appreciative. I know it’s a downgrade from what she was promised, but it’s a hell of a lot more than she had when Tanya arrived?Also I’m curious why they kept saying ketamine when everything else they depicted, both in terms of the use and how they were acting, made it seem like they were doing a whole lotta blow.
Tanya is a piece of shit lol, she can’t empathize beyond herself and Belinda had dreams of helping women that just weren’t white. 20k won’t get her far.
So Belinda was a racist? She did keep emphasizing that she didn’t want to help just rich people but think she only confided in her son about complaining about “white folks”.
$20K is a nice tip. But she was offering her transformation of her life, probably something that would’ve cost half a mil or more, and made her work for it.Belinda didn’t poop in Tanya’s suitcase, she still took the money and went back to work.
1. It’s not the fact that Belinda wasn’t appreciative of the financial start-up money, it’s the fact that Belinda emotionally invested in Tanya’s well-being and didn’t receive the same in return. Belinda because a cause to toss a few coins to, and not a human being.
That’s why Belinda was dismissive of Rachel. Belinda is tired of being trope of being the ethnic soundboard for wealthy people just to have her voice ultimately ignored.
That wasn’t even start-up money, it was Tanya paying off her guilt.
Considering Belinda basically transformed Tanya’s life and acted as her own personal therapist (after hours and unpaid, no less) the 20K was meant as a “tip.” Imagine investing in something body and soul, staying up all night to complete a business proposal and putting your own life on hold while a rich white woman uses you as a sounding board, and what you get out of it is a tip.
Yeah but I probably wouldn’t put my body and soul into some guest staying at the hotel I work at.
Sadly, believe seemed more than a little naive to trust Tanya at all. It’s not hard to sympathize with her hoping for the best, especially as it would completely transform her life, but she’s at least a little culpable for being so easily duped.
Yeah i mean at the end of the day she got paid a couple grand to write up her own business proposal. I’ve done that for free. But we should stand up and cheer when she tells the next rich white lady to fuck off?
I mean it was still good for her to set boundaries (Rachel would have been even less useful to her, at least Tanya got her money and was aware of her issues). But I think she’s better off without her even though it was devastating- the thing about toxic relationships is that they are both painful to be in and painful to get out of
I’m not sure we were. Rachel wasn’t Tanya, Belinda just assumed she was and said no thanks. So Tanya’s shitty treatment of Belinda made her a less compassionate purpose at exactly the time when another, non-shitty woman was honestly asking for her help. Just tragedy on tragedy.
A twenty thousand dollar tip for telling my wishes to someone. Ok I’ll gladly take it. Thank you, I will say, also. My thoughts are not quite as “outraged” that a random lady staying at the resort I work at won’t fund out my career dream after one nice dinner, I’m not sure why anyone would have expected it to happen.
I mean, I might be bummed out in the moment, but if I could dry my tears with $20k, I think I’d get over it pretty quickly.
I’m not scoffing at 20K (fuck you, “Hacks” for thinking it was righteous to give a million dollars to a douchey white guy), but at best that’s supplemental income. Even if you gave a 20K a year worker another 20K, they’ll probably think “Well, that’s closer to what I should be making.”
I got a $100 tip once about ten years ago and I still remember it. I can’t imagine what a $20,000 tip would feel like but I don’t think I’d toss it sadly in a drawer.
Yeah- also I feel like Tanya would be a terrible business partner. She’s too unstable- it would be a nightmare
The $ was fairly insulting. It would’ve been better if Tanya had framed it as seed cash or something but she was trying to pay away the harm she did.
As a former partier I’m happy to see someone else was wondering about what kind of trip there trying to portray with their camera work.
A dissapoiting ending, but probably a realistic one. I guess some things never change. The ruling class continues to be appeased and catered to and the help are just there to serve them. Shane accidently killing Armond with no consequences and getting to keep his wife was not the ending I was hoping for. When the worst character on the show walks away unscathed and the most likable character doesn’t survive, it kind of makes the entire series into a tragedy. Well made show but a bit to dark for my liking. Things are just way to bleak in the world right now and I was hoping for something a bit more uplifting even if it was suppose to be a black comedy.
The ending with the dorky white male teenager returning to the island like he’s some kind of enlightened being who’s not capable of being a destructive colonizing force is ridiculous to me. He will always have mommy and daddy’s money to prop him up. Felt a little Mary Sue-ish IMO.
I think it’s supposed to be both? Quinn can sort of break his families patterns, but there’s something wrong about him getting a happy ending by literally inserting himself onto the boat and a culture that isn’t his.
Save for him first asking, they invited him. He went from “we need the dead weight” to encouraging him to participate because the kid proved himself and they needed him. Kind of a hard diss to call it cultural intrusion when it just boiled down to rowing an outrigger canoe.Honestly Quinn was the happy ending that was earned.
But I think Mike White giving the white rich kid the happy ending was deliberate and a bit tongue in cheek.
Mike White seemed to indicate it was a real happy ending and supposed to be hopeful…what I had hoped he might touch on with it was: second generation fight like hell to earn their money, third generation don’t care. This wouldn’t happen with this kid because they are too rich, but there was was a real pandemic of the kids of middle/upper middle class families going into things where you can’t possibly make any money and basically going back to the start financially (here, spend $150k on a philosophy degree then $280k on grad school!)
I thought Quinn, Rachel, and Belinda were really the only characters worth watching. I liked that he got a nice ending. It’s all the same in the end is fine, I guess, but I would’ve liked more out of the six episodes.
But haven’t young white men and boys of means been doing that for centuries in all kinds of stories? It’s an old-fashioned trope, but a powerful one, and right in line with the themes of this series.I’m of two minds about Quinn’s story. On the one hand, he found a group of people who accept him and include him in working to a common goal…in other words, the exact opposite of his family. He finds an intense and satisfying physical activity that helps burn off some of that teenage sexual energy. And he gets to spend more time in a beautiful place.But still, as you rightly point out, he’s a privileged tourist in this land. As soon as something goes wrong, he gets bored, he finds something better to do or whatever, Mom and Dad and money will be there to bail him out. It’s like his own little version of the “Grand Tour.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour]
Yeah for sure, it’s an old fashioned trope, but with lots of talk of recentring the narrative, it was a trope that makes the white young man able to participate in the best of a culture while being able to avoid the problems. I do think Mike White is right that if we listened to Indigenous voices we would be a happier society, and Quinn largely has a happy ending, but nothing is black and white in this show.
I get the impression the only way you’d have enjoyed Quinn’s ending is if he was a huge piece of shit cause you need him to be. It’s ok for some white people to be portrayed as decent and ok. Dude just wanted to live. He recognized that he was trapped by his life (or lack there of) and wanted something else and went and found it.That doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
YES! Like your take. The majority of young men that have headed of for adventure have been well off. Yes there were some poor young men but not many and they often labored under those men of means. (sailor and voyagers, etc.)
also, after graduation, all my well off friends bummed around Europe for the summer, even if the used “their own money” their parents were about to fly them home if there was trouble. and all my poor friends worked 1-2 jobs or went into the military. Even saving your teenage job money for a Europe trip is a privilege. This is just my experience, not saying anything is completely universal. I am sure this post will piss of someone with a one off counter example.
He won’t have the opportunity to get bored. Dad will be on the next flight back to get him.
Kind of pessimistic, though. The idea of culture is sharing, and he is literally invited on every occasion. If he were going to give up, the promise of a new phone would have swayed him, but he’s in it for the long haul. Hell, he could potentially just peace out of his family. Everyone leaves their “vacation” but Quinn stayed, so it’s not really a vacation if you stay.
Agree with all of this. But I think Quinn was the only one to actually have an awakening/change out of the group. Now whether that awakening is exploitative or not is up for debate (he was invited, he didn’t force himself into it) but I think in terms of story, he’s meant to be the one person who is now in a “better” place because he broke away.It’s a ludicrous ending, imo. But it’s dramatically okay.
I think both Quinn and Rachel had ‘awakenings’, i.e. they both now see a greater truth of their/the world; the difference is Quinn was the only one bold enough to attempt ‘escape’ from that life. Rachel ultimately chooses to (from what Daddario feels, in an interview) bide her time and eventually divorce/leave when she is in a more comfortable position.I felt this demonstrated the realities of privilege really well; they are both in close proximity/reach of vast wealth and influence, but where Rachel was ultimately not getting any ‘assistance’ escaping Shane’s orbit and the marriage after her awakening, which is also indicative of women’s place in our society, that even now ‘wealthy’ as a trophy wife, she couldn’t escape Shane immediately, and needs to take some time to be ready to leave. Then there is Quinn, who as a white male is seemingly ‘automatically’ empowered to make drastic decisions, even leaving his family/financial support at 16 years old/pre-adult, and at least immediately, be successful. There was no option like Quinn’s for Rachel, she was ultimately powerless in the world, even after marrying Shane she had no options but Shane to not be immediately alone and homeless (or, close enough). But Quinn decides to leave his established and traditional protective power structure (family, whiteness) and is welcomed into the group of indigenous rowers. One can imagine maybe he rents the place the arrested guy was living at, or sleeps on someone’s couch, but that’s just another positive check for the white male, on youth; age is another dictator of power structure in our society, and more than anyone else, young people, especially young white males, can seemingly do anything and have support/survive.I’ll tell you what; I’m envious of Quinn, if his parents continue to support him, but don’t make him follow the traditional life path, i.e. let him find himself and live in Hawaii and participate with the row team, he is going to have an absolutely magnificent life full of rich, singular experiences that are simply out of reach or impossible to 99.99% of people in the world, even indigenous. He can embrace the ‘power’ and ‘influence’ his whiteness and male-ness give him, but travel welcomed through various indigenous societies and have ‘belonging’ experiences with them all. He’ll have that kind of ‘try this on then try that on’ experience that we read of uber-rich kids having where they are like cultural nomads moving from one amazing experience to another, so even if he just stays in Hawaii, he will have an experience over/above what another native Hawaiian could have because, for example a fishermen, or the rowers, most people have one or two things they enjoy and/or do for a living, and then between that and dating or recreational times, that’s their time/their life. Quinn can move between jobs/interests as his interest takes him on a whim because ultimately he isn’t worried about working to earn money to live. So he can have the kind of ‘Hemingway’ experiential life that is super rare and amazing, like a National Geographic Explorer.
Yeah, best case scenario Quinn could turn into an Anthony Bourdain type.
I think both Quinn and Rachel had ‘awakenings’, i.e. they both now see a greater truth of their/the world; the difference is Quinn was the only one bold enough to attempt ‘escape’ from that life. Rachel ultimately chooses to (from what Daddario feels, in an interview) bide her time and eventually divorce/leave when she is in a more comfortable position.I felt this demonstrated the realities of privilege really well; they are both in close proximity/reach of vast wealth and influence, but where Rachel was ultimately not getting any ‘assistance’ escaping Shane’s orbit and the marriage after her awakening, which is also indicative of women’s place in our society, that even now ‘wealthy’ as a trophy wife, she couldn’t escape Shane immediately, and needs to take some time to be ready to leave. Then there is Quinn, who as a white male is seemingly ‘automatically’ empowered to make drastic decisions, even leaving his family/financial support at 16 years old/pre-adult, and at least immediately, be successful. There was no option like Quinn’s for Rachel, she was ultimately powerless in the world, even after marrying Shane she had no options but Shane to not be immediately alone and homeless (or, close enough). But Quinn decides to leave his established and traditional protective power structure (family, whiteness) and is welcomed into the group of indigenous rowers. One can imagine maybe he rents the place the arrested guy was living at, or sleeps on someone’s couch, but that’s just another positive check for the white male, on youth; age is another dictator of power structure in our society, and more than anyone else, young people, especially young white males, can seemingly do anything and have support/survive.I’ll tell you what; I’m envious of Quinn, if his parents continue to support him, but don’t make him follow the traditional life path, i.e. let him find himself and live in Hawaii and participate with the row team, he is going to have an absolutely magnificent life full of rich, singular experiences that are simply out of reach or impossible to 99.99% of people in the world, even indigenous. He can embrace the ‘power’ and ‘influence’ his whiteness and male-ness give him, but travel welcomed through various indigenous societies and have ‘belonging’ experiences with them all. He’ll have that kind of ‘try this on then try that on’ experience that we read of uber-rich kids having where they are like cultural nomads moving from one amazing experience to another, so even if he just stays in Hawaii, he will have an experience over/above what another native Hawaiian could have because, for example a fishermen, or the rowers, most people have one or two things they enjoy and/or do for a living, and then between that and dating or recreational times, that’s their time/their life. Quinn can move between jobs/interests as his interest takes him on a whim because ultimately he isn’t worried about working to earn money to live. So he can have the kind of ‘Hemingway’ experiential life that is super rare and amazing, like a National Geographic Explorer.
That’s the point.
While I think Quinn’s is probably the only “happy” ending of the show, you are correct in thinking that eventually he’s going to get bored, or tired of being poor, etc, and call on Mommy and Daddy for money. He’s doing class tourism. Too bad he’s young and probably missed out on listening to Pulp.
Sure but the woman in Common People is “slumming it” because it’s chic and has no interest in the background players in this narrative she’s creating. Quinn seems want to have the full experience. He’ll probably move on, but at least he won’t turn out to be an entitled man-child like Shane, which may have been where Quinn was headed if he just spent his formative years in his cocoon surrounded by electronic toys.
Yeah, but even if he’s interested in the full experience, he’s basically asking for the locals to pander to him and show off “their world.” I mean, let’s be honest, Quinn’s got wet noodle arms; there is no way he shouldn’t be replaced by an actually experienced outrigger for this trip.I don’t think Quinn has bad intentions, but I *do* think he will call Mommy and Daddy the second the going gets rough and then come home with a man bun, telling people how “authentic” he is.
Mary Sues are generally good at too many things too easily. I don’t see where Quinn qualifies.
I think you and others are reading into Quinn’s motives. He liked being part of a team rather than his fake online world. And historically speaking, it’s not unusual for teenage males.
You’re a little late on these colony references. The place is a US state and has places for tourists, just like…well, everywhere in the US.
I agree the engine that gets him from the gate of a boarding plane to a canoe with the guys is, at best, short-lived.
Why would Armond’s body been flown elsewhere since he lives in Hawaii though?
Because there’s no crematorium on the island or there’s a family burial plot in Australia or something, I’d assume.
Presumably his family wanted it brought home, I guess?
I’m guessing if they were conducting any sort of autopsy as part of the investigation it would be done in Oahu.
I assumed the implication was that Shane said it was self-defense and the police dropped any investigation because they believed him because he’s rich.
So, that’s the Maui airport, and the flight they’re all boarding just a puddle-hopper flight en route to Honolulu, which is the main international airport on the islands.(This is not super obvious, but there are a few clues – the overhead announcement says “now boarding flight xxx to Honolulu” and Tanya tells Belinda she’s flying to Honolulu with Greg to go shopping)My guess is Armand’s body is being loaded on that flight to Honolulu, to be transferred internationally to Sydney or Melbourne or wherever his family is.
Good catch…I was wondering why his body was headed to the mainland, but this puddle jumper explanation makes perfect sense.
Somebody in another site made the excellent point that the White Lotus was in a small island of its own that its unlikely to have a coroner. So that plane was probably flying the body to Honolulu for the autopsy, as it was taking the other guests to where they could take their flights to the mainland.
people are asking really specific questions about a fictional showwouldn’t all of that pineapple have spiked their glycemic indexes and caused them to nap at 2:30pm unless they had a tums? we need to know, Mike White!
I was initially shocked saddened by Rachel going back to super a$$hole Shane. I tried overnight to fine a way to interpret it with grace and best intentions. (it was hard). What if Shane is so traumatized by killing someone, his new wife calling out his baby-man ways and threatening to leave shocked him enough he will go to loads of counseling and therapy, read a bunch of Brené Brown and do the hard work to deserve and keep Rachel? Probably not but the alternative is her deciding to acquiesce the loss of her autonomy and humanity. But money is money and having money makes life so much easier.
There is no charitable interpretation for Rachel’s ending. She was already poisoned by the money, that’s the key theme of the show. Once you get into that position of privilege, you are essentially done as a real human being and every action taken after is to maintain, shore up, or grow that position of power.
She mentioned the time based prenup she has essentially decided to stay until the payout is high enough
When I was a kid, I use to walk out of certain movies and not know if I liked the movie or not but felt changed a bit by them and that I would not forget them. This was the TV version of that.
Enjoyed these reviews but also found myself increasingly disagreeing with Roxana’s take on a lot of the characters as we progressed. A few points of contention:-Was Mark and Nicole’s description of the robbery really “over the top”? They were both physically assaulted and had absolutely no reason not to think their attacker was armed! That seems like fair game for being regarded as a terrifying life-or-death situation.-On a related note, is there really anything hypocritical or even worthy of contempt in Olivia both taking an interest in systemic inequalities in the world and also not wanting her parents to be robbed and attacked? Sure she’s a bit bratty and obnoxious in her approach to social justice issues, but honestly at least she is engaging with these concepts and her attitude always seemed basically indistinguishable from garden variety (i.e. non-rich) college student know-it-all behavior. I never really got the hate for her and I certainly don’t get the idea that her not being okay with her parents being violently robbed calls her larger ideology into question. -In the same vein, I don’t get the reviewer’s sympathy for Paula- or at least, why she has so much more sympathy for Paula than Olivia. They seem to have basically the same flaws, but Paula made choices that were truly dangerous and ruined someone’s life as a result. But then again, I always took Paula’s insistence that she suffers from various made-up medical issues that seem to only affect people who don’t have much else going on in their lives (Morgellons, whatever the weird fruit digestion one was) as a sure signifier that she is also from an affluent background, which seems to be at odds with others’ takes on the character and her motivations.-Also way less sympathetic to Armond than the reviewer seems to be. Obviously Shane is a jerk, but I can’t really blame him for arming himself with a knife and being startled into using it when there is an intruder in his room mere hours after another guest was robbed and attacked by an intruder in their room! Armond escalated their conflict at every turn and even though Shane took things to an unreasonable place, his initial complaint was actually justified.-Lastly, definitely didn’t feel like Belinda’s treatment of Rachel was worthy of “kudos.” She would have been well within her rights to not offer support in the first place, and I’m sympathetic to the fact that the timing of everything led her to unexpectedly hit her limit on helping privileged white people through their personal crises, but that doesn’t make what she did not unkind. Okay, obviously I had a lot of thoughts! Overall really enjoyed this show, and I appreciate Roxana’s coverage even though I don’t agree with many of her characterizations.
that was a lot of words defending shitty class structures.
Lol, who hurt you? Finding nuance in execrable characters isn’t a defense or endorsement of them, but this concept seems to be slipping through your fingers. Sure, they’re avatars for a class of people that have left you feeling aggrieved, but that’s not justification for you to steamroll someone’s thoughtful analysis (here and elsewhere). that was a lot of words defending shitty class structures.I could say the same for your full-throated defense of Armond. I take it that theft, deceit, sexual coercion, and a drug habit that endangers others aren’t dealbreakers for you?
nope, drug habits are not moral failures, he’s ill and he needs help. Not for you to cheer for him getting stabbed because he wasn’t the manager you wanted for spending ~good money~ lol.The whole show is about the layered and coercive nature of class, and how it trickles down and hurts everyone except for people like Shane who are the ones creating all this pain. It’s just bizarre people are on Shane’s side and is a very hopeless approach to take of a show that showed us how insidious major wealth is.
Who was cheering for him getting stabbed?
The minute he took a crap in the suitcase, I lost all sympathy for him and he got what he deserved.
I think the show you wanted is at odds with the show that you got, and worse, you’re insistent on evaluating the characters as living, breathing humans instead of narrative components. Armond is not “ill,” he’s a fictional character in a television show that called for his tragic demise – any critical eye could see that his escalating self-destruction would likely conclude in that box of “human remains.” That Armond is killed and Shane (presumably) moves on with life as usual is not an indictment of your personal values, it’s simply a conclusion that you haven’t been willing to accommodate. It didn’t require a lot of speculative imagination to see that Shane and Armond’s feud was heading somewhere dark, so I find it curious that you’ve attacked anyone who simply followed the narrative breadcrumbs. The supposed “pro-Shane” camp that you’ve imagined doesn’t exist, and I suspect there’s some unspoken element here that you’re taking personally. That said, I get the feeling you’re just being deliberately obtuse to begin with. If you’re able to reduce and dismiss OP’s analysis as “defending shitty class structures,” what should we make of your willingness to hand-wave Armond’s dishonest and sometimes predatory behavior?
Believing that someone with a drug addiction, whether fictional or not, is somehow indicative of a moral failing is so regressive and damaging. That’s not the shows intention, that’s audiences projection. The Shane camp is pretty much anyone that doesn’t want to admit that the structures in place is the predator of the series. That’s the point. I’m not being obtuse because I actually want to explore the class system which is literally what the entire show is set up to explore, instead of taking things so literally and actually being obtuse like those that keep claiming that Shane was entitled to mistreating the workers. It’s not about handwaving, it’s about understanding why behaviours like this exist in the first place.
Exploring isn’t a word that describes your opinions
Drug habits can be moral failures, even if it becomes an illness. Recognition of that addiction and not acting on it in a timely manner is certainly a character weakness.
Your version of the show is yours. I think it’s a lot simpler than what you have manufactured. Not everyone (anyone serious?) sees human interactions of the oppressed and the oppressor.
How did the show demonstrate how insidious major wealth is? Tanya is a fuck up like her mother….The Mossbachers are normal with understandable marriage, parent-child, and health concerns and faults. Shane is a momma’s boy. None of that is dependent on wealth.
If anything it shows how those without it are bitter and feel justified in bad behavior when dealing with people wealthier than themselves. I sometimes wonder if the writers of these various recaps relate so much to Rachel that they instinctively despise Shane .
Re. Belinda: I thought with Rachel she was finally going to have the opportunity to provide emotional/spiritual healing, which she had described as her aspiraion for her proposed healing center. But then she was doing it for free, not for pay, and she was too disappointed to want to bother to follow through.Re. Paula: despite her revulsion at the Mossbachers we never learn anything about her own ethnic or economic background. We are allowed to make our own stereotyped assumptions based on her appearance.
Yes, I watched a different show than Roxana. You are much closer to what I thought, saw, and felt.
i’m so glad it wasn’t the wife who died. that would have been too depressing.
A great and raw look at privilege, and all the absurdity and pain it brings. Every white person born into wealth is basically untouchable from consequences, and everyone else is subject to some form of coercion on different scales except Shane, the Mossbachers and Tanya. Quinn might break the cycle internally, but it’s an option his privilege allows. Rachel’s pain is valid because it’s her pain and pain cannot be measured, but it’s white nonsense to Belinda at this point. Belinda will smile and watch as Armond’s choices and breaking point makes more and more sense each day.I think it’s telling the audience has clung so deeply to holding Paula/Kai and Armond responsible for actions that only existed because of the disparity of class, simply because it’s easier to point fingers at them than look at the bigger picture.
I must wonder….What color is the sky in your world?
You’re so delusional it’s even funny two years later. Keep fucking that chicken lol.
I always thought the Shane/Armond conflict was an interesting one. Like… Shane’s a megadouche and we’re not supposed to root for him but he also wasn’t wrong: Armond booked the wrong room then lied to him, and kept pushing and pushing and pushing until they had their own little war. Armond WAS out to get him at some point. Shane should have let it go. i would have liked to have seen more on this, to be honest.
I predict large amounts of alcohol and prescription drugs in Rachel’s future, but I don’t have sympathy for her. She had a choice, and she chose Shane and Kitty (you’re not getting one without the other). At least she won’t have to worry about how she’s going to pay for her self-medication.
Was overall disappointed by this finale. Shaun killing Armond was extremely obvious from episode one and its in a way that you can’t fully fault Shane – it was an accident, he didn’t even know it was Armond.I think now that the show is over i realized how big of a problem i have that almost none of the hotel workers were Hawaiian. I understand why Armond isnt, and your line in your review that their bringing his body back to where ever it came from; sort of mini colonization at the hotel. Kai is the only Hawaiian worker that was brought to the front. I love Natasha Rothwell, but Belinda should have been native Hawaiian, the boys that Armond parties with could so easily be Hawaiian.
It was deliberate storytelling, that we often are not granted narratives by Indigenous people. And instead we are given the same stories again and again like Rachel’s, that seem to garner more sympathy than the much bigger tragedies like those of Kai’s.
I think that’s giving too much credit to the writers. If they want to tell Indigenous stories, then tell Indigenous stories. Give us more time with Kai or follow up with Lani after she’s gone into labor. Both characters just disappeared, with Lani barely even mentioned. Putting forth the stories they did while trying to say that those stories aren’t important strikes me as disingenuous.
No it’s not, they talk about recentering the narrative as a major theme, the point of the show is that white people make it nearly impossible to rencentre it because they are so consumed by themselves.
The people who made the show were free to focus more on Indigenous characters. They didn’t. I don’t give them credit for now telling the audience that it can’t be done. (If I’m following your explanation correctly)
Yes, because they expect the audience to pick up on how white people constantly push everyone else out of the narrative. It’s a story of class, and with class comes control over even storytelling. It fits the theme of the show perfectly.
I dunno. This reminds me a bit of David Simon saying that people shouldn’t have focused on the (stupid) fake serial killer story in Season 5 of the The Wire. Yes, there are other important things happening, but you can’t have your show focus so much on a story and then chastise the audience for paying attention to it. It’s too clever by half and it didn’t work. I don’t think it works here either.
Lani’s back there at the end waving, isn’t she? So true to life she got like a week off work after giving birth?
The Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander population in Hawaii is only around 10%. A hotel having mostly non-Hawaiian workers — and white workers in customer-facing positions specifically — scans for me from personal experience.
I went to Kauai a few years ago and came across plenty of working white people who, like Quinn, vacationed there years ago and never left.
The most common trend with the white people we interacted with was that they or their spouse had been stationed in Hawaii at some point and decided to return.
Does anyone find it deeply ironic and depressing that this aired the same day that the Afghan government collapsed? Just like in the show we get to “go home” leaving destruction and damaged lives in our wake. I know this is just a tv show and the situation in Afghanistan is a real life event that is affecting the lives of millions of people but the same undercurrent of cynicism ran through me watching this episode and the news coverage of Afghanistan earlier in the day.
Americans get to be the Tanya and Paula of Afghanistan’s The White Locus: Come in, declare that we’re here to help, spend days (or, you know, decades) convincing locals that we have the solution to their problem, then abandon them when it’s time to go home and leave them worse off than we found them. And, as ever, no one here will be the one executed or raped or strung up on a wall by an invading military force.
Your analogy won’t age well. People (from) here have probably suffered all three by now.
So, were we supposed to understand that Rachel was struggling the whole time with the temptation to stay? Because she was literally shuddering at his touch the previous morning. The whole time, I thought that she was struggling with the temptation to leave. Is the idea that, had Belinda given her even a small amount of encouragement, then she would’ve gone through with leaving him, but since Belinda was completely done investing in these ridiculous people’s so-called problems and instead bailed, Rachel was left alone with her uncertainties and then the news of the murder pushed her over the edge? I guess I can see that. Still kind of feels like some piece of the catalyst for that final turn is missing to me. Dunno.I do feel like the show missed a couple of opportunities, though. A guy like Shane would absolutely call his mother if his wife started ‘malfunctioning’ on ‘his’ honeymoon. She’s the ultimate manager for him to call. That’s what I thought was happening with Armond. I thought that he was going to hear Shane completely wuss out on the phone to his mother and then Shane would’ve stood totally revealed and humiliated when he looked into Armond’s eyes at the end. But whatever. It was a solidly cynical ending anyway and I respect that.
Unlike seemingly everyone else, I was always ready to fast forward through Rachel scenes. An empty character—played to perfection, no doubt—struggling with purpose, and… that’s it? Some funny facial expressions? I think I liked the last-second reveal; not because it was devastating (I suppose it kind of was), but because it felt entirely appropriate for such a mushy, nothing character who constantly talks about being their own person but is also a cipher. It’s downright peculiar to me just how much people seem to sympathize with her.
Yeah, but I think it was intentional that people were duped into sympathizing so much for her, and then Belinda was like nah, no more of this white women nonsense. You were just ahead of it (Rachel is still a victim of class structure, but marginally so).
Haha, that’s very generous of you. Looking at the comments, it’s clear the takeaway for most folks is something more like a Greek tragedy. I get that she’s nice, but she’s also the definition of insipid. They kind of deserve each other. If I scrutinize why she bugs me so much, I suppose it’s because I’ve known more than a few very beautiful and perfectly empty people flitting around NYC in their 20s and 30s whose entire personalities are talking about how they want to do something special.
Rachel comes across as a sympathetic character because we only see her in contrast to her detestable husband and his equally elitist mom. Because the two of them are written so insufferably, Rachel’s general innocuousness comes across as relatable, and her eventual realization that she should not be in her marriage feels like a breakthrough for her character, despite it being so obvious from the outset to the viewer that she should not be married to Shane. The fact that she ends up back with him at the end is a tragedy for her character arc because instead of paddling off into the ocean, she returns back to square one: presumably to essentially repeat the same patterns and struggles in Tahiti.And as far as Belinda’s opting out of providing any help, and thereby possibly contributing to Rachel’s regression: from Rachel’s perspective, it would seem like a very harsh rebuke from somebody who kindly offered help mere hours before. It’s pulling the rug out from under somebody who is already lying on the floor. There is some humor there, because we also understand Belinda’s frustration and exhaustion with constantly catering to these needy, wealthy people at the expense of her own mental health. And we’ve seen her be rejected for showing care and sticking her own neck out. My take away is that you should never be too quick to judge another person’s behavior in a single moment, especially a stranger, because you really have no comprehension of their history, mental state, or feelings at that time. Had Rachel spoken with Belinda at the moment she offered her help, I think Belinda probably would have had some sage advice: but that would not be a very satisfactory narrative conclusion. In the end, you root for Belinda because you know this is a rare chance for her to exert some power and agency for herself, while Rachel will have plenty of opportunities to get the help she needs down the line.
“we also understand Belinda’s frustration and exhaustion with constantly catering to these needy, wealthy people at the expense of her own mental health.”
She’s in the wrong line of work then and definitely in the wrong place if her mental health suffers that much. Or maybe she shouldn’t offer so much free advice and hope to cozy up to the rich clientele.
Rachel’s definitely sympathetic, but this show doesn’t let anyone off the hook entirely. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of there there when it comes to her. You feel for her, but wonder what her life was like before meeting Shane. She’s a journalist, but compiles lists from other peoples’ work.
Regardless, Daddario flat-out killed it in this role and I hope it leads to a whole lot more that feature more than her looks and body.
Women (and men!) get into crappy relationships too fast all the time. I still find it sympathetic (with limits, per Belinda – what a great, important scene that was).
She was a in a crappy place, felt pressure to get married, and there Shane was. I heard someone say that their sister got married and divorced after a month because she hadn’t been wooed before. I don’t think she’s perfectly empty, I think she’s not unintelligent but deeply insecure. I don’t think she and Shane deserve each other for the simple reason that she doesn’t share Shane’s level of cruelty.
Yeah, the scene witht Belinda was SO necessary. Even Nice White Women (TM) can be a drain.
Having been married a couple of times I would have advised her that it’s not unusual to think “Holy crap, what have I done?” when you make a serious commitment like marriage, or a new job. I was really hoping she would bail; but on the other hand, you can’t just throw up your hands and quit every time things don’t suit you. Give it more than a week.
The line between tragedy and comedy is very thinAnd always a matter of perspective.I think that’s the point of this season. We all want the comeuppance, the change, the right thing to happen. But when left with having to make that choice, it is VERY rare that someone follows through. And people can say VERY hurtful things (Shane and Rachel) that just get swept under the rug for the sake of maintaining a status quo.That Quinn was the only one who followed through on what they stated they wanted to change isn’t great. It’s not very realistic and makes the satire feel even more like a parable or something like sociological magic realism. That just… isn’t happening. It’s a nice moment, but just ends it on a “yeah, right” kind of note.It’s too neatly done in the reality of the rest of the season that ends… well, the way things would happen. Paula’s attempt to upend the system ends the way it would in the real world. There’s no dramatic buildup to it. It’s simply stated. Because it happens every day. Paula is the SJW-type who doesn’t consider the faceless, efficient system she’s fighting against. I think her breakdown is just as much about the realization of her hopelessness than it is about the impact of what she did to Kai.In the end, my wife said “that wasn’t a satisfying conclusion.” Dramatically? No. But the message (through this whole season) has been that there are no satisfying conclusions. This island is an escape from the real world, but the real world is much bigger, stronger and doesn’t stop existing because of it.
I agree, it was exactly the ending it should be. We are stuck, all exploited to some degree, except the Shane’s and Mossbacher’s of the world. Some exploited more so than others. I think Quinn’s ending was supposed to be a kind tongue in cheek ending that only the white dude gets a happy ending.
Question for everyone – where should Season 2 be set? There are PLENTY of places where rich tourists flock that could lead to cringe-inducing encounters with far less well off and indeed exploited staff. Here’s some of my ideas: Southeast Asia: Adding the “eat pray love”/namaste angle could be interesting. Think of a resort that’s claiming to be a spiritual retreat while still appealing to travelers who won’t accept low threadcount sheets.African safari camp: Similar issues around nature and the environment would be in play along with racial and geopolitical issues. A more isolated setting – many safari camps need you to fly in and have only a dozen or so guests – would also mean everyone interacts a lot more.Mediterranean boutique hotel: I’m thinking of the kind of place where the owner of the hotel is a socialite/wealthy so there’s a certain amount of the guests actually trying to curry his or her favor, with everyone pretending they are equal with the staff when they are really – not. Small luxury cruise: How could merging Below Deck and White Lotus be bad? What do you all think? And what ideas do you all have?
More than where it’s set (all your location thought starters seem fine), I’m wondering what it should be about. Like, as an anthology show, what defining elements will White Lotus carry into a second season? Are all seasons going to be about fabulously icky guests interacting with lower-status hotel staff? Will their always be a first-episode murder arc, etc.?I really enjoyed it as a one-off, but I suspect repeating the same themes will offer hugely diminished returns, as we’ve seen with a million other second seasons. I’d be happy if White (Mike, not the Lotus) tried something fully different.
I do think there is a lot of opportunity to continue to mine issues of class, race and power but agree there needs to be something different. I definitely wouldn’t want to see another honeymooning couple with a big income gap as Shane and Rachel so thoroughly explored the issues around this, for example, but they could go to a setting where the income gaps are far greater than Hawaii (as is the case in much of Asia) and potentially show more of the home life of the staff, who might themselves be far wealthier than many friends and family. Or as noted look at a chic resort in Europe where it might be more about older, insanely wealthy guests preying on young, hot staff who might be less broke and have more choices. There are a lot of ways to go!
While there is an income gap with Shane and Rachel to me the contrast lies in gender roles. All of human history the woman is the accoutrement or chattel for the man, this can be followed back to the most ancient of civilizations. Rachel was disturbed by the reality that all she needed to do to be worthy of a “prize” like Shane was to be the perfect complementary ornament. She was tortured by the thought of surrendering to being a trophy wife but did it any way. To me this is a dark commentary on straight relationships, if a woman plays along she can be taken care of but if she has any self respect she will suffer under the weight of self betrayal. The income gap itself isn’t the issue it’s the gap between the entitlement it fosters and the insecurity the lack of it creates that makes the tension.
I assumed this was a one-off show. I didn’t think the show was all that great. Regardless, I agree that revisiting these same themes in a new location might not be worth much. What would be the point?
Everyone was great, but Armand MADE this show for me. I could have done with a second season set in the same location, just different guests. But now, eh. I guess I trust White enough to watch whatever, though.
I think it would be fun to put it someplace where guests almost compete among themselves to flaunt the most wealth, privilege, status, fame, etc. The guests this season were basically in silos, as entertaining as it was.
Hey, Fargo has done ok. I think there are ways around it.
I think that a cruise would be the perfect setting: public opinion on cruising is at an all-time low: and cruises are perfect encapsulations of privilege meeting the serving class; sailing on a well-oiled capitalism-driven behemoth. Throw in a potentially darkly hilarious COVID outbreak narrative and you’ve got a hit. The Armond character would be the cruise entertainment director – the always amenable, constantly cheery leader of the festivities. We could have a David Foster Wallace “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” audience surrogate character. There’s lots of options for characters to explore in this setting; one that I don’t think has ever truly been done justice in a long-form setting.
I’m wondering if it’s Aspen, where Tanya and Greg are headed, because Mike White insinuated that a few characters may be returning. Less of a race/colonialism angle available there for sure, but as someone who grew up around there and has friends who work as bartenders/ski lift operators for celebrities in Vail while living in trailers themselves, there is certainly an upstairs-downstairs dynamic to explore. And just aesthetically, a second season that swaps the tropical beach for snowy mountains would be a fun evolution of the show.
If this happens, I think we can all agree that Glenn Howerton NEEDS
to join the cast.
His character in the Hunt but toned down like several notches to be believable.
Lived in Eagle County, worked in Vail. Know the social dynamic well.
Caribbean all inclusive would also work but the rich are not as rich.
That’s why I think that sort of thing could be interesting. It’s fine for middle-class people to watch The White Lotus and scoff at how absurd the rich people are. But the plain truth is that people who vacation at the all-inclusives use that time to pretend they’re rich . . . and generally act accordingly.
The only thing worse that rich customers is wannabe-rich customers. I haven’t seen anyone go fully apeshit on a waiter or hotel staff in a nice place. Shane aside, most people with money know how to act like they have money. But you see it all the damn time in places where people of lesser means are given the illusion they are in a luxury environment.
Oh, it’s gotta be at one of those five-star Thai resorts where middle-class people go because they can get a suite for 200 dollars a night, right? And, as you said, it’ll be chock full of pseudo-spiritual bullshit.OR. Somewhere in Cozumel or Belize or similar, where the guests all get beads and braids in their hair and don’t tip the waiters who are serving them their all-inclusive beers.
If HBO is involved I’m sure they won’t settle for anything less than a resort that’s $1K+ per night with very rich if not billionaire-class guests. But I definitely picture something that’s woo-woo as all get out, particularly given White’s previous work on Enlightened. Maybe even a place where they openly try to have people break away from money and status by giving everyone the same outfits to wear, etc. yet of course it’s all still there anyway?
Maybe even a place where they openly try to have people break away from money and status by giving everyone the same outfits to wear, etc. yet of course it’s all still there anyway?Ha, well, I can assure you that you’ll find something somewhat similar in Hulu’s upcoming Nine Perfect Strangers, although if it follows the plot of book, it will soon freefall into absolute whatthefuckery.
It sort of depends on what White sees as the core concept of the show (beyond it being set in a fancy hotel). It’s even possible that he’ll completely switch things up and look at different themes apart from class, etc., if he really doesn’t want the series to just be repeating the same ideas in different locations.
Stealing this joke from someone on Twitter (apologies), but Season 2 should be the same characters aboard Disney’s Galactic Starcruiser.
Southeast Asia? Mexico? The Caribbean? It will nonetheless still be shot in Hawaii? Ha!
Let’s follow the happy couple to Tahiti. It’s a magical place.
I’m hoping there’ll be a really obnoxious travel blogger/instagrammer in amongst the guests. There’s some websites I can’t help but hate-read and I feel like having a character like The Points Guy are ripe for exploration
Selfishly, I would love to see it take place in SE Asia because I’ve spent a lot of time there and find it super fascinating. But it would also just be great to see more SE asian actors on a big show like this.
There is also a level of service delivered in Asia that doesn’t really exist in the US, for better or worse. I once went to an Aman resort in Thailand for lunch (as I could never afford to stay there) with a friend who didn’t grow up with a lot of money and expected to feel uncomfortable there. I told him they would act whatever way it took to make us feel comfortable and that’s exactly what happened. You could tell that the staff instantly assessed us and chose to treat us like we were the cool young people they’d hang out with during their free time. Aman opened a resort in the US and openly stated they would not be able to achieve the same level of service with workers here. I read an article where one regular visitor complained she expected someone to be there to catch a towel she dropped before it hit the floor and that the US resort fell far short. Seeing what it takes and what is sacrificed to provide that level of pampering would be interesting, along with watching poorly behaved rich people try to disrupt it.
That sounds so gross (the lady expecting someone catch her fallen towel, that is) and I’m sort of obsessed with the idea now. I do think setting it in Thailand would be really interesting. White could play with the “young white traveler having his gap year” character as well as the “gross old dude there to buy a bride or worse” character. Plus, as you say, the level of service you get in SE Asia is completely beyond the level of service you get in the US (and frankly, I’m glad we don’t get that level of service in the US. It makes me super uncomfortable.).
Another interesting concept would be something like the Emirates Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Fucking insane place where you can buy gold bricks from a vending machine butting up against the shacks where the day laborers who built the hotel live on top of each other. There is also (visually) a rigid class system there that would be interesting to explore. But I’m not sure he could get the rights to film there.
That’s the trick of these high end places though – I agree that the really obsequious service is cringeworthy, especially when it’s bound up with race in addition to class (which is really obvious to me in places like Thailand since I’m Asian-American). But again, workers a truly first-class place would instantly identify that model made you uncomfortable and codeswitch on the fly so you WOULD be comfortable. Either way the class divisions are still set in stone, and as we saw with Belinda and Tanya, sometimes pretending to be friends can be more hurtful than treating someone as a lackey – certainly it’s less honest since there’s no equality in these relationships. And White did an excellent job in showing how all of this can play out.
Let’s just follow Shane and Rachel to Tahiti. This way would maximize our Molly Shannon (because of course she’d fly out there for some reason.)
Dubai
Tulum. As it is now. A few of the hotels are quite expensive, yet they’re still selling the yoga/spiritual side of the area that has been obliterated by the money grabs. Used to be able to get a hut for $10 a night; now it can be thousands. Smaller hotels that you could afford are mostly gone. The shuffle along the road and drop in anywhere vibe has been replaced by security guards everywhere barring entrance. Walls have gone up so you can’t see the beach from the road. The overdevelopment has fouled the cenotes with raw sewage, the residents have had their land taken forcibly, ex-pats had their small vacation houses taken forcibly, all to give it to ocean front hotels. Sting and Trudy stayed there about 5 years ago for a couple grand per night.
For some reason your post made me think of all of the different places they started setting film versions of And Then There Were None… Originally a British private island. Later versions were set in an isolated Swiss ski chalet, a middle eastern hotel and an African safari…
I was genuinely hoping we’d follow Shane in prison. But apparently there aren’t any ambitious D.A.s nor press outlets on Maui. A fatal stabbing with no witnesses? By a rich scion? That is career-making stuff for a DA.And Jake would be amazing in that version.
I like the safari camp idea. Colonialism 2.0
Two other promising locations would be an Alpine retreat. Bring in some European stereotypes (but can White write them?)
The other is to set it in a Dubai resort. More wealth differential, more race and class issues with locals and the imported serving class.
I like the safari camp idea. Colonialism 2.0
Two other promising locations would be an Alpine retreat. Bring in some European stereotypes (but can White write them?)
The other is to set it in a Dubai resort. More wealth differential, more race and class issues with locals and the imported serving class.
So the moral is, while people gonna white people. How do you make a series about white people’s and end it with the only featured indigenous person ends up in jail and the only people who suffered where the locals? Smh Mike White came off oblivious in his final interview. enlighten was a masterpiece, this was just interesting.
A show is only good if it ends with good people getting a special gold star sticker and the bad people being sad.
Perhaps that was part of his point with this finale? That the rich privileged have the advantage to move on and make more mistakes, without being held accountable, while the less fortunate are made to suffer in place?
And that story has been told for the past 500 years. What’s new? And so has the story of a man of color ending up in jail for attacking a white woman. We gotta be checking our privilege folks. As a black queer man, I bury the burden that being semi-feminine is my privilege because I’ve always been burdened by that. That was until a masculine black trans man pointed out a cop will let a fem black guy go. He will kick the ass of a black man that looks like a threat. Now get my point?
Kai ends up in prison because of Paula. That’s the message there. He even tells her he doesn’t steal before she keeps pressuring him. She (a person of color) fucks him over in her own need to punish the Mossbachers for being rich/privileged despite them taking her on this fantastic trip. Then she disconnects from him entirely (cause guess what…she’s privileged as shit too).I think that’s the point of Kai’s arc…to show us that even a “woke” heroine can also be a piece of shit too.
Because that’s exactly the point. The show is telling a tale of how things are in the world, not a wish-fulfilling morality play that ends with justice and comeuppance.
It’s funny that it almost seems daring and breaking cliche now to portray such things as they are instead of lecturing about how they should be.
Not to black people who still get killed on a daily basis. What I loved about Enlightened is that it elevated the marginalized without exploiting them. I learned something about each of those characters that were in the background and even the Christian one walked away with her own faculty and integrity. Why did the one man of color have to be a hot muscled guy that threatened a white woman? When that character is black, we black people call him Mandingo cause its a cliche. Mike White, if he knew that, wouldn’t have gone down this path. And if you are going to subvert something, it better to contribute to some larger picture. The larger picture here, white people get to take another vacation? How is that new? Cutting edge or subverting? If you are gonna go ass to mouth show why it feels so fucking good. There was no value in that scene cause you saw flat ass and a dude jump back. His face and tongue would have been buried and if thats what you want to do create a prostetic ass so the actor can shove his face in it and show enjoying it. Not even up close just make people feel why its hot. Mike White knows this and that’s what Chuck and Buck is a classic and this left me mehh…. LOL
Kind of agree. I loved Chuck and Buck. This… mostly annoyed me.
I think white people who don’t rob from others get to take a vacation. And the other lesson we may have learned is that people in the service industry don’t enjoy their job (at least these characters) at all but luckily have all these people on here telling them they are treated “less than human” as one commenter said.
Plus the portrayal of Paula. Shane’s mustache-twirling aside, she was about the shittiest character on the show. There’s also so much gray area left around her background, beliefs and motivations.
And at the same time telling the same story thats been told over and over and over again. Wealth yay! Masculine man of color, animal that will rape your white women. Come on people!
What show did you watch?
I think it was a fairly good morality play. Kai committed a crime and will be punished. Armand committed a few and got, effectively, punished. Paula found her woke idealism has real consequences. Tanya will probably make the same mistakes that contribute to her poor mental health. And Belinda will dispense with the fake empathy now she got burnt on trying to get some free money.
This finale really reminded me of Bo Burnam’s Mr. Socky “This is how the world works” song. Could it really have ended any other way?
So what is “gonna white people”? You mean, be people like everyone else. I didn’t find the whites in the show any more flawed than the other characters. They have their good characteristics and bad.
The only character that committed a crime that was interrupted and reported ended up in jail.
I dunno, Armand wasn’t a local and he suffered a bit, didn’t he?
Sure, most of the characters returned to their default position, but I thought the final message was optimistic. Maybe it’s unrealistic, or rare, or maybe you just have to be the youngest cast member.
Cynically – and realistically – Quinn will return to his privileged place where he’ll regale his white prep school classmates with the stories of his summer paddling in the Pacific. And yes, that privileged place affords him the luxury to flee his tribe while the staff are locked in their place. But I don’t think realism is the point. Quinn isn’t a woke-poser like his sister. He didn’t run away to make a political statement or fulfill some altruistic calling. It was baser and instinctual. Money and privilege buy vacations, but can’t buy lived experiences. There’s more life to be had earning your way across an ocean than buying a plane ticket there.
This is a very keen observation, one that I think gets overlooked. From the beginning, Quinn is presented as the person least interested in having any such life experiences on this island vacation. So coddled by his parents and obsessively hooked to his devices, there is a satisfaction in seeing genuine passion and a spark of life ignited in this sheltered, loner teen. But it is also worth mentioning, as many have, that his privilege is what allows him to sleep on the beach, not actually homeless or destitute, with the ability to indulge in his newfound interest in a local custom on a whim. But Quinn at the end is ultimately shown to have grown as a person, and is making choices for himself, the rest of the world be damned. He may have been dealt a privileged hand, but at least for a brief moment at the end, he is a member of a team of equals striving towards something bigger than themselves: all vestiges of colonialism and privilege left back on shore.
they also made his metaphor as clear as possible from him sleeping in a closet-sized kitchen where he is literally suffocating to the beach to the ocean, clean simple effective
I’m not sure if it’s worth mentioning. His privilege has little to do with sleeping on the beach. As you even mention, the homeless can sleep on the beach too.
I don’t think he’s interested in local customs per se. He’s just a teenager looking to connect with other humans. It’s not an unusual stance for anyone, much less an adolescent boy looking for a group or gang to join.
I find a lot of takes on Quinn very over-analytical. He’s just a typical Gen Z kid in human connection deficit.
My perspective on people raised with wealth is that they had no say in who their parents are, anymore than the rest of us do. The only question is what they do with what’s handed to them and how they treat others.
So much focus in these comments on how he’s going to eventually call his parents for money and go home and returns to being a rich little shit again. And sure, that’s probably what would happen in real life. But we’re not following the character there (unless that shows up in s2.) We’re leaving him on this moment where he’s experiencing something sincere. He may not make the most of it and he may grow up to be his mother or father or something even worse and he’ll hurt people and make bad choices later because we all do but that’s all hypothetical and does it matter? Most of us disappoint our younger selves in one way or another… That’s a given, and this not being a real person you can say he’ll do this or that but it really doesn’t matter because his story ends here. It’s just nice to experience a moment of pure idealism, the kind you can’t really have after a certain age, and that’s why his feels like a happy ending— it probably won’t lead to anything but it feels like hope.
Totally agree.
Yeah while I felt bad for Quinn, he really irritated me with his demands to stay in Hawaii. Dude has never worked a day in his life and has no idea how expensive the cost of living in a place like Hawaii is. Of course he falls in love with it while staying in a 10K a night all inclusive resort his parents are paying for where he is waited on hand and foot. Dude wouldn’t last 5 minutes if he had to work at Walmart for minimum wage and share a shitty one bedroom with a bunch of other people like most poor people in Hawaii have to.
I see a lot of opinions online about who is the only character you can root for, but I think Mike White did great by giving each character a level of humanity with the bitter, satirical moments. A lot of things I watch I want to scream “JUST TALK IT OUT!!!” but The White Lotus has characters flawed enough that I can really believe they all are so inadequate in understanding what others need of them at the same time as incapable of explaining what they need. The series also actually provided real character evolution for each person, despite the fact that each circled right back to reinforcing the social order that put them into a funk in the first place. Except Quinn, who my antisocial, tech-addicted ass really felt for. I’ve been him on vacation, I live most of my life like what he could’ve turned out to be, and it warmed my heart to see him engaged in something he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing in the beginning.
Okay, great write-up, great finale, but I (and my dad) have one glaring issue with the episode. Why the fuck was Belinda crying/sad/devastated?! She was ‘pitching’ her spa idea in order to get financial support, no?? And then instead of sticking around or whatever and working with her, she instead just got the financial part of her desires, but she wanted more, she wanted a partner?I mean, that looked like at least $200k+/- dollars in that envelope, even if it was just $50k, in what world is that ‘not enough’ to start a business? We just totally don’t get why she was so destroyed by that; that money IS the answer to her prayers for independence and a brighter future. So what the fuck Belinda, why are you upset?!
I think because even though Belinda did want financial support, she really needed somebody to believe in her: to motivate and encourage her enough so that she would create her plans for her own wellness spa. She wanted more than just money, she thought she found a partner who genuinely believed in her talents and who was passionate to help her realize her dreams. Now, that same would-be partner is fleeing, showing reservations, and describing their potential partnership as merely a “transactional relationship.” She’s back to second-guessing herself and her talents. Maybe she’s not as great as she was led to believe by Tonya’s earlier enthusiastic encouragement. She’s kicking herself for believing in herself because a fickle, and clearly unstable rich white lady showed interest. It’s a devastating ego blow: one that Tonya on some level recognizes, and is trying to mend the only way she knows how: with money.
Seems like both parties could have handled themselves better. Belinda thinking this stranger would bankroll her dreams does smack of fantasy. Then again, I don’t think Tanya had any real intention of giving Belinda startup money. She should not have gotten her hopes up, even if she was only being polite.Not having personally handled fat stacks, I would estimate the amount in the envelope was probably around $20K. Even if it was more, that’s not enough to get a wellness center off the ground. Ongoing expenses (rent, insurance, salaries) alone would eat through that in no time.
Even if that was only $20k, that would be more than enough seed/venture money for a bank or investor to loan her money, based on her ‘vision’ book; she is basically 1 step away from her dream. She has the book/presentation she prepared to justify and explain the business plan and outlook, she has the ‘seed’ or stake funds that represent her ‘investment’ both personally and financially in the project, literally all she needs to do is go to banks and credit unions with those funds and the preparation in hand. She could even try reaching out to the owner of the resort and present how if the spa on grounds was independently operated, it would save the owners/resort some combination of money and liability – because that represents a ‘pure’ cost to the resort to operate a spa, as well as, I’m certain, additional costs in liability insurance for said operation. It could be quite lucrative for the organization to change that relationship and just pay a set amount/year to an owner/operator to run the spa and take the liability on their own shoulders. Hell, it could even help the resort look super woke, giving ‘opportunities’ to locals/indigenous to operate their own businesses and thus have an independently realized life, it would be fantastic PR with good spin; i.e. ‘the only resort in Hawaii with independent local owner/operators providing services to our guests, reinvesting into the local economy and supporting the local peoples’ (ironically while in court over use/ownership of the land it’s all on).
Yeah- personally I feel like Tanya would have been a nightmare to work with. But it also felt like Belinda was drawn to the toxic relationship since it gave her the constant hope that Tanya would meet her ideal (even though realistically it was obvious that she wouldn’t. Tanya even told her a couple times)
I think Tanya probably did mean what she said in the moment, but she’s not exactly consistent moment to moment. She spent much of the series having what looked like a mental breakdown, and one gathers this is far from new for her.
I disagree – I bet Tonya almost certainly believed what she was saying to Belinda at the beginning about the wellness center. She’s completely impulsive and, at that moment, drunk. But it surprised no one that she moved on when another shiny object appeared, and her inadvertant condescension saying she didn’t want to be an enabler was the height of obliviousness.
I don’t think it was enough money to do all of that in Hawaii, but I do think people are overplaying this relationship. Jennifer Coolidge’s character was a walking red flag, which everybody pointed out to Belinda. For me the tragedy of the relationship was Belinda being there for Tanya on the boat for the mother breakdown but Tanya still treating Belinda transactionally and then paying her off and running away…I wish it were framed more as a tragedy for Tanya than for Belinda…Tanya could have partnered with Belinda on a wellness thing that committing to and seeing through would have helped to make Tanya herself less of a disaster, instead she ran off with coughy mcgonnadiesoon. Belinda lost a few shifts and got a fat wad of cash, plus a lesson not to trust rich dicks that she should have known already.
It is physically impossible to put 200k in an envelope
I really don’t get why Rachel had a change of heart and went back to Shane at the airport. I guess we are supposed to believe that she accepted her place as trophy wife, but I’d have preferred it if it ended with Shane alone leaving us to speculate on what Rachel decided to do.
Yeah, I’m not sure I understand her decision either. Was she scared to go back to being a struggling journalist? Probably. Was she scared she was rushing out of a decision as quickly at she rushed into it (marriage)? Maybe. I think she lacked a lot of self confidence and part of her liked Shane for taking charge. Then she had a realization the autonomy she was giving up by following him, but in the end didn’t have the courage to walk away.
I think she also probably thinks she put just enough self-doubt in his head by walking away from his on their honeymoon that perhaps there’s room for him to change a little. I’d call that misplaced optimism, but she has been married for a week so I can see why she’d decide to see what happens.
I think she does still love Shane and didn’t have the heart to leave him after he went through a relatively traumatic experience. She’s definitely going to leave within a year.
I thought that was the bold choice, but that was not how it was played. It was played like (and Daddario has seemingly confirmed this as has Lacey) that she might leave him in a bit. That decision is a fat bit of nothing. Basically Daddario went too far with the character for us to accept that decision, which undermined the entire point of their not breaking up. The show very clearly gave us not one single reason for her to stay with him and didn’t even give us a “you stabbed him, I was so scared for you” or something…she’s just about to barf when he touches her then she shows up at the airport…I think it’s called weak writing.
It was played like she will leave him *eventually*, she just doesn’t feel comfortable leaving him *now*. I think it’s essentially open-ended. And considering Mike White opened up the possibility of *some* S1 cast members returning amongst a new cast, maybe we could see what becomes of them.
Season 2 (which will be set in Sicily) I’d like to see Rachel return without Shane as she takes an “I’m finally free” vacation to begin her life without him. I’m intrigued by the internal struggle within a woman like Rachel. She is attractive enough to get a guy that can give her a good life, but she possesses enough self esteem to hate the idea of going that path of least resistance. Wouldn’t mind seeing her work with that a bit more.
I’d also like to see Olivia and Paula doing a college year abroad.
I feel like women go back to shitty men a lot, unfortunately. Everything about her rang true. Someone also pointed out that she may have been 1) afraid of him after killing Armond or 2) thought he’d get better, naively.
In real life, Quinn is now a minor who ran away someplace that crosses state lines. He will swiftly be an FBI case and back home in no time.
For sure. There is no way that his mother would not be calling the police immediately.
Definitely. Plus now he’s made his canoe buddies into accomplices!
They were only flying from Maui to Honolulu they would have called the cops within an hour and he would have been on a plane the next day
He’s going to get one run in with the canoe crew and get back to the beach to find one of his parents and the police waiting for him. A good effort on Quinn’s part, but a futile one.
The White Lotus showed us how all sides of our current conversation on race/privilege etc.. look fucking terrible.The powerful white people all describe why they should protect their privilege (and make a decent argument…who wants their lives to be worse?). Olivia returns to the fold when they’re truly threatened. Can anyone blame her? Her “friend” set up her family for robbery and possibly worse. The “servants” in Belinda, Kai, Armand, and to some extent…Rachel all made terrible choices that fuck themselves over and it’s easy to blame the rich/powerful for setting them up but they still chose their fates. – Kai knew not to steal and seemed decent and willing to adapt to his shitty situation and start working to improve his life till Jessica led him astray. – Belinda should have clearly known not to trust the crazy Tanya. She fucking told her not to trust her! She described what a shit person she was over and over and over and yet Belinda got taken in. – Rachel marries a rich guy she barely knows and doesn’t have any friends or relatives to discuss her plight with. She fucked her self and deserves no sympathy for being a shit communicator and not getting to know her new life before jumping into it.- Armand just a mess. He good though.Paula deserves the biggest exploration IMO. She hangs out with the ultra rich and benefits from knowing them while always chastising them and hating them. She fucks them over and still they (Olivia) forgive her. She fucks Kai over and treats him like shit…then at the end all she seems to care about is herself. At the end of the show she’s destroyed 1 life, impacted the Mossbachers, and helped destroy Armand and yet…she just returns to her Virtue Signal books.
Armand exploited his employee. (I’m not saying he doesn’t have good qualities but…that was pretty predatory.)
While I liked the program, many parts of it needed additional baking. The show itself did not seem entirely clear on what lesson, if any, it was teaching Paula by having her destroy Kai’s life. The show introduced and abandoned both Lani (who I wanted to be a character) and Kai. We laid a lot of groundwork for Rachel and instead of a denouement we got a few scenes of silent crying and not much articulation. I personally liked that Rachel stayed with Shane and the Mossbachers got back together and Paula avoided any repercussions for aiding in grand theft, I felt like that was the point, these guys get away with everything. But the show gave Rachel literally NO reason to go back to Shane at all, and it seemed not to want her to just accept that she is a trophy wife with an asshole husband, which is probably where it should have gone…we just wound up with Daddario giving a performance that was deeper than was useful for the material. There was a lot to like, but the narrative contrivances (and unintentional-feeling dead ends) felt very “we only had a few minutes to get this out because we got the Four Seasons and time was a thing.” I hope the second season is more of a finished product. Needs more proving.
So I didn’t know Mike White from Barry White but having looked him up on the internet I can’t believe he is the guy who created this great show.
SPOILER: It was not, in fact, Layne Staley.
I wish we could get an HBO TV movie that centers on Mark travelling back to the resort to retrieve Quinn a week later. 90-minutes filled with nothing but awkward conversations between this father and son duo as Mark attempts to convince the newly enlightened Quinn to return home would be so entertaining. Their exchanges in the early episodes of the show were so entertaining. I don’t know the actor’s name, but whoever played Quinn was a perfect choice to place opposite Zahn. They’re conversations were clumsy and aloof in the most perfect way possible.
Paula and Rachel were essentially on the same journey all along. They flirted with rebellion but ultimately ran right back to the safe harbor of privilege. Some notes:1) Good thing Paula didn’t send her “freaking out” text to Kai, as Olivia points out. 2) I loved the dinner scene when the Mossbachers’ excitedly told Shane about the break-in. In about 24 hours it had already become a party anecdote, something they can bring back with them to the city and repeat year after year at parties, while Kai’s life will actually be ruined. Also really interesting to see Nicole talking over Mark during the retelling. You can see he’s already ceding the power back to her, despite his “superhero” status. 3) Tanya returning for her sunglasses was the best (worst) twist of the knife to Belinda. 4) Maybe Belinda can transfer to another White Lotus property and be in Season 2? PLEASE!
What a deeply cynical and therefore satisfying ending to such a deeply cynical and dark show.- I love that what specifically did Armand in was the stupid fucking knife that comes in the stupid fucking Pineapple Suite. This whole thing could have been averted if Armand had found a way to say “I’m sorry; the Pineapple suite is unavailable. We can make it up to you with ____” and Shane not being a narcissistic, whiny momma’s boy who wouldn’t fucking let it go. (Semi-related; I love that they shot the Palm Suite in such light and bright colors and then every scene in the Pineapple Suite is gloomy or dark.)- Paula, Paula, Paula. Will she, like Shane (presumably), look back on her island vacation in a few years’ time with a shrug of her shoulders about the person’s life she ruined? Will it make for polite cocktail party talk someday? The next time she marches for abolition of class structure – will she remember Kai and what she let happen?- I love how cold the Mossbachers were to Armand UNTIL their dumb jewelry came back. Sure, they got a comped stay and sincere apologies, but they froze the staff out until they heard word they’d get their things back. Then all of a sudden, it’s polite smiles and chitchat again.- Belinda’s face during ALL of her scenes absolutely broke me.- Although I know that she’s basically just as bad as the rest of them, I still felt for Rachel when she came to the airport. Daddario nailed that choked-up “I’ll be happy” line. She now knows what she’s getting into and she knows it’s going to be bad, but she also knows that she doesn’t have many choices. Spend money and time divorcing Shane (Shane is NOT the type of person who would agree to an amicable divorce, and he’d drag it out as long as possible just because he can) and go back to a career that she’s not very good at or throw herself in with an asshole with a violent temper but at least be cushioned by wealth.- There is 0% chance Quinn gets to live his life of freedom for more time than it takes the Mossbachers to get to Honolulu and book a flight back to Oahu or Maui or wherever they were. But at least he’ll get cred at his high school.(What I liked a lot about the Mossbachers in particular is how true to life some of their interactions felt. Like, no parent is going to let their 16 year old kid run off to chase his dreams 2000 miles away. Part of being a parent is being the one responsible enough to say no to harebrained schemes.)
– Paula is the absolute worst of all the characters on the show. She completely ruined Kai’s life. I cannot believe how sympathetic you are towards her!-I don’t think Shane informed the authorities about what happened. Isn’t what he did was involuntary manslaughter? If so how could they possibly let him go by simply shaking his hand at the hotel entrance?!-I see no reason to have a second season. This was enough as a limited series. The sad thing is Mike White’s brilliant Enlightened which was far superior to this didn’t get the attention it deserved, but this so-so show with a limp commentary on class, race and colonialism is overpraised.
It’s definitely not manslaughter to stab an intruder in the front.
I dunno what it would be called, but it wasn’t done in self-defense. There was no physical threat, he didn’t even see him. It could’ve been a cat. He accidentally stabbed him when they both turned around towards each other. Regardless of the situation can somebody would simply give a statement at the scene of the crime and be let go just like that after killing someone?
That’s how we see it from our perfect POV. To Shane, there was an intruder that violated his personal belongings and there was a known violent thief on the loose. When a stranger (recognition isn’t instantaneous) is in your room, you don’t assume it’s for benign reasons. They stepped toward each other at the last moment. Admittedly it’s not the most realist scene but at worst, it’s self defense.
I agree, Paula is right up there with Armond. She deserves no sympathy in the end.
We don’t know what transpired between LEO and Shane, but we can assume that he cooperated (hence the handshake) and is released on his own recognizance given the circumstances.
The funny thing about the finale is that had Belinda put two and two together (Rachel was Shane’s wife) and not been a bitch to Rachel, that Belinda COULD have conceivable destroyed Shane’s life and made sure he went to prison. She could have gotten Rachel to come forward saying Shane was outright abusive and violent, which could have undercut any self-defense claim Shane might make and strengthen the notion that the murder was Shane getting revenge on a working stiff who he felt wronged him, even if Shane was ultimately proven right about Armond actively and vindictively fucking him over the entire vacation just because he could. That being said, since a second season has been greenlit (take that Watchmen and Lovecraft County), we could conceivably get a follow up on Shane and Rachel in S2. Which could allow them to follow up on the couple and their marriage (Shane is clearly traumatized by the murder and the public scandal it creates and is struggling with his temper for the sake of his wife, meanwhile Rachel gets a chance to become a real writer writing about the honeymoon from hell she endured and has to struggle on telling the truth about it or bending the truth to fit a narrative that will help her career). I would assume that the White Lotus Inn would bend over backwards to apologize to the couple for Armond’s actions and you could easily get them receiving some sort of “free room at any of our resorts at any time” compensation package to avoid getting sued.
He didn’t come across as violent to me. He had one outburst. Pounding tables or punching walls is the male version of crying. It’s emotions coming out.
Whole lotta Shane’s in this discussion.
lol thank you!!! it’s insanity that their take away is that somehow Shane was in the right?!
If by that, you mean people who expect something that they reasonably should and are getting gaslighted by those who make excuses for bad behavior, then yes, there are.
I never thought Rachel was in the coffin (having been killed by Shane). Ironically enough, Shane isn’t a killer. He was “the” killer, but he is not “a” killer. He’s a giant infant. The stabbing was totally accidental and it immediately horrified him.
To a man like Shane, victory isn’t your opponent dying, it is your opponent living a long life knowing of their inferiority to you.
“The final books of the season: Paula reading Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism and Olivia reading Jacques Lacan’s Écrits.”Jake Lacy’s character was a narcissistic douche extraordinaire, but he was correct in that there is zero chance these ladies were actually reading any of the books they had at the pool. I have known many smart women, in college and professionally and if they are reading books, they are going to read something close to a beach read. Maybe Dr. Zhivago or Dostoevsky, but more likely an equivalent of Gone Girl or even Twilight.
or, dummy, they’re in school
I am aware, but women like them wouldn’t actually be reading those books by the pool.
1) hard to tell if you’re being sexist or thickheaded
2) it was a funny commentary on the arms-race of wokeness: everybody HAS to have read The Wretched of the Earth now or you’re not cool and not going to be able to keep up on how to judgmentally comment on people’s instagram posts (“nice cowrie shells, Madison…very appropriat(iv)e”)
Sure. They were engaging in performative behavior.
a) virtue signaling causes other people to follow suit and act more virtuously to keep cultural cache, whether they believe in it or not. The net effect is more people acting more virtuously. Anti-virtue signaling by being an anti-masker, loudly proclaiming you don’t understand Inception, or that nobody actually reads books like The Wretched of the Earth. It’s just substituting lack of virtue for virtue, amorality for morality, ignorance for intelligence, but it’s doing it the same way.
b) if your friends develop an intricate inside joke concerning Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past” and you read “Remembrance of Things Past” to be in on the joke, you have still read “Remembrance of Things Past”—even if it’s performative you’ve read the book
c) You clearly don’t read cultural theory books…but people do…e.g., they are in print and available for purchase…they also don’t only read them to show off that they’re smart—incredibly, they read them to become smarter, which is not virtue signaling intelligence or whatever backwards way you have framed this whole thing..and reading a few books isn’t this incredibly difficult thing you are making it out to be
d) it is unclear whether you are saying that the girls are actually not reading the books or not intelligent enough to understand the books (and if that’s because they are women) but you sure picked a weird hill to show your ass on
I did not think I was dying on any hill. I thought we were havinga discussion. My opinion of these girls is based on the behavior we have witnessed, not their gender. These women have the depth of puddles and an apparent cursory understanding of the concepts on which they speak and harangue. I have read books on cultural theory. I was just referring to the parade of books they were reading. It is true that I do put thought into what I read in public. Of course, I often choose something middlebrow that I want to read to neither look pretentious or common. But that’s just me. I am neurotic like that. EDITED TO ADD: I should say that I interpreted these books as academic in nature as opposed to written for the general population like, for example, Malcolm Gladwell or Jared Diamond. To the extent these are texts that are for the masses, then I retract my former statement. I wouldn’t expect them to be reading Kant by the pool.
“My opinion of these girls is based on the behavior we have witnessed, not their gender.” – good, that was not apparent from your commentsPeople also pick what book to read on the subway (and, today, even reading a paper book is somewhat performative). Reading heavy books and misapplying them and getting only part of it, or trying to run with the ball on a philosophy you don’t get or being too much influenced by one person from has been a tradition for college students since time immemorial. The best example is always somebody turning into a huge asshole from reading Ayn Rand. A lot of why this show exists w/r/t those two is to satirically contrast what they are saying with what they are doing and their complicity…but that doesn’t make them dumb or shallow in the way you are saying, which is still coming across as suspect for sexism.
But they do come across as dumb and shallow. Not sexist to call a spade a spade for that’s how they come across.
Your take is much more realistic based on how the characters behave and how real people behave. I don’t know many people who have a new book every two days and students most likely aren’t going to be studying on their vacation if these are indeed texts.
I’m seeing a lot commentary in these comments and elsewhere from people who seem to be missing the forest for the trees when it comes to this show. This was a satire about wealth and privilege. That’s it. It was not a PSA about hotel management techniques or something.Not to sound overly snarky, but anyone arguing over whether or not Rachel is a flawed character because she returned to Shane is missing that the story is entirely about a society so flawed that a woman like Rachel would think she has to stay with a man like Shane.I saw one person complain that the show didn’t have a “central conflict to unite the main characters.” Are capitalism and colonialism not big enough conflicts? Did the fact that every storyline revolved around the same theme not feel cohesive enough? I guess he expected, like, a hurricane to hit the island and force everyone to work together to settle their differences?Whether or not you think Mike White was successful in arguing his points is one thing. But it’s pretty clear what his points were. It genuinely feels like people don’t want to engage with the satire and only want to discuss the minutia of the more melodramatic elements. “Was Armond a good hotel manager?” “Was Olivia secretly horny for Paula?” “Can Belinda use the money from the envelope to start her own private business?” Who the hell cares? Those questions are basically immaterial.I feel similar to when I read comments on Succession reviews where people say they’re “rooting” for Shiv because she’s the “good” one.
I’m not sure that was the point. I took it as much simpler, that people’s relationships and motivations are complicated, and a luxurious resort is merely the backdrop. I don’t think White was trying to make huge points about a “society so flawed”. People are flawed and that’s much more interesting.
Repercussions and comeuppance, you missed the boat! There are articles of the actors wanting to return for Season 2. Don’t do it. Make it another ensemble cast, and another resort. Or is there only one White Lotus Resort?
This show had the worst use of music in the history of TV. Wth happened in the editing room with the music score?
Apart from this, to be honest somewhere in the middle of the season I got bored.
Everyone became quite transparent and annoying and cliche. Nothing surprised me at the end.
I Fast Forwarded most of the last 2 episodes.
I think this trend of the “modern” TV to invest on bad characters doesn’t work for me. Well except Succession, at least so far.
Anyway, I do not think I am gonna follow White Lotus’ next adventures.
Why would they send Armond’s body stateside? … wouldn’t it go to his family in AUS?Also, there could be an entire feature story on Sydney Sweeny’s boobs… someone had to say it. I mean, they were impossible to ignore.
The flight is going to Honolulu, which is the primary airport in Hawaii for international flights.
I went into this series at the behest of Tim Heidecker, and had zero expectations. I recognized a few of the actors (it’s always nice to see Steve Zahn do anything dramatic; my sister has had a 20 year long crush on him), but didn’t think it would be anything more than a time killer to play and pay half-attention to while I fumbled with Words with Friends. But I was happily incorrect in my judgment. It was a wonderful portrayal of privilege and social status and how, no matter what crazy shit and inconveniences that may occur, it’s just a vacation and status quo. Standouts: Murray Bartlett, Steve Zahn, Jennifer Coolidge, Fred Hechinger (kid’s gonna be a star), Natasha Rothwell, and Jake Lacy (who just always seems around in everything). Good stuff. Leaves you wanting more.
This review seems off the mark to me in a lot of huge ways, and is commenting on the things the show was telling us in a way that makes me think the reviewer maybe missed a lot of the subtlety of the show. But then again this was such a loaded show that I think we are supposed to all have very different take aways to these characters journeys, and how we interpret them probably says a lot about ourselves. But this review still seemed overly simplistic for such a deep show.
Wow, stay away from Paula. A true life-wrecker, intentionally or not. She’s like that bad luck Tiki charm from The Brady Bunch.
Quinn is going to be fine. He heeded his wake up call, whereas none of the others did. Still say Paula is the worst villain in this piece. Left Kai twisting in the winds. She going to ever own up to her hand in this. BTW: Wouldn’t they be called back for Kai’s trial to testify? and Paula would have to admit her part?
lmao i don’t think she’s good in any way but it’s weird how much people hate paula when shane literally murdered armond, the best character on the show
i wonder why that is?
I rewatched the finale last night. I think what I was struck by was the way the show took a lot of pretty obvious issues and put them in a context where we needed to think about what we agreed with.I mentioned earlier Shane wasn’t in the wrong with the Pineapple suite thing. The thing was: He wasn’t, but but everything showed a sort of flaw in his character. He didn’t book the pineapple suite: His mom did. Gone is the alpha male posturing that he wanted because his mommy showed up to keep pushing and make it better. He’s not an alpha male. He’s a spoiled rich kid.But he’s not wrong.Armond wasn’t much better in this. All he had to do was admit he was wrong, comp a few things, and do what he said earlier: make the guest feel like the entitled babies they are. I want Kai to succeed in getting back his land, and I think there was a real element of humiliation that Paula was pointing out as she’s used to scapegoat EVERYTHING from her friend. But at the same time… he broke into a guest’s room and stole. An arguement could be made about those diamonds, what he’s owed, etc. But Paula was perfectly ok keeping her mouth shut.I just think that there’s a lot to unpack with this show. I think maybe there’s only one good-ish person in this (Belinda) and even she has a few flaws that she’s starting to recognize. (I think at the end she doesn’t WANT a wellness center because she doesn’t want to attract more people like Tanya.)i like this show. It’s complicated and weird.
A two bedroom suite at the Four Seasons where this was filmed costs $16,000 a night, before any extras. I can’t think about anything but that when watching this show, now.
I don’t find Paula particularly sympathetic actually.
The Rose Dawson reference isn’t close at all.
Reading some of these comments, I get the impression that many posters thought these characters are class and race types over individual people. I don’t think White thought of them as only the former and not the latter. Sure, he was satirizing rich, privileged white people, but he wrote them as people, so I wouldn’t condemn them outright or say they didn’t deserve sympathy and help, or say that their struggles were meant to be dismissed. EG, Rachel and Tanya.
Wait. Really? That is the whole review? Jeez…
Did I miss throughout the season there being confirmation of Paula’s class? I’m not always the most detail oriented, so I definitely could have missed some dialogue, in which case I apologize for my hot take. Otherwise, it has been fascinating to see how so many assume that because she’s a WOC that she is poorer than the Mossbachers and somehow being taken along in tow? Living in the US, I get that probability leans towards that considering our country’s history of marginalization and oppression. However, the world is filled with non-white folks, a portion of whom are pretty damn wealthy and likely to send their children to an elite US liberal arts college. I think the ambiguity was pretty clever on Mike White’s part, it is a telling projective about how we conflate race and class.
Anyone thinking the character of Armond is some low-paid put upon schmuck looking for revenge against rich people is mistaken. He would be a very well-paid, well in to six-figure professional, running a resort of $10,000 a night mega-suites and amenity businesses, which cater to the ultra-rich. You don’t hand that operation to a former fast food manager on a whim. So yeah, he’s not a Google CFO, but the guy would be doing very well himself, and would probably be as or more “cultured” than most of the rich guests.
I don’t get viewing him as a sympathetic figure when he repeatedly screws a customer out of tens of thousands in legitimate refund after screwing up, trolls the customer, cokes up on the job, sexually harasses employees, and shits in a guy’s suitcase (really stupid gratuitous scene IMO).
Side note; Mike White’s obsession with gay-male sex and dick jokes falls really flat, particularly when the lines come from the mouths of teenage girls. The lines aren’t even funny or clever – just shock value level crass. I hear funnier shit-talking inuendo playing volleyball every week. This really wasn’t that great a show.
You are one of the few not to fall into the Armond The Victim trap. Maybe it was his guilt of his new hire going into labor and him not noticing or (for the identity suckers) that he was gay, but he was one of the first to become a true villain. I don’t understand the belief that he was sympathetic because he was (1) poor and (2) was treated like crap by the customers. On the contrary, as you note, he is well taken care of and he treated others like crap.
Finally got to see the finale and I gotta say, I’m disappointed by a lot of the commentary. Seems too many people’s expectations were that if you were white and rich, you had it coming to you. In all the recaps (not just AV Club) and fan posts there seems some wayyyyyy over-analysis and some misguided hopes that there would be some sort of social justice (instead of actual justice). I realize that writers and fans in these magazines will lean left but I read a lot of crazy stuff above and below.
I wonder how much misplaced sympathy lie with Paula, Armond, Kai, and Belinda simply because they are so-called people of color or gay. And how much does the dislike of the Mossbachers and Shane because they are white, hetereo, and rich? Even for someone they gets mixed reviews like Quinn, probably gets sympathy because he *might* be gay (I saw no evidence of this).
Seems the facts are:
A brown person stole from a white person, at the urging of another brown person and he will suffer the consequences of his decision.
The family that arrived conflicted, anxious, and confused departed (or maybe not) a little more happy individually and more cohesive. They happen to be rich and white.
The newlywed couple in which one partner had buyer’s remorse and the other was a little to obsessed with getting his money’s worth had their share of troubles but *may* have patched them up. They happen to be rich and white.
The black woman who seemed to have a heart of gold and really empathized with her clients seems to have been looking for a handout that nothing but full-sponsorship could fulfill. Her empathy evaporated when the money did.
The gay manager, who happened to be a thief, liar, bad manager, drug addict, and predatory boss was mistakenly killed in a freak accident while breaking into a customer’s room, while high and pending termination, to crap in his suitcase.
Would some people have viewed Armond differently had he been the horrible person he was who was a heterosexual? Would Paula have been seen as a naive but shallow bitch who ruined the life of a young man after having a holiday fling with him had she been a white chick? Had the Mossbacher’s been the Rodriguez family would they not be labeled “awful” so often? Had Quinn watched a bunch of white dudes playing sandlot baseball and wanted to join in, would folks never consider him homosexual? And if Shane were a black dude who was being screwed over by a white heterosexual Armond, would he have been seen as a victim of racial discrimination for being a successful black man? After reading the comments, my guess would be a resounding Yes! to all of those.
I get that White was making statements about White Privilege (but the resolve was there WAS no resolve for those kind of people), but I think at least one of those characters should have been a POC. I’d have chosen Tanya. Pretty much the same character, but without the implied “White” privilege. I think the same classist -privileged vibe extending across skin color would have been an interesting twist in the case of her and Belinda.
Knowing how spiteful and unrelenting Shane was about being denied a mere hotel suite, I can’t imagine how dangerous it would be to divorce him. We all know the truth of how Armond died, but from Rachel’s point of view Shane had been hassling Armond for days and eventually stabbed him to death.
Paula just seems like a hateful leech to me. She loathes the Mossbachers. But she’ll hide her loathing for the sake of a free vacation. Her hatred seriously derails Kai’s life and ultimately gets Armond killed.
Your loathing of anyone white and successful has completely overtaken your ability to do your job. I hope someone walks in your room and shits in your suitcase someday because no big deal, right? Shane is upset because he paid for something and was given something lesser instead. That’s actually a normal reason to be upset. Paula is a piece of shit and learned a valuable lesson that being a snarky, outraged Twitterbitch usually doesn’t work out that well in the real world. This show is not for you, Roxana; even if you think you enjoyed it.