The White Lotus pokes at the romanticized allure of Hawaii in its acidic premiere
Series creator Mike White delivers amusement and bitterness in equal measure as The White Lotus begins
TV Reviews Jolene Purdy
In the season-six premiere of Mad Men, the two-part episode “The Doorway,” Jon Hamm’s Don Draper is working on an ad campaign for Royal Hawaiian Hotel. After a trip to the hotel that mixed business research with a vacation for himself and his wife Megan (Jessica Pare), and after watching their New York City building doorman nearly die before being resuscitated, all of Don’s latent self-loathing and barely hidden desire to disappear rushes forward into his proposed ad. The idea, which Don sees as a fresh start, reads to everyone else as suicidal ideation: “Hawaii. The jumping-off point.” A business suit and shoes lie discarded on a beach, and footsteps in the sand lead toward the water. “The jumping-off point”: maybe the beginning, and maybe the end. And the space in between is where The White Lotus begins.
Forgive me for discussing another show in this premiere recap, but, Hawaii has long carried with it a certain kind of baggage for the tourists, vacationers, and interlopers who project so much onto the island. Other TV shows and movies like Hawaii Five-0, The Descendants, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall have all probed at the disconnect between the (often wealthy) people treating Hawaii as a transitory vacation destination, an island defined by its resorts and its hotels, and the (often working-class) people who actually work at said resorts and hotels—the temporary vs. the permanent. The White Lotus jumps immediately into the deep end of that conversation with premiere episode “Arrivals,” which gives us a glimpse into the bitingly acerbic tone Mike White (of Enlightened) is going to cultivate over the miniseries’ six episodes.
There are a fair amount of LOL moments in this first hour, but I’m not sure I felt good after them. Whatever amusement The White Lotus provided on a scene-to-scene basis in “Arrivals” was followed immediately by a kind of lingering bitterness—the way you feel an ache in your jaw after eating something very sour or very tart. Think of the opening credits, and how the idyllic tropical images in the wallpaper revealed hidden threats: snakes among the fruit, insects among the leaves, jellyfish in the water, a swelling wave threatening to overwhelm a small boat. What danger lurks at the White Lotus? The vapidity and pettiness of the guests. The simmering irritation of the staff. With its high price tag and its obedient workers, this place is supposed to provide happiness. “You have to treat these people like sensitive children. They always say it’s about the money, but it’s not. It’s not even about the room. They just need to feel seen. They want to be the only child,” resort manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) says to new employee Lani (Jolene Purdy). Maybe that’s worked for Armond in the past. But with this new group of guests? Are they the kind of people who will be appeased by this somewhat-coddling, somewhat-punishing approach?
We begin “Arrivals” a week in the future. At an airport, waiting for a flight leaving Hawaii, we learn through that phenomenally awkward conversation between newlywed Shane (Jake Lacy) and that nosy/friendly couple that someone died at the White Lotus. Was it Shane’s wife? He avoids answering where she is. He goes to the airport window to watch the box of human remains being loaded on the plane. Perhaps this is too obvious a misdirect. But I think the fact that we’re seeing Shane alone here is an important point—especially given what else we learn about him, and his relationship with new wife Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), over the course of the next hour. We then jump back a week, onto the boat taking guests to the White Lotus. No, I didn’t assume that the sarcastic, nihilistic descriptions of the other guests by college student vacationers Olivia (Sydney Sweeney) and her friend Paula (Brittany O’Grady) were accurate down to every detail. But rich people are good at sizing up other rich people, and whatever casually cruel jabs Olivia throws out at her fellow vacationers seem to come from a place of simultaneous knowledge and judgment.
The same could be said for Armond, who waits alongside Lani and spa manager Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) to greet the White Lotus guests as they arrive. As he tells Lani in that later lobby scene, he has a general idea of the people who can afford these multi-thousand-dollar stays, and he knows the image the staff has to present: smiling, accommodating, pleasant, and immemorable. “Self-disclosure is discouraged. You want to be more generic…. It’s tropical kabuki.” The “overall impression of vagueness” Armond told Lani to cultivate comes up when Shane and Rachel walk together arm in arm, and she spins into an existential crisis when referred to as “Mrs. Patton,” and Armond and Lani politely ignore her brief meltdown and point the newlyweds to the Palm Suite. It comes up when the wealthy, kooky Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) totters up to the staff “in desperate need of a massage,” and no, she’s not picky, but also, she won’t do reiki, and also, did they not understand when she said right now? Does Tanya know that she’s a lot, and not care? Or does she think she’s not a lot, and utterly lacks self-awareness? Coolidge is always in on the joke with her characters, and I’m looking forward to how pointed and precise she gets with this performance.
And Olivia and Paula, who were judging everyone on the boat? They’re part of the Mossbacher family, traveling alongside tech CEO matriarch Nicole (Connie Britton), her husband Mark (Steve Zahn), who is awaiting some medical test results, and 16-year-old son Quinn (Fred Hechinger), who the two young women relentlessly bully. Olivia, the Mossbacher daughter, brought a friend in Paula, and the two of them are maybe lovers? Trying to navigate the complexities of this relationship is making me feel ancient, and I don’t think we’re supposed to see these characters as audience surrogates, even if they provided the first impressions of their fellow vacationers. I think we’re supposed to level a certain amount of skepticism toward this pair, with all their lofty statements about classism, feminism, sexism, and capitalism, as we do toward Olivia’s busybody-ish mom Nicole, and her stereotypically midlife-crisis-y dad Mark.
Of all these people, it’s Quinn who has not yet shown himself to be either self-involved, à la the guests, or in survival mode, à la the staff. Unlike Shane, who is ruining his honeymoon by obsessing over whether he’s in the right suite, and pushing away his wife with his demands that they get what they paid for in the Pineapple Suite—even though, as Rachel points out, “technically, we’re not paying for anything; your parents are.” (Daddario’s face when Lacy’s Shane asked “Maybe I should call my mother?” was fantastic.) Unlike Quinn’s sister Olivia and her friend Paula, who are so casually cruel to Rachel when she tries to make small-talk at the pool, either making fun of her to her face or ignoring her questions about themselves. (Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s animal-noise-heavy score was perfectly used during this scene, especially when Rachel disrobed and shut the college sophomores up with her body in that white bikini.) Unlike Tanya, who we learn is in Hawaii to spread her mother’s ashes (legitimately sad!) and who immediately gloms onto Belinda as a sort of holistic wellness guide (potentially manipulative!). Rothwell and Coolidge were on a different level in that scene, from Coolidge’s heartbreaking emoting in “I can’t get rid of this, like, really empty feeling. I want someone to figure it out for me” to Rothwell’s sureness in leading that Hindu chant, and bemusement at Coolidge’s very inaccurate repetition of it. Unlike Quinn’s father Mark, who is so convinced that he has cancer, and so afraid of dying as his own father did, that he is sliding into a kind of conservatism—“The modern world today is just so emasculating”—which turns Quinn off from spending time with him. (The Zahn casting here is so cleverly against type that I might need to rewatch Reality Bites to make sure I’m watching the same actor now parroting Jordan Peterson thought experiments about who men are in today’s society, blah blah blah.)
And finally, Quinn’s blank-slate quality is unlike Armond, who makes two major mistakes this episode that I think will shape the series to come. First is his double booking of the Pineapple Suite, which probably is something that could have been smoothed over with someone who isn’t as obsessive, and as convinced that he’s been wronged, as Shane. And second is his complete ignorance of Lani being pregnant. No, she didn’t divulge it on her application to the White Lotus, because she needed the job and needed the money. But has Armond so internalized the demands of this job, and the self-diminishment asked of the staff, that he’s doing it to other people, too? Did he not see what Lani was going through because he legitimately missed it? Or because he treated her like a guest would have treated her—like she was nothing, and no one? Armond seems legitimately shook by this, and maybe he’s wondering about himself what Mark had said to Quinn: “Every kid growing up wants to be the hero of the story, and in the end… you’re just happy you’re not the villain.” Maybe no one at the White Lotus has revealed themselves as a straight villain yet. But heroes? I don’t know how many of those there are at that hotel, either.
Stray observations
- Olivia and Paula are obviously Red Scare listeners.
- However, I must admit that I liked Paula’s “LOST HOPE” shirt. I’m sorry!
- Vacation reads spotted this episode: Olivia and Paula read Nietzsche and Freud poolside.
- Everything Coolidge is doing on this show is incredible, but her “Two syllables, but the second part is one syllable” description of how to pronounce last name “McQuoid” was transcendent.
- I don’t think Britton has had much to do yet, but the rapid-fire difference in her line deliveries of the uncomfortably genuine “You do have a beautiful body, Paula” and the sincerely irritated “You have a beautiful body too, Olivia!” made me grin.
- “Why are rich people always the cheapest? In this TED talk about Jake Lacy’s fantastic performance as the man-child Shane Patton, I will…”
- Seriously, though: Did Shane and Rachel have any real, substantive conversations before getting married? She didn’t think about whether to change her name. He’s negging her with statements like “You haven’t traveled that much,” using her as a justification for his dissatisfaction (“I just want it to be perfect for you”), and then pivoting seamlessly into sex demands (“Maybe a blowjob first?”). They don’t seem to be on the same page about much.
- We’re never seeing Lani again, right?
87 Comments
Bottom line: just don’t go to Hawaii. Or anywhere tropical. Honestly, vacationing anywhere is pushing it when it comes to this environment, but at least going to the Poconos for a weekend isn’t completely fucking over a native population.
Given how much the local economies rely on tourism it’s kind of a “fucked over regardless” situation.
I haven’t taken a fucking vacation in like 10-15 years. When I have the time, motivation, and money, I’m fucking going somewhere pleasant.
Where do you think the “native population” of Hawaii currently works? Do you think the economy of the islands will magically transform into a tech hub if people stop going there for vacations? Tourism and the service industry are pretty major parts of the economy all around the world, not just in tropical locations, and it’s an awful lot of white savior complex to just up and decide they should stop.
It’s surprising how often people’s solutions to problems of inequality basically boils down to firing poor people.“Hey, isn’t it demeaning and unjust that these people have to kowtow to you just to make a living?”- “You’re right, it is! I shall stop employing them at once!”It’s kind of like how many supposed ‘solutions’ to issues around gender equality basically involving imposing more burdens on women…
I guess the natives of the Poconos were fucked over long time ago. So, I guess we just feel better if we do not have to see it?
Top Line: I go to Hawaii as much as I can. It’s an awesome place. The locals can treat me with disdain and I can help their economy flourish.
We only treat you with disdain if you’re an oblivious asshole. If you come and respect the island, its people, and its history, you’ll get respect in return. You have to show aloha to get aloha.
I suppose you’re gonna employ and provide the livelihoods of all the people that work in tourist destinations, right? What a stupid comment.
Go to Hawaii and support local businesses (there’s some amazing macadamia farms that aren’t that cut-rate Royal Hawaiian or whatever brand), and don’t buy half of Kauai while native Hawaiians are trying to get it back.
Who gives a fuck where people go on vacation?
Something seriously wrong with this editor appearing to rearrange text arbitrarily – please disregard fouled text
The Poconos, really? Yet another native population already fucked over a lonnnnng time ago: “The name (Pocono) comes from the Munsee (American Indian) word Pokawachne, which means ‘Creek Between Two Hills.’”
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocono_Mountains “The Lenape, also called the Leni Lenape… are an indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory included present-day northeastern Delaware, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania along the Delaware River watershed, New York City, western Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley…. During the last decades of the 18th century, most Lenape were pushed out of their homeland by expanding European colonies. The divisions and troubles of the American Revolutionary War and United States’ independence pushed them farther west. In the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma and surrounding territory) under the Indian removal policy.” (emphasis mine) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape
Just to be safe, never leave the home. Just order stuff off amazon.
I see a bit of Basil Fawlty in the resort manager.Seems like they are setting up a few people to be the person that dies.
Qué ?
JFC AV Club- how can you reference movies and TV shows that take place in Hawaii without mentioning the Godfather of Hawaii TV episodes- the Brady Bunch.
I’m beginning to think that tiki doesn’t bring good luck…
Do you want to say where or how this show can be watched or are we just supposed to know
HBO, 9 pm EST Sundays.
HBO
There’s this thing called Google.
No, I just looked on Google. You can’t watch it there.
So far, so good on this. And doesn’t Daddario have the most amazing eyes?
I certainly didn’t enjoy this as much as you did. If Armond (was Fred Armisen busy? Really?) knew anything, he would have sent Shane a bottle of Dom and a fruit basket. You know, like you’d treat an only child. That, coupled with Belinda flatly denying a massage to Tanya is wholly unrealistic. The amount money they could have extracted from her to “squeeze” her into their schedule would have had every masseuse fighting to get their hands on her.I’ve been through that resort (Four Seasons Maui). It’s where the Kardashians and their ilk stay. Nothing is denied for a guest. It just shows up as a line item on a bill that the accountants sort through. I believe The White Lotus is supposed to be that kind of place, not a cut-rate imitation.No character has any redeeming qualities. The two girls are mean as hell. The Mom is completely self-absorbed. Share is nauseating and his newlywed wife is a fool for marrying him. Not to mention, Steve Zahn’s ball double looks plastic.I like Mike White, so I’ll stick with it, especially if it gets wrapped up in six episodes. I’m going to assume young bride isn’t dead, but came to her senses and ran off with someone else. Speaking of which, the show reminds me of the non-Hawaiian “The Heartbreak Kid” more than the movies mentioned above.
To me it sounds like (an American version of) Succession…
Agreed. The manager would have gone into full ass-kissing damage control mode, not just tried to cheerfully spin out “great” the room he was already in was.
It’s also such a stupid thing for the manager to lie about considering, as we later see, that they have proof of what they actually paid for.Even if the guy is clearly being obsessive over this in an unhealthy way, nobody should be expected to just swallow what I imagine are thousands of dollars of extra expenditure for no return.
It looks like they’ll be only paying for the room they wound up in, but only because he specifically demanded it.Yeah, so much of that entire subplot rang false. And there was no reason to have those phony moments in it, they still could have hit the narrative beats while hewing closer to reality.
nothing shows the manager is *good* at what he does. he believes he is there to deliver on what he perceives is the guests need, “to be seen.” same with the massage. “we are here to give you everything you need.” and they feel that need is for the guest to feel seen. i have been on both sides of that encounter, and it is a balancing act to let people feel they are being taken care of when you are really just trying to move on to something else. as you mentioned, the fact he doesnt send them champagne, fruit, or comps a couples massage shows he really doenst care about catering to the guests.i get the feeling the resort is one that is always hiding things and pretending to be something it isnt. i think weve all been to a hotel that, once you start looking around, is not what it portrays itself to be. it feels like it was once a five diamond hotel and is now constantly almost in the red.
None of the characters are supposed to be redeeming. I feel if you’re watching for some sort of growth you’re watching for the wrong reasons. that there needs to be something that resonates in an edifying way by the viewer is part of the only child issue between writers and audience nowadays.
Warning: If you can turn off or tune out the advance previews, there were too many spoilers to my mind, most certainly regarding the teens. Hate when that happens.Jennifer Coolidge looks lined up to be a major anchor of the series. I have no problem with that. Now let’s put Coolidge in a role with Jean Smart and watch the internet blow up.
You are the smartest person I’ve encountered today. That would be amazing.
<>that would be Absolutely Fabulous…
It sounds exhausting.
Mike White’s films/tv can be… yeah, exhausting. I really liked this first episode though.
When I need incisive social commentary, I’m definitely looking to the writer of Dead Man on Campus and The Emoji Movie.
Even John Sayles wrote “Alligator” and “Pirannah.” A gig’s a gig.
The difference is he took garbage and made it entertaining
The 2011 HBO series Enlightened was pretty good
I found it hilarious, in its very dark way. The deceased in the box was so obviously the young wife that I’m assuming it’s not. Maybe the mother-in-law but that would be the other too-obvious choice. The two girls are like a Greek chorus. Next Sunday can’t come too soon for me.
I’m on the fence with this first episode. Maybe my expectations were too high with the casting. However, I would have relished a scenario where Olivia and Paula were the ones getting sent home in a box.
I agree. All the guests are so unlikeable, those girls in particular.
It was a big box, so….maybe?
i really want the coffin scene to *not* be a red herring. but it really could be*anyone* in that coffin. maybe even molly shannon. heck, it could be zahn and the reason the groom is looking on it like that is because zahn and the bride hooked up. or the groom hooked up with one of the girls and she was eaten by one of the cute sharks.
i wonder if they will have an airport cold opening each episoden centering on each party…
You’ve given me hope. I can’t remember if I just assumed it was his bride. I remember thinking when the nosy couple were asking about his wife, it would’ve been great to add, “I just told you. They’re putting her on the fucking plane!”, but now I feel like I’ve been mislead. Well, I hope so. It would be more interesting.
Yeah, it felt entirely engineered as a deliberate misdirect. If it actually was Alexandra Daddario, they probably would have just said that.
Regarding the death teased in the opening; I would assume it’s Molly Shannon’s character, who is the in-law to the newlyweds. She dies and it leads to the newlyweds breaking up, presumably with both realizing they are wrong for each other and his bitterness being the result of his mom doing something horrible to him before she dies (like reveal she’s been actively driving away his girlfriends and the extent that she’s been controlling/manipulating him all his life).
I quite enjoyed this first episode! Those two girls were so mean and judgy, and it really reminded me of some folks at my college. It’s kinda making me dread going back after a year and a half at home, lol.
Yes, it really was a spot-on depiction of a certain type of college girl. Those two were the sharpest satire of the script, I thought. (But yes, insufferable in real life.)
We better see Lani again! She was one of the only sympathetic characters!(I don’t know why I still comment since my notifications don’t actually tell me anything or take me anywhere, it’s sort of ruined the whole “discussion” part of these comment sections when it’s a secret what someone said in response to you. Is it just me? Is that how this system is for everyone now? It’ll tell me what article I commented on that someone replied to, but will not take me to their reply anymore.)
same – terrible
I’m glad I’m not alone, at least! (This one was doable because there’s few enough comments that I could scroll through.) Very frustrating and it’s been like this for quite a while now. And the tech help page takes you to a “nope, this isn’t it” page.
Yeah, this is for everyone now and I am just about done with the AVclub.
What’s even worse, when someone is still in the greys (and does anyone know how you get out of the greys? It happened to me but don’t know how.) their comment, or part of it, is only visible in your notifications – you can’t find it on the page, not comment it, not star it – nothing. It’s somewhere in limbo and not doing anyone any good.
That’s awful. And yes, it does me make me visit here a hell of a lot less. I’d thought maybe it was just a browser compatibility issue for some of us, and I was going to take my licks as I usually do with my technological ignorance. But if it’s everyone that’s just senseless.
When it comes to the AVclub/kinja you can pretty much be certain when something gets worse it was done on purpose. Been a lot of changes over the past few years and with every single one things just got a little worse – and none of them got fixed.Another recent ‘highlight’ is the removal of tv reviews as its own subpage – making it harder to find them and you’re are no longer able to look up reviews per series/season (and I occassionally like to binge older shows and (re-)read a review and comments here and there – all but impossible now).
That is really disappointing. I love reading the pre-kinja tv show comments. I say pre-kinja because it was obviously a different (& more of a) community then. I wasn’t part of it but I appreciated it.
even worse: sometimes you can bring it up through clicking “pending”…but a lot of the time you can’t and it’s just invisible. Maybe the worst is when it’s some crank and you can’t even get to it to dismiss it and don’t know if other people can see it.
I believe that’s what I mean. I guess. It’s a mess…Personally I find it even more annoying when someone replies in earnest and/or makes a good point you can’t even acknowledge them.
IMDB says she is in 4 episodes so she will be back.
She applied for a job at a resort at 38 weeks pregnant. This woman is going to be back at work a week after giving birth.
Coolidge is always in on the joke with her charactersI see we all read the same New York profile recently…
I enjoyed this and will keep watching, but I think an “A” is overstating it.
A+ here.
In the opening sequence, the nosey airport woman said someone at the White Lotus was “killed” didn’t she? Maybe I’m misremembering, but I thought that stood out as it wasn’t just a random death.
Yes this is definitely murder most foul
We need ENLIGHTENED SEASON 3! (they only wanted to do 3 seasons anyway). Best show of the last decade.
who’s doing the score please?
Montreal composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer.
(Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s animal-noise-heavy score was perfectly used during this scene, especially when Rachel disrobed and shut the college sophomores up with her body in that white bikini.)Now there’s real fiction, the idea that it would have taken the girls that long to realize that Alexandra Daddario is super-hot.
Agreed! That was patently ridiculous.
That scene was framed so strangely, like they were somehow blown away because “OMG she has BEEEEWBS?!?!” Like what was the point of that?
She was wearing shorts and a loose-fitting blouse that was only buttoned in one place. Much of her exceptional body was already visible (not to mention her face and those insanely piercing eyes.)It was definitely a bit odd.
Because they’re horrifically superficial girls who thought they were above talking to whoever this old lady is. Daddario basically threw down “fuck you, brats.”
Well she’s 35 (!) now and therefore quite ancient to college kids.
CFO! No mention of the balls? This is promising, but I’ve had a problem in the past with Mike White being too on the nose in trying to make the viewer uncomfortable with not a lot of payoff (for “on the nose”: Jason Mantzoukas with snot constantly dripping down his face in “Enlightened”…you can make the point without putting in things that are so extreme nobody would ever do them…Tina Fey does the same thing with wacky cartoonishness). I often find cringe comedy cheap, we’re going to have to see how far they take Coolidge stalking the spa manager.Actually I love the college girls, because them being mean is funny. Also yes Daddario is a goddess, but Sydney Sweeney looks like she was created by Hollywood and for once I mean that as a compliment. The interaction regarding the Tiki guy was odd and intriguing, it seemed like Sweeney was giving her friend the go-ahead.I’m not somebody who needs somebody to root for, but with so many characters set up to be pushy privileged and difficult I’m glad Quinn, Daddario’s character, and Lani are there.
My guesses about the DB: Shane’s mother’s body is in the “human remains” box. (Spoiler if you didn’t see the previews: she’s about to show up and is played by the magnificent Molly Shannon.)Rachel is… maybe arrested? maybe just estranged? But not dead (and obviously not with Shane — we have seen that much already). I’m guessing arrested in relation to the death of her MIL. Are you kidding?! We are definitely seeing Lani again. This is a show about both upstairs and downstairs. We aren’t going to just see how everything goes for the wealthy tourists and not continue to have at least equal exploration of the working people. That character is going to be a central part of this show. (That character better be a central part of this show!)
For the record, there are no snakes in the fruit in Hawaii. There are no snakes anywhere in Hawaii (legally). The mongoose came in and killed them all.
I’m a pretty big fan of Mike White in general, in particular Enlightened and his more recent films. His brand of white guy malaise is like crack to me. So I generally enjoyed this first episode, but I do agree with some of the commenters here that Armand’s character struck me as totally unbelievable. For someone who is introduced as the incredibly fussy, obsequious luxury hotel manager, he didn’t seem to be at all interested in keeping his guests happy. He didn’t offer to make up for the double-booking of the hotel rooms and then he struggled to even come up with fun activities for, presumably, one of his highest paying guests.
>>especially when Rachel disrobed and shut the college sophomores up with her body in that white bikini.listen, i don’t want to nitpick here, but these 2 gals are almost definitely supposed to be facetious high school sophomores, not college. (which would explain why they were so gobsmacked when they watched Rachel, a full-grown woman, strut into the pool.)
That was what I thought initially, but Quinn is meant to be 14, so it seems weird that his sister, who is maybe a year above him at the most, bullies him so much. (Or maybe they’re twins and in the same grade?)
I think they were just gobsmacked because they wanted to feel superior to her, but were disappointed with her body, hoping they could make fun of her for that as well. Those characters were modelled after Red Scare podcast listeners, it wont make much sense without listening to the podcast but those characters were written perfectly
Olivia is literally wearing a college sweatshirt the first time we see her
No… Sydney Sweeney was deliberately wearing a “[Something] College” t-shirt to start the series. They read Nietzsche. Her friend Paula was unknown to her family before this trip (screams college dormmate, rather than someone you know from the same town growing up)
I don’t really think Sydney Sweeney has any reason to be jealous of a full-grown woman’s body.
Alexandra. Daddario.I mean come on.