The White Lotus finally includes the Hawaiian people in a story set on their land
Molly Shannon joins the series in an episode that amps up the Armond vs. Shane rivalry
TV Reviews The White Lotus
Can we escape becoming our parents? Halfway through The White Lotus, up to third episode “Mysterious Monkeys,” practically every character who discussed their parents did so with resentment. On the adults’ side were Tanya, complaining about her mother’s myopia and manipulation, and Mark, despondent over the reveal of his father’s gayness and secret life. On the twentysomethings and teens’ side, Olivia kicks back at her mother’s neoliberalism, status, and wealth all the time, while Quinn is increasingly wary of his father’s reckless honesty. Theoretically, those who complain about their parents probably don’t want to follow in their footsteps.
And yet in this fourth episode “Recentering,” it feels like nearly all of them are inching closer to becoming versions of the very same people about whom they complain. Tanya jumps headfirst into this dalliance with Greg, although on the boat with Shane and Rachel, she had bemoaned her mother’s reliance on men. Olivia might claim that she’s Paula’s ally, but if so, why did she make that desperate, “cool”-filled pass at Kai? Isn’t pushing aside the competition something that, say, Olivia’s mother Nicole would do in the boardroom at Poof? Mark starts off maintaining his open lines of communication with Quinn, but then shares that he—like his father—cheated on his wife. Across the board, there’s a lot of denial before what seems like a lot of acquiescence.
Even as “Recentering” finally acknowledges the Hawaiian perspective, sketches out the sympathetic Paula, and tumbles Armond further into self-destructive debauchery, Mike White’s insistence that our identities are generationally cyclical looms large. Think of Shane and his honeymoon-crashing mother Kitty (Molly Shannon, operating on a particularly noxious wavelength) gleefully chanting “Money, money, money!” as the horrified Rachel looks on. (Alexandra Daddario is really exceptional this episode, and her expressions of loneliness, exasperation, disgust, and bitterness are the most nuanced work of her career.) Is this the future Rachel has to look forward to? Wealthy, sure. But also attached, for the rest of her life, to an asshole. Is it worth it?
“Is it worth it?” applies to Paula and Kai, too. Is it worth it for Paula to be close friends with Olivia, who, she tells Kai, treats her like a token? “She’s my friend. As long as she has more of everything than I do. But if I have something of my own, she wants it,” she says, and that observation comes true when we see Olivia, who knows Paula and Kai are sleeping together, make a move on Kai herself. Is it worth it for Kai to work at the resort that evicted his family from their land, and to drive a wedge between himself and his brothers by doing so? “I gotta make a living, you know?” he says, and that living includes putting on traditional Hawaiian dress, blowing the “pu” or conch shell, and then engaging in fire dancing before barely interested resort guests—cultural ceremony as tourist entertainment. At a certain point, performing your otherness, and tolerating people like the Mossbachers, might be too much, and I wonder if Paula and Kai are nearly there.
Armond certainly is! Did we really believe his “Absolutely, 100 percent” to Belinda when she tells him to get rid of the drugs he found in Olivia and Paula’s bag? I did not. Armond is clearly working through some shit, and during this bender, he goes through it all. He resents Olivia and Paula’s pushiness, and keeps their pills, ketamine, and other hard drugs before giving back their backpack. He lies to Shane, giving him a fake phone number for the general manager Shane now demands to speak with. He hits on Mark again, with a delightfully lascivious wink. And by promising Dillon a better work schedule and some of the drugs, he gets the employee he’s been lusting after into bed—or, more technically, naked in his office. What is the fallout from Shane and Belinda seeing Armond and Dillon in flagrante delicto? For Belinda, it’s probably a loss of respect toward her coworker. But I doubt Shane will be satisfied with just that.
There are active and passive villains in The White Lotus, and the series has now positioned Armond firmly into active villain territory—alongside Shane, of course. But I will say that Armond’s frustrations with the guests, sparked by his realization that he’s become the kind of ignorant manager that puts their concerns over the staff’s, feel understandable, even if the ways he is acting on them are various levels of petty. Shane, though? The way Shane treats Rachel, the woman he allegedly loves, feels worse because it suggests that even in a relationship that is supposed to be intimate, honest, and supportive, Shane can’t manage it. If that’s how he acts with his life partner, of course he’d act so dismissively to a lesser-than like Armond. And everything about Shane makes sense when we meet Shannon’s exacting, judgmental, and casually cruel Kitty, the mother who crashes Shane and Rachel’s honeymoon.
In the span of something like five minutes, Kitty insults Rachel, describes her only in terms of her looks, asserts her dominance as the most important woman in Shane’s life, and takes Shane’s side in the ongoing Palm Suite vs. Pineapple Suite saga. The friction between the original Pattons and new addition Rachel comes to a head at dinner that night, during which Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s fantastic score and John M. Valerio’s spry editing combine for maximum impact. When the drums stopped after Rachel said, “I really want to get a job” and then bumped back up after we cut to Kitty’s appalled “No. … Why would you want to do that? That doesn’t make any sense”? That was art! And while Rachel realizes the selfishness and narrowness of the family she married into (Shane insulting her mother as poor with an “oh well” shrug!), the Mossbachers are across the restaurant in their own meltdown mode.
Paula going after Mark: “What do you stand for?” Nicole going after Olivia: “What’s your system of belief, Olivia? Not capitalism, not socialism. So, just cynicism.” And Quinn going after everyone: “We all do the same shit. We’re all still parasites on the Earth. There’s no virtuous person when we’re all eating the last fish and throwing all our plastic crap in the ocean.” Each night that Quinn has slept on the beach, he’s come one step closer to realizing that the Hawaii around the resort is at odds with its existence. The waves, the whale, those six very handsome, very buff men who Quinn could not stop looking at in that outrigger boat. Quinn is experiencing some kind of epiphany here, and it’s not coming from his family. They don’t have an answer when he asks, “Where does all the pain go?” Does anyone?
Stray observations
- Those $75,000 bracelets are absolutely coming up again. There is nothing as dependable as the rich thinking “it’s not polite to talk about how much things cost”!
- I’m curious what specifically informed White’s writing of the Hawaiian perspective in this episode, but in general, it’s depressingly easy to find news coverage of ongoing land disputes involving native Hawaiians and outside interlopers trying to buy up real estate. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan own more than 1,300 acres of land in Hawaii, and Hawaiians have been fighting their purchases for years. And of course, the problem isn’t limited to the Facebook billionaires. The saga of private corporations stealing ancestral land, and the Hawaiian government dragging its heels on figuring out a way to return land to Hawaiian natives, has been infuriating for a long time. ProPublica published a thorough, dispiriting story about this last December.
- Natasha Rothwell’s gasping “What?!” when Belinda learned Armond fell off the wagon was straight out of the I Think You Should Leave season one fully loaded nachos skit. Rothwell’s pained expression is so similar to how Tim Robinson reacts to being called out for complaining about his date eating the chips with all the good toppings.
- Was Paula sleeping in a Rage Against the Machine shirt? This is on-the-nose costuming, but I’ll allow it.
- “Most of these activists, they don’t really want to dismantle the systems of economic exploitation. Not the ones that benefit them, which are all global, by the way. They just want a better seat at the table of tyranny.” In another I Think You Should Leave moment, cue my “Oh my god, she admit it” face to Nicole acknowledging that the world is unjust, sure, but she’s benefitting from it, so oh well!
- How sincere was Tanya’s “Let’s get into business”? My heart already aches for what I am sure will be Tanya letting Belinda down.
- I need to see Daddario’s name on some Emmy ballots for many aspects of this performance, in particular her delicately ravaged line delivery of “There are people my age doing great work. I’m just not one of them.”
- The dialogue on The White Lotus rarely makes me do a double take, but do we really think Shane has seen What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. I doubt it.
- “All these guests are crazy.” Not wrong, Kai!
207 Comments
“positioned Armond firmly into active villain territory”This doesn’t seem like the intention. He relapsed, and he’s out of control because he has to be so in control at all times due to guests treating the workers and the locals as not fully formed human beings. It’s a dismissive attitude towards addiction. His triggering episode is realizing that he was behaving like the guests when the employee wouldn’t tell him she was in labor.Also that dinner was one of the tensest scenes on tv this year, this show is amazing. And I feel Quinns epiphany is that there’s a lot beauty that exists outside the pain these privileged people create.
Sympathy towards Armond’s addiction and relapse is definitely justified, but I do think some of his actions are pretty villainous here. Namely, his behaviour around Dillion. I guess it kind of worked out because he was into it, but there is no world in which coming on to your employee that aggressively in a professional setting isn’t sexual harassment.
Agreed…Armand comes across as a predator when hitting on Dillon. That his behavior towards Dillon is reciprocated and is a result of his relapse are no excuse. Also, while Shane is definitely acting like a self-entitled d****e, Armand’s behavior towards Shane is not much better. Has Armand ever considered how pushing Shane’s buttons is affecting Rachel? What has Rachel ever done to Armand? Nothing. But this never occurs to Armand, even before he relapsed.
Yeah not to mention that he had no idea Tanya would be ok with other people on the boat interrupting her mother’s funeral. She rented out a “private boat” and he put her in the middle of a dispute
Yeah, he’s pulling Tanya into his stupid little game with Shane (and for that matter, poor Belinda who had to sit there and try to smooth everything over. Did he even warn her?), and as far as we know, all Tanya has done to Armand is to request a massage upon landing at the resort. That does make her privileged and unable to read the room (although that seems to be Tanya all over – I will be shocked if BLM guy is actually on the up and up and not targeting the obviously lonely rich lady), but damn, I don’t think it warrants Armand trying to usurp her obviously grief-stricken ash spreading with fucking Shane.
He’s fucking with Shane before he even meets him, not giving him the room that was booked and charging the same price.To Armond’s detriment Shane, while completely clueless in some matters, is laser focused on his privilege both the positive aspects and the negative (in this case being charged the higher price for the room he didn’t get).Which honestly if they have to scrimp and save to pay for the room, no one would be wondering why Shane wouldn’t let it go.
He’s fucking with Shane before he even meets him, not giving him the room that was booked and charging the same price.To Armond’s detriment Shane, while completely clueless in some matters, is laser focused on his privilege both the positive aspects and the negative (in this case being charged the higher price for the room he didn’t get).Which honestly if they have to scrimp and save to pay for the room, no one would be wondering why Shane wouldn’t let it go.
At the same time, this absolves some of Shane’s responsibility for treating Rachel poorly IMO.
No it doesn’t. In my opinion. I can’t believe he is so stupid and clueless he is about lose that lovely sweet smart smoking hot woman who just married him (Apparently without knowing him at all.)
Also him being so handsy with Mark in front of his family is also kind of harrass-y even if he was almost flirty while drunk
Yeah, sorry, not getting how Armond is an “active villain.” Obviously, enticing your subordinates in exchange for sexual favors is horrible, but that horrible-ness is at least somewhat mitigated by Armond’s addiction.Then again, maybe I have sexist blinders on and would react much more strongly if it was a straight man doing the same thing to a woman.
I think you would. He’s not only an addict- which can generate emotions all the way from empathy to disdain- but he is drunk/high on the job, a liar, a thief, and a guy who not only hits on his guests and wants to screw his employees (and nearly succeeds). It’s refreshing to have the obligatory gay character not be a very sympathetic human being but he’s clearly a villain.
Sorry, I can’t see the grayed responses. But I already re-thought my stance on this. Despite being likable and being empathetic due to his addiction issues, fuck Armand for sexually exploiting a subordinate. There’s no excuse for that. He’s a predator, end of story.
You guys are really a drag.
Then again, maybe I have sexist blinders on and would react much more strongly if it was a straight man doing the same thing to a woman.That’s exactly right. Armond is engaging in exactly the type of power abuse that the richie riches of the resort are using against him and the rest of the staff. As manager his job should be to shield his staff from those kinds of abuse as best as possible, and he’s abusing them himself.
Yeah, I realized shortly after writing my comment what a dumb fucking stance I had (and have said so elsewhere), but I cringe that that was my immediate reaction. “Oh, that wacky gay addict! His sexual crimes are all in good fun!”
Yeah, fair enough, I saw that you wrote that after I replied.
I feel the show is trying to show that Armond’s shitty behaviour only exists because of him and everyone else are just trying to cope with the shitty guests bad behaviour. We are all trying to reduce the impact of the bad ways of powerful people. It’s not so black and white.
So Armond is without agency? His behavior is totally a reaction to others? And really, just how “shitty” are the guests? They paid a lot to stay there and his job is, to a degree, cater to their wants. He can always work somewhere else, I suppose and try not to blame others for his behavior.
I think you are inflating the “bad ways” of powerful people (obviously they aren’t so powerful that they cannot stay in the room they paid for nor charter a private boat) and ignoring the bad ways of slightly less powerful people.
Dude just wants to lick some butt, where’s the harm in that.Besides the obvious, bribing an employee to have sex with you and that that bribe involves drugs you stole from guests.
Any recovery program will tell you that the addiction is the reason, not the excuse. Lots of people abuse drugs and alcohol and never victimize other people. Deep down that abusive behavior is part of who he is. Dealing with it productively is what recovery is all about (not just abstaining from substances).
I’m in recovery, and relapses with the substance also means a relapse in old behaviour. That doesn’t make Armond some terrible predator. He can take all the responsibility in the world, and the point is, that terrible people like the guests at the white lotus have to take zero responsibility and still get to be terrible. The guests at the lotus coerce bad behaviour out of people like Armond and he is expected to justify it, while the guests themselves are held to zero accountability, substances or no substances.
Do we excuse the behavior of someone because it surfaces during a binge? Sexual coercion? Rape? Do these things not reflect on the person who does them? Should no responsibility be taken? It’s true that the guests are never held to account and that, yes, Armond will be because of his socio-economic status. But that doesn’t make his actions OK. It just means the standard isn’t applied fairly to all. That wrong doesn’t cancel out his own.
He can take all the responsibility in the world, and the point is, that terrible people like the guests at the white lotus have to take zero responsibility and still get to be terrible.Other peoples’ behaviors are not his responsibility. His behavior is his responsibility, and he is behaving terribly towards his underlings.
It’s a basic understanding of addiction though and how the world works. The show is demonstrating how terrible these people are and how that wickedness trickles down into the rest of the world having to cope with the bad deeds of the rich. Yes, on a basic level Armond is wrong, but on a bigger level everyone is doing their best to mitigate the damage of the rich.
Armand is more of an anti-hero than a villain. I certainly didn’t hate him for keeping the girls’ drugs. He’s a screwed up guy whose passions have been unleashed for the first time in a long time, and he is also fighting against the much worse douchery of Shane.
Much worse? Shane is dismissive and paternalistic with his wife. He didn’t get an honest response from Armand on his room, his chartered boat, or Armand’s boss.
To my knowledge he hasn’t lied to anyone or stolen anything. Yes, he flirted with younger women (right in front of his wife!) but at least they weren’t in his employ and they weren’t customers.
Shane has plenty of character flaws but debauchery doesn’t seem to be one of them.
This is the second review in a row that has implied that Quinn might be secretly gay. I guess it’s possible he is, but I don’t think so. For one, his dad flat out asked him last episode if he was and he said no. Of course he could be lying or confused, but guilelessness seems to be one of Quinn’s defining characteristics. I think he gave up on his jerk off session last week because it felt hollow next to sense of awe he felt from seeing the whale, and likewise I think it was the “primitivism” of the guys the in the canoe that appealed to him, not their buff maleness. Now, whether Quinn’s newfound connection to nature is any less hollow than the rest of his family’s posturing is an open question, but it really seems like that’s what’s going on with that character, not a coming out story.
yeah as a queer guy this definitely isn’t a coming out story of Quinn’s, it’s him seeing the beauty of actual Hawaii outside the resort. This level of privilege is impossible to access for everyone else and hard to leave once you’re tangled in it, and I guess we’ll see how Quinn chooses to connect to the world once his screens are returned.
Agreed. Quinn is definitely going through some kind of personal transformation, but what’s the basis for thinking it has anything to do with him being gay? Because he lost interest in a porn video and chose to gaze out over the ocean instead? Because of his fascination with the canoe rowers?The realization that there’s bigger world beyond what he just sees on a screen could just as easily explain Quinn’s loss of interest in his porn video. His sister mocking him just hours before at dinner for doing exactly what he was doing probably didn’t help matters. And I saw his interest in the team of rowers as coming from a place of envy, not lust. Envy for the rowers’ lives, which at first glance, appears relatively peaceful compared to how Quinn perceives his family’s lives.Also, Quinn seemed pretty confident in his response when Mark asked him if he was gay and he said no. Then again, if Quinn really is gay, I wouldn’t blame him one bit for not coming out to his dad in that moment — especially given Mark’s over-the-top reaction to the revelation about his own father.
It’s very much this. Quinn isn’t realizing he’s gay, he’s getting peaks behind the curtain and is connecting to what’s outside of his bubble. This show is all about privilege with the resort acting as a dividing line. Rachel, Quinn, Paula, Belinda, and Armand are all fish that have been caught in the privileged fisherman’s net, and are now just trying to untangle themselves (or are about to, in Belinda’s case) and get back to water.Paula is for sure stealing that bracelet and Tanya is going to forget all about Belinda and leave there without a word after getting Belinda’s hopes up.
Curious, why Paula? I hadn’t thought of that possibility.I was thinking Quinn would. For a teenager, $75K is insane money. For a Mossbacher, it’s not. As he’s reassessing his world, I think he’ll see places where that amount of money would do a lot (like for his new outrigger buddies). Or Olivia will steal them and plant them on Paula to get rid of her.
Yes, the author’s article is completely off base. Quinn is a rich young man who has all the conviences of modern life. But when he’s forced to connect with nature because he lost his phone and forced to sleep on the beach, he realiSes there is more to life life, enormity of nature and it’s beauty. That’s why he blew up at the dinner table
Yeah, I feel like he saw those guys and thought about never being a part of something, you know? Like a group or a team of people working together. Our phones, ironically, keep us so siloed as people and I think it must really affect people who are in a growth mode.
I’m not so sure. His denial to his father may have been reflexive, as that question might have felt like a bit of an ambush. Then, on the beach, he was trying to jerk off to lesbian porn and lost interest, dropping the phone and giving up. Then he absolutely stared at the ripped Hawaiians a bit too long if you ask me, a white cishet male. Now, I can absolutely admire a fit male’s physique without questioning my sexuality, but why edit the scene that way? I think it’s definitely meant to imply he could be curious.
Of course, as a privileged straight white male, maybe I’m being trolled. I like all the other takes on Quinn as well. I’ll just take a seat.
Quinn was in awe of those guys because while he’s getting a scuba training in the kiddie pool talking about what it means to be a man with his father, these guys are maneuvering a canoe on the ocean with skillful ease just being men by travelling on the water using their manual power. Later, he sees them hanging out by the canoe clearly exibiting friendly bonds which, as we learned at breakfast, he lacks in his life. I was impressed that he walked up to them and introduced himself.
Bingo. He’s learning to scuba in a manmade swimming pool, and the canoers were rowing their boat in the actual ocean. Quinn sees this and is coming to realize he wants a genuine life, not a facsimile. In terms of sex – this means he wants a real woman (or man if he’s coming out – not sure about that), and not porn on a phone.
I think he was just looking at the Hawaiians with a very simple “that’s so fucking cool” expression.
Yeah, if Quinn is gay it’s certainly not heavily underlined. His two epiphanies have had to do with the endemic beauty of the island. Whales and the rowers. He seemed more interested in the comradery of the men than their attractiveness. And when his father asked if he was gay Quinn certainly wasn’t weird or repulsed. He seemed super casual.
That or just the natural, comfortable comradery considering he doesn’t have IRL friends anymore
uh, i’m gonna go against the rest of the commenters on this post. seems VERY clear to me that they’re setting the son up to at least be sexually curious about men, they even introduced the idea of ‘gayness as hereditary’ earlier. not saying it’s definitely 100% but i think it’s interesting how all of you are like ‘there’s no way this show that brings up gayness every episode could possibly be about this character maybe being gay’
I dunno—Mike White as you point out nearly always deals with gayness (I have not seen The Emoji Movie so can’t comment there 😛 ) and I feel like with two episodes left he would have made it more obvious if this is a part of Quinn’s arc. I also thought the way he later approached the men showed he was curious and maybe wished he was a part of that, but were not the actions of a teenage guy who hadn’t come out yet… (Maybe that’s just me though—in that situation and at that age, I woulda never approached a bunch of ripped shirtless men…)
Serious question that may be real evidence: How many gay men beat off to girl-on-girl porn, which is (I’m pretty sure) what Quinn was watching on the beach?
In terms of straight men? Almost all of us, especially as teenagers.
I agree with you. I think he is the one truly salvageable character. He is still young enough to make a change.
Fellow gay guy, reading this comment after having watched the first three episodes, I agreed with you. Quinn noticing the whale was 100% about the native beauty of Hawaii. But I’m a little more sympathetic after watching this episode—the camera did linger on the beauty of their bodies quite a bit. And it would make a nice bit of dramatic irony if Mark was driving away his closeted son with his rather evo-psych-y vocal tangling with his father’s sexuality.
It would be a very nice (well, not nice, but you know what I mean) twist of irony.Of course, there is a third option: Quinn could be bi. Speaking from only personal experience here, but when you get to your teenage years and realize, hey, actually you sort of like guys too (or girls, in my case) and what the hell does this mean – it can be very confusing. And if Mark is so busy going off on his dad’s “secret life” (hey Mark, your dad also might have been bi – although if he were then that sort of makes him a cheating scumbag, rather than a desperate guy on the DL), then that would be super alienating for Quinn, who’s only just realizing he feels this way.
These review certainly seem to want a number of the characters to be gay. Quinn and his sister chief among them.
It may be time to retire the theory about Olivia having feelings for Paula. I mean, unless she lied about hooking up with that other guy Paula had a crush on. It would feel awkward to reveal it at this point.
I always took it as Olivia being needy and not wanting Paula’s attention taken away from her. Kind of a “how dare Paula have fun without me” or a possessive “I want what she has” sort of thing.
I don’t think she has a crush on Paula, necessarily. But I think she wants absolutely everything that Paula has, and more. So if Paula hooks up with a guy, Olivia’s going to make a play for him too.
Thing is for the most part, these characters are despicable yet the show obviously wants you to understand why they act that way in order to illicit deliberately half-hearted sympathy. It still doesn’t feel as clear cut as to why Olivia acts the way that she does with regards to Paula.
Are we supposed to feel sympathy for them, though? Olivia and Paula both suck, Nicole and Mark are equally if not more awful (only because they’re old enough to not be assholes) – only Quinn seems at all sympathetic in that family and he spends all of his time fapping.
I don’t think we’re supposed to sympathize with anyone, save maybe Quinn, Belinda, Alexandra Daddario, and maybe the minor character of the Hawaiian guy. Possibly the manager. But the detail and points there that allow ‘sympathy’ with these super-flawed characters, think of them there as not details to sympathize with them, but details that allow us to more deeply understand them and their state in life now, given their histories and choices. It’s more character-filling background, that allow us to get a fuller picture, than it is asking us to sympathize. At least, that’s my two cents. The same thing that lets us sympathize with characters in stories also lets us understand where and as we see them, because we can’t sympathize with characters we do not understand (I mean, unless it’s like an animal movie, everyone sympathizes for the two dogs and a cat regardless of any voice-over or plot developments and history of actions/choices).I suppose someone could sympathize with these people actually, if they were right bastards, or horrible flawed/failed persons. I don’t want to meet the guy who watches this, pays attention to Shane, and is getting all worked up while watching like, “What the fuck, fuckin’ manager, he IS gaslighting you, bro! Yeah, haha-haa, your wife’s family is poor, they can’t fuckin’ buy a plane ticket to Hawaii out of the blue, haha, they have to plan years ahead of time, and maybe trade some food stamps for quarters on the dollar, haha-haa!”
You put it better than I ever could. Something like Olivia being driven by having secret feelings for her friend would add an extra layer to her and help us understand her better, but wouldn’t necessarily get us to sympathize with her.
I have some sympathy for Mark, only because I can’t imagine living with that wife and daughter busting my balls every minute of the day.
In my heart I feel like when he was younger he might not have been a stellar person, but he was a much better person; time with them has just worn him down.
doubt anyone is reading this a month later (I just finished the show this week) but Olivia 1. wants to be seen as cool by having a pretty, exotic friend and 2. is both brutally insecure and spoiled, and can’t bear the girl who she has allowed to enter her world to have something more than she does. Paula’s a possession.
I agree. Olivia, I don’t think, likes herself very much. And I think she feels that Paula has the looks and she wants some of whatever Paula has. Her insecurities undermine the way she wants to be perceived.
Which feels kind of ridiculous because Sydney Sweeney is gorgeous. It could be a ploy to keep everyone else away from Paula. I mean, if Olivia hooked up with a different guy that Paula liked, why isn’t he still around? There has to be another revelation incoming.
I’m not so sure it’s a low self-esteem issue. I think it’s more that Olivia has realized her place in the world – a rich, privileged white girl – and so she’s using Paula to get woke but, as Nicole aptly said at dinner, what she really wants is all the control. So Paula is helpful in that she’s making Olivia look cool and generous and whatever else, but only so long as Paula doesn’t step out of the narrow parameters Oliva has set for her.It’s not unlike Belinda and McQuod (why can’t I think of her first name? She’s just Jennifer Coolidge!). Belinda wants to think that Jennifer Coolidge is actually going to come through with this promise of helping her set up a business, and maybe she will, but that business will still be ultimately under Jennifer Coolidge’s thumb.
I think Olivia is supposed to be a placeholder for a ‘type’ of stereotype, that being she is the full-woke, white-guilt young white woman, who genuinely, though would never admit, hates that she is a young, white, rich girl. Her understanding of norms and ally-ship seems ironclad, and she learned/believes it so much, having enough maturity and intellect to step back and see her parents in that ‘scope’ of their ‘flaws’ as rich whites, that it is almost like religion to her. I think it would be kind of like ‘Catholic guilt’ but hers is born-rich white girl guilt, I don’t think she has the ‘flaws’ in character like her mother that enable HER to see all these ‘realities’ and say fuck it to use the world and everyone in it to her advantage. All the while she feels ‘good’ because she has befriended a ‘poor minority girl’, and doesn’t see she is basically ‘colonizing’ her friend’s life. Her friend is kind of like a social ‘beard’ ‘wife’ to her existence and white-guilt, and she’s kind of all-consuming of her friend because colonizers never get enough of a good thing. Hope that makes sense, it’s how I see Olivia’s character so far.
Yeah, I was 100% in on Olivia having feelings for Paula, but now I’m at, like 60%. She still could, like she’s going after all the men that Paula likes so that Paula stays only with her, but it’s not so cut and dry now.
I guess the question is are we thinking it because we want a storyline involving female homosexuality because the show has already explored male homosexuality?
Well the show’s writer/creator is bi – I’m reading most of these characters’ crushes as somewhere on a broad grey-area of the Kinsey scale (Olivia and Paula, Quinn, maybe even Tanya’s initial infatuation with Belinda).
Write about whatcha know.
So I’m straight but i”ve heard a lot of LGBTQAI folks say “I thought I wanted to be that person and I realized I had a CRUSH on that person” and I think that could still be at play.
Do they even have heterosexual encounters before coming to that realization? Because obviously that Trevor guy isn’t in the picture anymore for either of them.
People in general or on the show? And we know about Paula & Kai.
I was talking about in general.I probably should have separated those two points.Although it’s probably a moot point now.
Autostraddle asked a lot of their staff (after the latest epsiode aired), and this comment made the most sense to me but they’re of varying opinions.
“Targeting the love interests of your queer crush is a very young and chaotic bisexual move (apologies to the queer crushes of my youth), so I won’t say even that Olivia’s history of trying to steal boyfriends is necessarily evidence against them being gay.”
I don’t find Paula particularly sympathetic, considering the way she treats people she doesn’t value (Armond, Quinn) as a servant and/or messy room. I feel like she’s a sketch of performative wokeness as well – whether that’s intentional, who knows, but I have far more empathy for Armond’s addiction struggles than Paula’s terrible taste in friends.
Your assessment of Paula is the same as mine. Almost like her whole persona is just putting on airs
My feeling from Paula is that she’s a not-rich person struggling to fit into a rich person’s world. I’m not exactly sure how she met and befriended Olivia (my guess is that they’re dorm roomies) but stepping into Olivia’s world has her trying to emulate Olivia’s behavior in some ways. She’s definitely rude to people, but I see it as her seeking Olivia’s approval and Olivia is the Queen of Rudeness.
Another option is that she might also be rich/not bad off, but she’s also a non-white person: there’s a level of obliviousness that no amount of money or status in this world can cause if you’re not also white/within the majority. Quite sure she’s had her share of macro and microaggressions, particularly in a circle that has Olivia, she might not be the first person to make her a pet. Hell, Paula’s family could be richer than Olivia’s for all we know, but there may still be that level of tension.
Her ethnicity seems to be unspecified. I’m guessing Hispanic. It wouldn’t surprise me if they both attend Princeton.
That only means she can learn to correct that behavior; until she does, she’s as bad as Olivia.
She only became upset watching the Hawaiian dancers when Kai came up. She only started caring because it involved someone she got close to.
And I think it should be pointed out that, while Kai definitely was angry about the hotel having been on land his family owned, he didn’t show any embarrassment or issues with being one of the luau dancers–*Paula did*. Sure, there’s a discussion about these types of resorts hiring the “natives” to put on a show for a bit of local colour to the rich guests, but it’s certainly not remotely as cut and dry as Paula’s assessment of Hawaiians having to dance for white guests.
I doubt anyone’s still reading this a month later but I just finished the series, and my take is that Kai knows the government isn’t just going to GIVE the White Lotus back to some group of indigenous people at this point. His reaction to Paula’s ‘you have to fight’ speech was basically ‘fight who??’
We still don’t know Paula’s $ situation. She gives off vibes of some level of privilege. Either way, though, she is certainly flawed. She’s already ashamed of Kai.
While I seriously doubt Paula comes from the kind of money Olivia does, I agree that I get the sense that Paula comes from some level of privilege as well, and didn’t just meet Olivia at a college she happened to get a full scholarship to…
Not saying we should take actor interpretation as bible, but Brittany O’Grady seems to think Paula definitely doesn’t come from the wealth Olivia does. https://www.nylon.com/entertainment/brittany-ogrady-white-lotus-paula
(I haven’t finished the series yet) but I really hope that Paula is well-off, as well. I hate the wokely oblivious concept that if someone isn’t white, they must be struggling financially.
Both Paula and Rachel are beautiful women trying to fit into wealth. It’s currently dawning on Rachel that her beauty is the one thing she’s valued for, and it’s going to make her very angry; it’s possible this occurred to Paula earlier, and she’s already angry about it.
It’s currently dawning on Rachel that her beauty is the one thing she’s valued for, and it’s going to make her very angry;It almost feels like a statement on the actress playing her.
Paula beautiful? Not really. Especially with those eyebrows
I also don’t buy Paula’s otherness – her astonishing beauty gives her an entre into a different group of society: that of the truly beautiful who will never labor, feel excluded, or suffer consequences. It is why she has learned to be be so vapid and cynical and cruel. Picking up the waiter at a luxury resort is not anyone’s definition of enlightenment. He’s just part of the buffet, that offers a extra kick of sanctimony. If Paula is supposed to be not privileged, something is off. I’m not sure if its the show runners’ falling short of their mark or the reviewer’s ignoring the contradictions that are being presented here.
Paula knows she is a token friend to Liv and yet still accepts her invitation to a luxury resort and is sleeping in the same bed with her. Yikes. Also, how did she get her hands on so many prescription drugs? If she legit needs them how is she functioning without them?
I buy that. I think she’s a parody of the woke person, looking for the next “oppressed” person to help. My personal favorite juxtaposition is when she was complaining about the oppressed white man during the Hawaiian dance performance. That was brilliant.I’m sorry, I read that too quickly and I thought you meant Nicole. I feel that way about Nicole being a parody. Paula I think is pretty insufferable as well and I do agree with you.
I find almost none of them truly sympathetic, so I agree; Paula is no angel. She’s rude, aloof, and probably a bit ungrateful.
She uses social justice just like Olivia, to beat people about the head and shoulders, she can also be every bit as cruel as her.
Maybe she’s just playing along with Paula to get all the perks (like going to Hawaii), but I don’t see that as being any better than Olivia who is the straight up villain of the whole show.I do not like these young women (obviously their characters) at all, they are horrible at every turn. If I were them I’d have to be high all the time to live with myself to.Paula frankly has the friend she deserves right now, though unlike Olivia, she has the ability to learn and be better.Armond is definitely more deserving of empathy, though he is stretching that a bit with his behavior between this and the previous episode.
I was disappointed about his serious lapse of judgement and sexual harassment quid pro quo with the employee. I love him and don’t want him to be a creep, even if it’s only because drugs ruin his boundaries.
I don’t know that I find her particularly sympathetic or that I need to, but I fid find her much more compelling.
Shane: (Diabolical laughing) “Oh bro you are going down.”Perfect line drop.
I’m imagining the director’s note for that scene: “No, I want actual supervillain laughing. Like, think Dracula”.
“Have you ever had a moustache? Picture yourself twirling it while laughing.”
“Billy Zane’s flying out for a couple of days to train with you.”
“The White Lotus finally includes the Hawaiian people in a story set on their land.”I think this is overstating it a bunch. A couple of scenes with Kai, but it really feels like the only thing this show is truly lacking is the perspective of the Hawai’ians. We have two (or three, if you could Dillion) characters who are employees but not Hawai’ian.
Kai’s scenes were good, wish there were more like them.
Hawaii is a United States state. Like, it is an actual state, not even a territory like Guam or the VI. The Hawaiian people are Americans. Its land is America.
Sure, but in the same way as Native Americans are Americans and reservations are subject to most of the same federal and state laws as any other city, native Hawaiians have their own traditions and language. If you were telling a story that was set alongside or in a reservation, it would be very weird to not spend some time with the people whose land it is.
Have you spent much time in Hawaii? With the exception of Ni’ihau there isn’t any part where you feel like you are in or next to a reservation. Let’s level here – its very trendy among millenials and zennials to talk about America as stolen land, and while they aren’t technically wrong its not like they have any intention of giving part of it back or doing anything about it. It’s more empty slacktivism that costs them nothing while broadcasting their inherent nobility and enlightenment. Woke peacock feathers.
It wouldn’t be so weird if it were telling a story about a bunch of
folks at an Indian/Native American casino. One can tell the story about a
guy from a Chicago suburb, a gal from the Asian District of Oklahoma
City, and a kid from the backwoods of Maine without ever delving into
the lives of the locals that live and work there.
It’s a resort;
by definition it’s secluded. While storytelling can take all sorts of
forms and directions, it’s not a requirement to dwell on the social and
demographic issues of the particular state, region or even immediate location in which it is set.
So, what’s your point, exactly?
His point is that he’s ignorant to the history of Hawaii and why exactly it became the 50th state.
This is willful ignorance.
Just because Hawaii is a state doesn’t mean that native Hawaiians haven’t experienced oppression and unfair treatment at the hands of the U.S. government.
It’s culture and it’s people do not necessarily subscribed to the same colonial values as euro-settler Americans, so there’s differences
It was an independent kingdom annexed by the U.S. at the end of the 19th century. They are culturally, historically, ethnically, geografically so removed from America that their reality and struggles cannot be erased by the oversimplification of the term American.
Not only was it annexed by the US, Queen Liliuokalani was forced into essentially giving up the throne under threat of military backed violence by haole businessmen who wanted more control over the land to fill their pockets. Liliuokalani was held prisoner outside of her own palace by these greedy bastards, who installed Sanford Dole as their leader. Think about that next time you bite into some pineapple.
thanks for letting us know Hawai’i is a state. Now I’m going to take a big sip of coffee and read about the history of American involvement in the islands.
Are you joking? This is so ignorant and offensive. I can’t believe someone would write this and be serious.
I think it was deliberate storytelling, to get wrapped up in the faux high stakes drama of the resort guests and then being reminded that the locals are still being traumatized by settlers forcing their narrative to be the centre. Both in storytelling and in the real world. The viewer is just as stuck in the resort as the characters.
Kai s scenes were good? Really? They were nothing, empty. Better interactions and acting on an episode of “the hills”
The fact that none of these people are interacting in any meaningful way with any actual Hawaiians (except possibly Quinn) is one of the most realistic things about the show.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that the show shouldn’t have at least one prominent Hawai’ian character in it.
Well there is Kai. I have a feeling he’s going to be more prominent/tied to the central “who’s the dead body?” mystery in the last 2 episodes.
At first I thought he was going to be your standard-issue hot local who “falls in love” with a different girl each week to get her in bed. And he may still be that, just getting more than the usual from his relationship with Paula.
That’s a weird insistence. Do you think that the writer(s) are somehow obliged to prominently include an Hawaiian character? Do you have any other “rules” to share about artists and their art?
I stayed at the Four Seasons in Maui a few years ago. I had an amazing time, but watching this show makes me feel really shitty about it now.
I stayed at the Four Seasons on the Big island and we got evacuated when it got destroyed by a tsunami. All us guests were put on buses to safety and it’s really fucked up thinking back now.
I stayed at the Marriott in the same area. Highly recommend it. It has a high, hugh waterslide and children’s area.
If you were respectful to the people who work here, I’m not sure you have reason to feel shitty. If you pressured them into having dinner with you and offered them false-hope that you will invest in their business opportunities (like Tanya), or went to war with them for making a mistake (like Shane), or exoticized them (like Paula), then maybe feel bad?
Nah Laurence shouldn’t feel bad even if he expressed an interest in mentoring and possibly financing a person who wants to start her own business (even if you’re just “white people”) or tried to get the manager to do the right thing regarding an overbooking (room) and double-booking (boat) or felt attracted to a person that wasn’t from your particular tribe. That would be just as silly as feeling bad for being guest at hotel.
Why? You’re stay helped the local economy including locals working there.
Great episode, with the series having gotten better to me as it chugs along. I especially like all the lovely lyricism White creates amid the satire. (I didn’t see Enlightened, if that show did the same thing.) The cutting between all the elements in the dinner scene was terrific, creating suspense and a sense that hell was gonna break lose. Shane and his mother were a horror movie to Rachel (and us) before, during, and after their “Money!”chant. “Did you enjoy your mother?” indeed.Minor correction: Nicole shushed Quinn about the bracelets because she realized Mark had told his son about his affair, not because rich people think it’s rude to talk about money. They may, I have no idea, but I share the kid’s incredulity that bracelets can be 75 grand and I also would blurt it out. I forgot what Mark did for what appears to be a very lucrative living.I thought the nudity and strong sexual content promised in the rating advisory would be between Armand and Mark (or else we’d see Jennifer Coolidge in the buff.) There’s still time!While getting a native Hawaiian perpective would be great, I can understand the white, affluent White sticking to what he knows instead of trying to write an experience he doesn’t and botching it.
Oh, I would bet money that the 75K for the bracelets came out of the joint checking account, to which Nicole deposits much, much more money than Mark.
Yeah, when he corrected himself that it was ‘my own money’ I wondered aloud ‘What does he do for a living, again?!’ I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a very studied definition of what “my money” is after all is said and done.
Agreed. Hell, he may work really hard, but I get the impression that if he has a job, it’s one that he’s been allowed to coast in all his life. Nicole is a hustler; Mark is not. (Which is not to say an unbalanced dynamic isn’t normal or even useful, when it comes to having kids. Someone is going to be the one who has to leave work early to get them to their practices or games, or take off time to take them to the doctor, etc. It’s ideal if both partners can be that person, but depending on the career, it can be very difficult to maintain.)
As a guy in my 50s, it’s not surprising to me at all that Mark would have that much money lying around to buy some very expensive marriage-saving bracelets. Especially when you consider that the lifestyle expenses the family incurs are going to be almost entirely borne by the Nicole’s mega-income; it would be patently unfair for a wealthier spouse to force the other to contribute equally to an amped-up standard of living.So Mark’s probably kicks in a quarter of his take-home and the rest is “his” money to do with what he pleases. Given that they likely got married before Nicole became a master of the universe, a divorce would mean half of it is going to be his anyway, and they both know it. The fact that he was willing to spend a decent chunk of it to preserve their marriage, when the alternative would have been to spend none of it and get half her earned wealth, was itself a pretty significant gesture, no?
He’d probably be pilloried as the author of “American Dirt” was, after all, so why bother.
He relapsed, and he’s out of control because he has to be so in control at all times due to guests treating the workers and the locals as not fully formed human beings. It’s a dismissive attitude towards addiction. His triggering episode is realizing that he was behaving like the guests when the employee wouldn’t tell him she was in labor. Background removal services Provider
I have a sinking feeling that Quinn is going to go off in the Chekhovian outrigger canoe with the Hawaiians and that he is the person who is going to die.I got the feeling that Armand wasn’t seriously hitting on Mark, he was just messing with him in front of his family. And I wish he hadn’t gotten caught in flagrante delicto!
Immediately, when I heard it come from Shane’s month, I felt there was no way he would know how to use a Baby Jane reference. I can only imagine he overheard the Armond quip and did a quick google on his phone. He realizes how sick a burn it is and must shoehorn as fast as possible into any conversation.
“why did she make that desperate, “cool”-filled pass at Kai?”- You said ‘cool’ a lot, like a lot, . . . with my dad earlier. . – Kendall Roy.
Oh, I’m almost positive Shane has seen Baby Jane. Shane seems to have been raised in that particular style of being his mom’s “little man” and I imagine he watched a lot of older movies with her while he was growing up. That, or a film class in college. Imagine your mother-in-law showing up on your honeymoon. I’m hoping Rachel has faked her death to escape Shane by the end of this series. But oh, Molly Shannon has nailed that sort of “smart, but rich enough that she doesn’t have to do anything with her brain” vibe that I’ve seen from so many yoga moms. (And, listen. If I won the lotto tomorrow and could never work again? I would 100% do it. But only because I’d be independently wealthy. I would never quit my job and rely on my spouse’s money.) Poor Rachel, trying to make a difference.As an Xennial (or whatever we 41-43 year olds are called now), that discussion at the dinner table was really interesting. Olivia has clearly come home from college with that Big College Energy, where you think you know everything there is to know and you pity your parents for being out of touch. And ten to one, everything that’s coming out of her mouth is stuff she’s learned from Paula, but will never put into practice if it hinders her own life in any way. Meanwhile, Nicole has that smug, “I live in the real world so I know better than you do” patronizing talk down. My cynical nature somewhat agrees with Nicole in that I think most people would be likely to grab onto power and fuck everyone else over in order to keep it. My optimistic side says, well, fuck, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to overturn a racist, sexist, classist system that has benefitted straight white men (poor straight white men) for far too long.The talk between Kai and Paula was really moving. You know, we hear all the excuses why vacationing at some fancy resort in Thailand or Hawaii or various other places where white people love to go and fuck shit up for the native people is A Good Idea – tourism dollars, etc. But there would be no need for these places to rely on tourism if we had just left them alone in the first fucking place. The White Lotus (aka the Four Seasons) evading government regulations (or just plain paying the right people off) to seize land that’s been in one family for generations happens far too often. At which point, yes, people DO have to rely on tourists because they’ve lost their land or their house or the local tax rate or home prices have shot up tenfold. (Not quite the same scenario, but Amazon recently purchased 50 acres near to my house and built a giant distribution center, which has nearly doubled home prices in our area. So, great for people who were already homeowners, I guess, but pretty fucking shitty for people who are renters and now are forced to work for fucking Amazon to be able to afford rent on the apartment that used to cost less than half of what it does now.)Also, I figured we’d catch Armand and Dillon in flagrante but I was not expecting to see ass eating in the office. Hopefully Dillon also made use of the spa’s shower earlier that day.
I only saw Baby Jane about seven or eight years ago, but I would have understood the reference my entire adult life.
Yeah, there are definitely enough homages to it in other movies, as well as popular culture references, that I wouldn’t think it weird if a mid-20s guy made a joke about it.
When you bring up Alexandra Daddario, I’m reminded that she did a thankless role in Season 3 of The Girlfriend Experience. Part of me wonders if that role was built on a superficial handshake promise that she would headline a potential Season 4. If that’s the case, I kinda hope that comes to fruition because she could carry a season of that show far better than the actress they got for Season 3.
Thank you! I was wondering where I’ve seen Daddario before. Casting her in the main role in a season 4 of Girlfriend Experience may be just what the show needs. Season 1 was really good, but I can’t say the same for seasons 2-3.
Having two separate storylines for Season 2 may have hurt it a bit, but it doesn’t compare to the out of touch self-indulgence that was Season 3. The storyline was so uncompelling and the actress that was chosen had almost no sex appeal. By sex appeal, I’m not talking about the lack of nudity. They wanted us to believe this character was a go-getter type from the very beginning, but the actress was never convincing. I don’t know what the director saw in that actress, but she couldn’t carry that show. Alexandra Daddario has sex appeal so it makes no sense to waste her on a thankless role in that show, but she’d be a perfect lead for a season, provided Starz renews it despite the poor ratings for Season 3. And despite not having significant name recognition, people are more familiar with her than the Season 3 actress so they can probably sell it better. Of course, there needs to be a more compelling storyline than Season 3, one that understands the DNA of the show better, not some tech/AI nonsense.
She was the Court Reporter that had an affair with Woody Harrelson in season on of True Detective. She was naked a lot.
I first noticed her in White Collar as the deceased wife of Matt Bomer. She leaves an impression for sure.
hate to be that gay, but that was an awful depiction of rimming.
That’s probably something hard to simulate without actually, you know, doing it.
Yeah, there’s only so far you can bury your face in someone’s ass before you are actually rimming them. Also I’m not sure Standards and Practices would have allowed them to have Dillon’s ass cheeks spread open.
It’s HBO! You can cut people’s heads off at their wedding!
Christopher Meloni as Keller on Oz (same network) would like to have a word with you. (Or at least a wink at you.)
Well the actor doing the rimming is a real-life gay, so presumably he knows what he’s doing.
….
Look HBO got rid of the soft porn, so that’s as close as you’re getting!
Nothing on the BLM mixup?!?That was comedy GOLD!!
That was hilarious. I Lol’d at her “That actually makes sense now” response when he finally clarified that it stood for Bureau Land Management.
Last summer during the Oregon wildfires, there were MAGA people getting up in arms over conspiracy theories started by radio transmissions about BLM creating road blockades and rerouting traffic. It was a very 2020 moment.
Trump Republicans have really turned on the BLM in the last six years or so. I’m not sure they were ever really fans, because God forbid the guv’ment tell me where I can raise my cattle, but it’s gotten . . . weird.
I left out a key detail. The MAGAs thought it was Black Lives Matter creating random roadblocks. It was wild how much some folks were freaking out.
What do we think about BLM guy? My initial impression was that he parked himself in front of Tanya’s door and is trying to sucker his way into her money.But yes, Tanya’s absolute confusion over him basically leading BLM was hilarious.
I don’t know the actor, but he gave a pitch-perfect rendition of “ordinary, not especially handsome but nice enough, middle-aged man.”
He’s Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. There’s pure poetry in Paulette from Legally Blonde making out with Uncle Rico.
Jon Gries has had a long and interesting career.
Poor Ronnie. Shot five times in the chest and once in the foot. The foot.
OMG you’re right!
I actually think BLM guy will turn out to be as harmless as he initially seems (to me). I kinda disagree with this review saying that Tanya ending up sleeping with him (we presume) is her falling into the traps she described by her mom… She’s having a hard time. She’s also on vacation. Let her have some slightly random sex.
Oh, she should definitely get her random vacation sex. (Although I’m pretty sure that BLM guy will distract her from her “mission” to help Belinda) I don’t see vacation hookups with randoms to be anything untoward. My guess from Tanya’s description was that her mom was more of the “can’t be single for a minute; bounce from relationship to relationship” kind of person that drags their poor kids into a bunch of drama and introduces them to a parent figure only to dump them (or be dumped) three months later.
Yes, that’s exactly the sense I got about Tanya’s mother as well. And I absolutely think you’re right that the main issue here will be that he will be a new distraction taking her away from helping Belinda.
My comment was more to the original review that I think sees this show as too black and white—Tanya is now falling into the patterns she hated in her mom. Armond is now an “active villain”. The “ceremonial dancing” for white people Kai was a part of is absolutely a terrible thing. Etc
I’m kind of torn on luaus and such myself. I’ve never been to Hawaii (one day!) so I haven’t witnessed one in person, but I think I would probably be very uncomfortable during it. There is a fine line between someone genuinely showing off part of their culture as a matter of pride or celebration and someone having to basically sell off their culture for white people to entertain themselves. When I was a kid, my grandparents lived right next to a rez (like, within walking distance) and I had a summer friend whose grandmother taught me how to basket weave. That, to me, felt like a genuine cultural exchange – her teaching me a part of her culture because I had commented on how amazing all of her baskets were. That same reservation would put on a festival every summer and if you plunked down five dollars you could eat some corn pone and watch people dance, and that always felt icky to me.
I have a friend who as a young teen participated in some luau ceremonies when she lived in Hawaii, where she was raised. It was a dance style she had been trained for all her life and, as she said to me, she saw it the same as studying in dance class any other form of dance, and then doing performances/recitals to paying members (she also has mentioned there is no way much of this dance training could be sustained if it wasn’t performed for money at some point—or why people would study it if they couldn’t make a sort of career out of it). So in this case, I’m not sure if it’s all that different than, say, going to a Spanish restaurant and watching a flamenco routine. Yes, in this case, unlike flamenco, *some* (not all) of the dance has a ceremonial origin, but that was mostly lost long ago and only the actual dance remained, and is from a culture that was largely destroyed by while colonists.
It’s a very thorny and iffy subject, but when practitioners of that dance form can make a living by staging, choreographing, and performing it—something they love—and without such venues they literally couldn’t (and it might, even, at least somewhat become a dead art form). It just starts to sound to me like “Hey, you spent half of your life learning this art form, and devoting yourself to it, but how dare you perform it at one of the few places you actually could make a living from it?!”
Yeah it’s performative—and sold as The Hawaiian Experience. But that was also true when I went to some restaurant in Argentina where they had Argentine tango dancers. The difference of course being that presumably that venue was owned by Argentinians (although that of course doesn’t mean they weren’t exploiting the lower class native population) whereas these big Hawaiian resorts definitely aren’t owned by Hawaiians. But would it be better then if they had the resorts and not hired the local dancers and choreographers? Like I said, it’s complicated.
Yeah the “villain” thing is weird to me (though Armand is definitely predatory towards Dylan). The show’s a lot more nuanced than I thought it would be with its characters and that’s part of what I like about it.
I mean this is pedantic of me but the definition for villain is:
1
: a character in a story or play who opposes the hero
2
: a deliberate scoundrel or criminal
I don’t see Armond fitting either definition, and am not sure why the reviewer insists on that word choice (she used it last week too…)
I think if we’re going purely by his predatory actions with Dylan, I understand it, but otherwise it doesn’t track for Armond, in my opinion. There’s also no clear hero or even protagonist (which is partly why I think the show is intriguing.)
He’s also staying in the same uber-expensive hotel. It’s not like he picked her up in some local dive and realized he may have hit jackpot.
No, Shane has NOT seen WEHTBJ. LOL. That was grade A shoehorning of a line into the wrong character.Rachel is just deep down a mediocre person. She has no passion at the center of her life. She has vague ideas about what she wants to be “about,” but no real conviction. No wonder Shane married her. Mediocrity is so infrequently depicted despite its prevalence in the world. The acting here is fantastic. We don’t really know much about Paula’s background. Is she an economic peer to Olivia’s family? It’s hard to tell. I think not. But even she is clearly in a different class than Kai, who is legit working class. She can’t even stomach Kai’s performance in front of the diners. Sure, it’s humiliating, but it stinks of superiority on her part. The dude needs to make money. He has nothing to feel ashamed about. Belinda rocks. I love that she made that guest move her legs so she could get to Tanya with that fucking peppermint tea. GET THAT MONEY, LADY!!PS I always think more clearly after an oxygen facial.
I got the sense more that Paula saying that she was disgusted by the performance was a comment to throw off Olivia, i.e. she was really upset about her feelings for Kai/never being able to really be with him/Olivia potentially swooping in to steal him, but instead said some stuff about how she wad grossed out by the natives dancing for the whites or something.
There’s zero chance that White shoehorned a line into the wrong character.
Rachel is a pill. I get that people are sympathetic to her because Shane is such a dud, but … she married him, and has absolutely nothing going on. In fairness, it’s tough to make a character out of “I want to be doing journalism,” but aside from some uncomfortable facial expressions, she’s stuck with the worst role on the show. Everyone else gets to be wickedly funny; she gets to be annoyed.
Nothing wrong with being average/ mediocre or whatever. Doesn’t mean you deserved to have your spirit crushed daily by an asshole like Shane.
Speaking as a fellow mediocre , not having a shitbone awful life is all we can aspire to! No wonder she’s annoyed, it’s the only sane reaction.
Yet another example of great character creation on this show. She basically went along with a whirlwind courtship and engagement to a guy she barely knows, and for once we didn’t get the “you want me to leave my fast-track job at the New York Times!” bullshit – she writes listicles pulling original content from other writers. She doesn’t want to be a trophy wife, but doesn’t seem to have much of a plan for herself otherwise. It’s why Shane was able to get her to marry him so quickly anyway. I feel terrible for her, I’m sure the agony is very real, but she comes off as somewhat of a willing victim.
I am loving how specific these characters are – like, yes, they are heightened caricatures in some ways, but never once do they do something that feels like it was shoehorned in just for a laugh/plot device, as you see in weaker shows. For example I have an aunt who is EXACTLY Connie Britton’s character, and everything from her outfits to her takes on politics to her constant tidying is precisely accurate.
Also Alexandra Daddario’s silent exasperated face-acting when reacting to Shane’s latest bullshit is masterful.
Yeah, Daddario absolutely deserves all the awards for her performance, it’s unlike anything I have EVER seen from her, she is a goddamn revelation in this show!
Its about time she got a vehicle of her own
She’s gotten vehicles of her own, they were just all indie films.
I’m very much hoping that the opening scene didn’t imply that she’s the one who dies! And that it does imply that she dumps Shane!
She’s just out of scene getting a hot coffee, which I hope she then dumps all over Shane’s head.
I am vox clamantis in deserto since I’ve fallen into the grays, but I have a sinking feeling that it will be Quinn in the outrigger canoe.
Coolidge’s character seems genuine, but then also seems like she’s avoiding any specific discussion about the investment she keeps bringing up. It could go either way at this point. Her character’s likability will ultimately hinge on whether she is being real or just using Belinda.
I don’t think she’s a bad person, just damaged. The irony is that she’s inherited all this wealth and is completely clueless what that money means to someone like Belinda.
I think she’s both sincere and that it doesn’t mean much to her, she will get distracted and likely drop the whole thing, having no clue how earth-shattering that will be to Belinda.
That’s my thinking too. She’ll get distracted by BLM guy and then forget all about Belinda and the promises she made to her.
Quinn is definitely going through some kind of personal transformation, but what’s the basis for thinking it has anything to do with him being gay? Because he lost interest in a porn video and chose to gaze out over the ocean instead? Because of his fascination with the canoe rowers?The realization that there’s bigger world beyond what he just sees on a screen could just as easily explain Quinn’s loss of interest in his porn video. His sister mocking him just hours before at dinner for doing exactly what Quinn was doing probably didn’t help matters. And I saw his interest in the team of rowers as coming from a place of envy, not lust. Envy for the rowers’ lives, which at first glance, appears relatively peaceful compared to how Quinn perceives his family’s lives.Also, Quinn seemed pretty confident in his response when Mark asked him if he was gay and he said no. Then again, if Quinn really is gay, I wouldn’t blame him one bit for not coming out to his dad in that moment — especially given Mark’s over-the-top reaction to the revelation about his own father.
Daddario deserves an Emmy nom just for her facial expressions – last week when she was listening to Zahn go into WAY too much detail about his marriage, and this week when Molly Shannon barged in.
Plus, two weeks ago walking away from Connie Britton.
Olivia might claim that she’s Paula’s ally, but if so, why did she make that desperate, “cool”-filled pass at Kai?
I think Olivia meant it in the moment, hoping that Paula would stop lying and open up to her about Kai. When Paula wouldn’t, Olivia felt betrayed and decided to make a pass at him.
I dont think Shane used Baby Jane knowingly. He heard it somewhere before and thought it applied to Tanya.
Zuckerbergs are evil morons, but let’s face it, they’re nothing compared to the United States government which straight up organized a coup d’etat and then illegally annexed the country. Oh oops, sorry, I meant to say “TV dramas that briefly mention an issue are all the discussion we need to have”
True, but let’s not forget: that annexation took place on behalf of… you guessed it, the interests of US-based corporations operated by old-timey versions of Mark Zuck.
I just hope that poor Belinda won’t quit her job because Tanya is gonna drop her like a hot potato. She seems like an intuitive woman who can’t be gulled easily, but things seem to be heading to that heartbreaking conclusion. I’m curious to see whatever will happen and what it says about Belinda as a character.
Does anyone else get the impression that the White Lotus is one of those places that isn’t like one of those rich people resorts, but a resort that pretends it is? If douchebro McGee is really that wealthy, why is he going to a place with breakfast buffets and a place that a civil servant can go to?
Nah, I think it’s pretty richy-rich. (If nothing else, the gas bill on those lamps is probably insane)Shane’s in a suite and BLM guy is on a group trip, all probably crammed in one room or two connecting rooms. We’re talking thousands of dollars of difference in hotel bills.But I think most big resorts do breakfast buffets. Cook to order breakfast on that scale is really difficult since everyone would be eating at the same time, unlike a more spaced out lunch or dinner.
Yeah, the question is what’s on it. If you can have a pile of lobster omelettes if you feel like it, you’re still in a high-end place.
I dunno, I think Armond is a lot worse than Shane.
Shane is certainly dismissive of his wife (and her mother), sometimes awkwardly, other times cruelly. And yes, he’s a little overzealous about not getting the right room (although quite justified in being irate in being set up with a grieving basket case on what was supposed to be a romantic cruise), and a bit entitled.
You seem to give Armond a pass because he is supposedly frustrated with the guests. Well, that’s his job. And if anyone is treating others like “lesser-thans”, it is Armond, especially the ones for whom it is his responsibility to keep happy and enjoy their stay.
Armond is a bad addict (his addiction does not justify his behavior) who gets high and drinks on the job, lies to guests, steals their property, hits on guests and tries to screw his employees (anywhere else they’d call it sexual harassment or, in the words of the day, a sexual predator). Petty? I don’t think so.
I’m glad that the series has the requisite homosexual and have not made
him a saint who must simply sit and suffer injustices. He’s a proper
villain.
Armond’s beyond entertaining because he’s just snapped and doesn’t give a fuck anymore. I don’t think you’re supposed to root for him anymore, just cover your eyes and go “oh god no…”
Ill be perfectly honest. I don’t care if real Hawaiian peoples story is told. Many times the “ real” indigenous story is never the truth. I’m from Canada and the media portrays the indigenous people as a nature loving, peaceful people who have only been victimized. What they don’t tell you is that they are only playing nature loving until you show them the money like when oil or mining is being explored – then its ok. Or their own reserves are littered with garbage. Or that the bodies of children at residential schools are of children who died of natural causes like tuberculosis and not of intentional murder as it’s portrayed. There are many more examples. Point is the rich white people portrayed in the show is only a subset of the population which makes it fascinating and makes us easily hate.
Contrary to another comment here, I do agree with the author that it’s hinting at Quinn being queer or realizing he’s queer. For me the first big hint was actually when the mom yelled at him in the first ep to “get out of the closet”, felt like that was a wink from the creator/writer. However, the other interpretations pointed out by people here could also be valid. I just don’t think it’s “off base” to read it as a coming out story…
wait a second. shane is a rich bastard. he does rich bastard things. but are we going to sit here and talk about armand (who we just saw seduce, drug, and rim one of his subordinates) wielding his power to, well, you saw the scene as a victim? MF is 100% a villain. Shave v Armand is a delicious heel match, not a battle of good versus evil, lol, are you guys even watching the same show as me?
Would love to comment on this show, the author’s take, and other fans’ comments. Apparently my comments are pending approval (still) as they *may* contain graphic material. Not a rimming, mind you, just a mere opinion that someone somewhere won’t approve. I see the other comments that are pending and they are just as innocuous as the one’s which are shown. Strange. Mark Z, is that you ?
My issue with Rachel and Shane is he’s so one dimensionally awful, it’s not very believable that she EVER saw something in him. Like, without moments of not being a total dirtbag, you’re led to believe he was somehow better before the honeymoon? I like some aspects of the show, but there’s some shallowness to a few characters that the show tries to make up for in having them being interesting via privileged caricatures.
These reviews are a lot more entertaining for me to read than the show was to watch. Is that odd?