Each season, Max's popular series The White Lotus gives itself the ambitious task of telling essentially the same story about greed and lust but featuring different wealthy characters enjoying a new exotic locale. The just-concluded third season brought the concept to an imagined luxury White Lotus hotel in Thailand.
Despite its aspirations, the show's latest installment strained under the weight of a sluggish plot, overly familiar character types, tired narrative arcs, and unsurprising twists — and at least one bafflingly offensive monologue.
If you watched the show, you've probably catalogued these shortcomings, and maybe a few others. But these predictable creative problems aren't what made the season a disaster.
Instead, the show's sensationalist handling of two plots involving suicide and incestuous sexual abuse sent White Lotus hurtling into new territory — exploiting some of the most painful common human experiences for shock value in ways that could be harmful to viewers themselves.
That take might seem laughable given how White Lotus embraces outrageous scandal as a matter of practice.
The second season discarded the beloved Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) in a twisted plot that basically ended shortly after she pleaded for help from a bystander, saying, "These gays, they're trying to murder me!"
The first season's death transpired after the victim, a hotel manager, defecated in the belongings of a guest with whom he'd been feuding, and hid in his closet, only to be discovered and stabbed by his nemesis with a pineapple carving knife. Clearly nothing is too absurd, or off the table, for series creator and sole writer Mike White.
Yet bizarre murders to which almost no one can relate are one thing. Suicide, incest, and sexual abuse are common experiences which have, given their prevalence, likely affected a number of White Lotus viewers. They, or someone they know, has struggled with suicidal thoughts or behavior, or have been a victim of incest or sexual abuse.
A cul-de-sac of dread
In this season, wealthy businessman Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) arrives in Thailand on vacation with his three children and wife only to discover that he's under federal investigation for financial crimes. Distraught over what this means for his livelihood and family, Tim spends most of the season in the throes of intense, graphic suicidal ideation.
Exploring how financial crisis can contribute to suicidal thinking is a worthy effort given how money problems are a key risk factor for attempting suicide.
But White draws out Tim's suicidal thinking partly as a cheap ploy. With each passing episode, the viewer is left wondering whether Tim, who descends deeper and deeper into despair, will be the culprit who takes another character's life, or his own. This will-he-or-won't-he means Tim's fantasies of death and family annihilation make regular, vivid appearances, but to what end?
Even if White nobly intended to shed light on suicide, scientific research tells us that detail-driven media coverage and storytelling that focuses on hopelessness and a specific method of death can actually increase risk for people who are already vulnerable to suicidal thinking or behavior. Both elements are on full display in several episodes.
At the very least, White Lotus could've adopted the recommended tactic of including a pre-credits prompt sharing suicide crisis resources with viewers, given the severity and intensity of Tim's suicidal behavior and thinking.
It's possible that some at-risk viewers realized what was coming and opted out of White Lotus' third season, aware that continuing to watch the show wouldn't be worth filling their mind with suicidal thoughts or images. Others still may have known the risk and accepted it, as is every viewer's right.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the graphic depictions of suicide and murder-suicide somehow strengthened the season.
While Tim's journey through suicidal impulses may reflect what many have endured, the repetitive scenes of death did little except keep the character and the viewer stuck in a cul-de-sac of existential dread and terror. This is arguably the most boring place to be for an audience — and it has the potential to harm.
This isn't a new debate in film and television. In 2017, the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why generated great concern — and backlash — when it aired the graphic suicide death of a teenage character. Some research conducted in the aftermath suggested an association between the show and an increase in youth suicide.
Since then, Hollywood has demonstrated notable progress toward responsible yet narratively effective portrayals of suicide (see The Bear and Ted Lasso as prime examples).
In the end, Tim decides against killing his family and himself, though he accidentally poisons his youngest son in the wake of that choice. The season-finale twist seems to buttress Tim's belief that his family can weather the investigation that will unravel their lives.
It would've been powerful to show how Tim came to fully embrace his shifting fortunes. But that last-minute development unfolds at the plot's unscrupulous convenience, in the season's dwindling moments, after the real killers are revealed.
"Satire without substance"
While Tim is trapped by the fear of losing his wealth, and quite possibly his family's love and loyalty, his two sons are trapped in a separate hell of White's making.
In a pivotal episode, Tim's sons, Lochlan (Sam Nivola) and Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), spend an inebriated, drug-addled night on a luxury yacht with two women, Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), expecting a sexual adventure. What happens instead is incestuous sexual abuse, with Lochlan physically bringing his unaware brother to climax while simultaneously having sex with Chloe.
Except White Lotus never fully acknowledges that Lochlan sexually abused Saxon, who wasn't coherent or sober enough to consent, not that Lochlan ever asked permission.
"It’s essential to call this scene what it is: sexual assault," Dr. Tanya Rawal, director of consulting for the the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), told Mashable in an email.
"It’s essential to call this scene what it is: sexual assault."
When Saxon encounters both women the day after, Chloe considers her sexual encounter with both brothers as a "threesome." Stunned by this description, Saxon admits he'd blacked out and didn't recall what happened. She brushes it off as a peccadillo. "Everyone has their thing," Chloe says.
White has spoken about his interest in portraying sexual deviance, especially amongst gay men. But nonconsensual incest is not transgressive — it's sexual abuse. No edgy rationale would have justified a similar act of abuse had it been carried out by Saxon against his younger sister, Piper.
Rawal says there's a "harmful stereotype that men are always willing participants in sex, that they cannot be victims." While Saxon may see himself as a victim toward the season's end, he doesn't articulate that sentiment, nor does any other character.
The bias against male sexual abuse victims can affect how media, critics, and viewers talk about what happened to Saxon, Rawal says. They may default to framing it as provocative rather than recognizing it as traumatic.
Indeed, some of the media coverage and public commentary about the abuse saw it not as a fundamental violation of Saxon's body and familial trust, but as "brother-on-brother action" and a "wild incestuous hookup."
Such interpretations and characterizations matter. Rawal says that abuse presented as ambiguous, or even normalized, can harm survivors while simultaneously "reinforcing the broader social dynamics that allow such violations to continue unchecked."
Some creatives believe that tackling taboos — which White has publicly discussed — means taking the story to the extreme. This approach gets a thrill out of putting our collective discomfort on display, as if doing so is both an act of brilliance and a revelation.
But even for a satire of wealth and privilege like White Lotus, this strategy has limits not born of prudishness or conservatism.
If something felt deeply amiss with this season of White Lotus, beyond the narrative missteps and annoyances, it may have been the emptiness of mining taboo for shock value with little else to offer.
Or as Rawal put it, "satire without substance risks reinforcing the very harm it seeks to critique."
If you're feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988; the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860; or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text "START" to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or email info@nami.org. If you don't like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat at crisischat.org. Here is a list of international resources.
If you have experienced sexual abuse, call the free, confidential National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), or access the 24-7 help online by visiting online.rainn.org.
