The White Lotus
ホワイト・ロータス／諸事情だらけのリゾートホテル
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Rich guests, one resort per season, and the staff who service them; each season opens on a death and then shows the week that led to it.
Each season spends a week at a different White Lotus resort, among rich guests and the staff paid to please them, and each opens with a death that the season then works back towards.
In Hawaii the manager, Armond, five years sober, goes to war with Shane Patton, a young man from money who is furious that his honeymoon suite is not the one he booked; Shane's new wife, Rachel, a journalist, begins to fear she has become a trophy wife. Nicole Mossbacher, a tech executive, holidays with her family and her daughter's friend Paula, who talks a hotel worker she is sleeping with, Kai, into stealing the family's jewellery; he is caught. Tanya McQuoid, wealthy and lonely, scattering her mother's ashes, promises to fund a business for the spa manager, Belinda, then chooses a new man, Greg, and hands Belinda cash instead. Armond relapses and is fired, and on his last night he sneaks into Shane's suite, where Shane, taking him for an intruder, kills him. Rachel stays with Shane.
In Sicily Tanya, now married to Greg, suspects him of an affair when he flies home. She is taken up by Quentin, an English expatriate, and his friends, and too late finds a photograph linking Quentin to Greg. On Quentin's yacht, convinced they mean to kill her for her fortune, she kills three men, then slips climbing into a dinghy, hits her head and drowns. Around her two couples test each other's fidelity, three generations of Di Grasso men chase their fantasies, and Lucia, a local sex worker, walks away with €50,000 of their money, laughing with her friend Mia.
In Thailand Belinda, on a staff exchange, recognises Greg, now calling himself Gary, who fled questioning after Tanya's death; her son negotiates a $5 million payment for her silence, and she leaves. Timothy Ratliff, a financier about to be exposed, plans to kill his family and then himself, and stops at the last moment; his sons, Saxon and Lochlan, high on a night out with a young woman, Chloe, cross a line with each other that they would rather forget. Three old friends fall out and make up. Rick, who came to confront the owner's husband, Jim, over his father's death, kills him, then learns that Jim was his father; his girlfriend, Chelsea, is killed in the violence that follows, and the gentle security guard Gaitok, on the owner's order, kills Rick.
Starring
Jennifer Coolidgeas Tanya McQuoid
A wealthy, lonely, troubled guest in the first two seasons, grieving her mother and later afraid of her husband.
Tanya McQuoid’s story
Tanya comes to Maui to scatter her mother's ashes. She takes to Belinda, who runs the spa, and offers to fund a business of her own; then Greg, a fellow guest, asks her out, and she cancels her dinner with Belinda to go out with him. On her last day she hands Belinda cash instead, saying she wants to stop relying on relationships built on money. In Sicily, married to Greg, she is left behind when he flies home, and a tarot reader tells her he loves someone else. Taken up by Quentin and his friends, she finds too late a photograph of a young Quentin with a man who looks like Greg. Convinced they mean to kill her for her fortune, she kills three men on Quentin's yacht, then slips climbing into a dinghy, hits her head and drowns.
Natasha Rothwellas Belinda Lindsey
The Hawaii spa manager promised a business by a guest in season one, who returns in Thailand on a staff exchange.
Belinda Lindsey’s story
Belinda runs the spa at the Maui resort. When Tanya offers to fund a wellness business of her own, Belinda lets herself hope and writes a business plan; but Tanya cancels their dinner for Greg, and on her last day hands Belinda cash instead. Belinda throws the plan away. Years later, on a staff exchange at the Thai resort, she grows close to the wellness manager she has come to learn from. She recognises Greg, finds that he fled questioning after Tanya's death, and cannot get the hotel to call the police. She sleeps with the wellness manager, who asks her to open a spa with him. Greg offers her $100,000 for her silence; her son negotiates $5 million, and Belinda leaves Thailand, and the man who hoped she would stay, with the money.
Murray Bartlettas Armond
The Hawaii resort's manager, a recovering addict whose feud with a guest ends his sobriety and his life.
Armond’s story
Armond manages the Maui resort on charm and five years of sobriety. A guest, Shane Patton, cannot let go of a booking error, and Armond's contempt for him grows with every complaint; he sends the honeymooners out on the boat Tanya has chartered to scatter her mother's ashes. When a guest's lost bag turns up full of drugs, he keeps it and relapses. He takes drugs with a young member of staff and sleeps with him in his office, where Shane walks in on them. Shane's complaints finally get him fired. He spends his last shift high on the guests' drugs, and that night sneaks into Shane's suite to defecate in his suitcase. Shane comes back, takes him for an intruder and kills him, and Armond's body is loaded onto the guests' flight home.
Aubrey Plazaas Harper Spiller
An employment lawyer in Sicily with her husband and another couple she distrusts, whose marriage is tested.
Walton Gogginsas Rick Hatchett
A troubled man in Thailand with a much younger girlfriend, secretly there to confront the man he blames for his father's death.
Rick Hatchett’s story
Rick keeps Chelsea at arm's length from the moment they arrive, leaving her to drink alone and asking after the owner's husband, Jim Hollinger. Drunk at a snake show, he lets the snakes loose, and Chelsea is bitten. He tells her the truth: he believes Jim murdered his father and has come to confront him. He gets a gun from a friend in Bangkok, poses as a film producer to get into the owner's house, faces Jim and backs down. Back at the resort, Jim comes to him and insults his mother. Rick begs for another session with the resort's counsellor, cannot get one, and kills Jim. The owner tells him that Jim was his father. Chelsea is killed in the violence that follows, and the gentle security guard Gaitok, on the owner's order, kills Rick.
Jason Isaacsas Timothy Ratliff
A North Carolina financier on holiday with his family as a money-laundering scandal closes in on him.
Why it matters
The White Lotus is a comedy about money and service, and about how little the rich can see of the people who serve them. Mike White sets each season in a resort that sells paradise, then lets class, sex and desperation seep through: a manager destroyed by a guest's sense of entitlement, a spa worker promised a future and handed cash instead, a sex worker who outplays three generations of men, a financier who would rather kill his family than see them poor. Desire in the series is almost always tangled with power, and it is often the staff, not the guests, who pay for it. The series has won 16 Emmys, including best limited or anthology series, and its third season was its most watched. What stays is its bleak joke: most of the guests fly home much as they came, and the damage stays behind with the people who work there.