‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 7: Lovers and Fighters

Season 3, Episode 7: ‘Killer Instincts’

One unusual quality of “The White Lotus” is that the show’s creator, Mike White, keeps his characters’ back stories to a minimum. He mainly traffics in types: the swaggering North Carolina money-manager, the vain celebrity, and so on.

White tells us only enough about their pasts to explain some of the choices they make. We know a lot about Rick’s past, because his tragic childhood led directly to every move he has made this season. But we know very little about the Ratliff kids beyond the personas they project: the cocky older brother, the rebellious lefty sister and whatever the heck Lochlan is supposed to be. As for what made them this way? We can use our imaginations to shade in the finer details.

Most of the time, this approach works well enough. There is a wonderfully wry comic moment in this week’s episode, when Piper gets embarrassed while watching Lochlan struggle awkwardly with his monastery dinner. We know just enough about her to guess what she is thinking. She suddenly seems a lot like her mother, concerned less with her brother’s feelings than with how his clumsiness reflects on her. (See also: Piper’s mildly dismayed expression when Lochlan says he wants to spend the year in Thailand with her.)

On the other hand, Saxon’s overall blankness becomes a problem in this episode, leading to one of the season’s clumsiest scenes. The moment occurs at Gary’s party, when Saxon watches his father swill down yet another large glass of whiskey. He asks Tim again if something is wrong back at the office, reminding him that, “My career is totally tied to yours.” Saxon has no interests, no hobbies. “I put my whole life into this basket,” he says. “Into your basket.”

Given what we have seen of Saxon this season, I am not sure he is the kind of guy who would give such a self-aware speech, saying things like, “If I’m not a success, I’m nothing, and I can’t handle being nothing.” (I can, however, believe that Tim would answer his son’s very real concerns with a mumbled, “Nothing’s up, kid. We’re all good. It’s a party, get out there.”)

It’s a tricky balancing act for White, trying to show more than he tells and letting the audience make assumptions. I thought about this also this week during the Bangkok scenes with Rick and Frank. I figured these two were seasoned old pros, skilled at running cons, and that they would know what they were doing when they met up with Sritala and her ailing husband, Jim (Scott Glenn), at the Hollingers’ house. Instead, Rick and Frank are surprisingly — and ridiculously — unprepared. They try to get by on improvisation; Frank in particular is really bad at it.

Sam Rockwell is hilarious here as Frank, pretending to be a big-shot director but struggling to name any of his credits. He claims he mostly makes action films, like “The Enforcer,” “The Executor” and “The Notary.” (That last one is a trilogy.) And while Rick told Sritala that Frank had been watching her old movies, Frank can’t name any of them or remember any of the characters she played. (She was a prostitute, maybe?) Eventually, Rick abandons his friend so he can talk to Jim, leaving Frank to babble ignorantly — albeit appreciatively — at videos of Sritala’s old TV variety show appearances.

If Rick failed to properly prep Frank, it’s probably because he has been so focused on getting in the same room as the man he believes killed his father that he has failed to factor in the feelings of his nearest and dearest. He abandons Chloe at the White Lotus. He abandons Frank at the Hollingers — where this man who had been “trying to lead a better life” copes with his panic and anxiety by falling hard off the wagon.

Do the ends justify the means? Rick’s conversation with Jim is, on the surface, unsatisfying. Jim has no apparent memory of Rick’s mother, and while he has some regrets about mistakes he may have made in building his empire, he seems fairly proud and relatively unapologetic about it all. Unable to bring himself to shoot this weak-looking old man, Rick settles for pushing him to the ground, then fleeing with Frank. Later, Rick watches beatifically as Frank indulges in whiskey, drugs and sex. Is that a satisfied smile on Rick’s face? That is something else White lets us interpret for ourselves.

Throughout this episode, two images recur: the Great Buddha of Thailand statue in Bangkok, and the Muay Thai fighters that several characters go watch. White offers these as opposing options, ever-present: the meditative and the passionate. “The White Lotus” is concerned primarily with the choices people make between those two, while caught up in the moment.

Laurie this week opts for passion. While eating dinner at the White Lotus with Jaclyn and Kate, Laurie gets miffed when Jaclyn refuses to apologize or even admit to her fling. Jaclyn throws Laurie’s judgmental scoffing back in her face, noting that Laurie chose not to hook up with Valentin, and also chose to marry a deadbeat and to keep working at a company that undervalues her. She asks, “If you always choose the short stick, is that bad luck?” Kate backs Jaclyn, saying that some people — like Laurie — just have “patterns.”

So Laurie storms off alone to the Muay Thai fights, where she parties with the Russians and seduces Aleksei. Then, back in Aleksei’s bedroom, he hits her with a sob story about his sick mother in Vladivostok, and asks for $10,000 (payable via PayPal, Zelle or CashApp). Fortunately, Aleksei’s girlfriend barges in, giving Laurie an excuse to flee without paying this grifter a penny. Still, her little sexual misadventure seems to prove Jaclyn and Kate’s point. She is prone to mistakes.

Laurie’s bad choices are entertaining to watch — and they set up something important for next week’s finale. As Laurie is scrambling out of Aleksei’s bathroom window, she sees a pile of gold and jewels: the loot from the White Lotus robbery. Earlier in the episode, Gaitok figures out that the Russians were the robbers, when he sees Vlad’s bald head at the Muay Thai fights and remembers that Vlad was in the SUV that blew past the guard station.

How Gaitok reacts to this could end up saving his job — along with any potential relationship with Mook. The two of them go on a date in this episode, walking through romantic, rain-slicked streets, on their way to the fights. Gaitok confesses that his career is in jeopardy because he has “no killer instinct.” This admission gets under Mook’s skin, who grumbles that she thought he was more ambitious. Later, Mook pointedly tells Gaitok that she enjoys Muay Thai because, “It’s human to fight.”

This sudden shift in Mook — from demure to bloodthirsty — could be read as unlikely or unmotivated, given that White has told us almost nothing about her. But once again, I think it works. Sometimes people are predictable and are exactly who they seem to be, and sometimes they surprise us. As we move to next week’s finale, everything is on the table for this group of people: redemption, revenge, forgiveness, failure, spiritual awakening, or a permanent slumber.

Concierge Service

Belinda finally has a cards-on-the-table conversation with Gary at his party, where he says that what he wants (and what Tanya would have wanted) is to give Belinda $100,000 to help fund her spa business, so that Gary can ease his conscience and live his life in peace. She is uncertain, but when her son hears about the offer, he snaps, “Let him buy you off!” How much loyalty should she really have to Tanya anyway?
It’s indicative of Kate’s “smile through the pain” ethos that when Laurie casually mentions that Jaclyn once tried to (or maybe did?) seduce Kate’s husband, Kate seems only briefly rattled.
It’s hilarious that after all the buildup to Fabian’s public debut as a singer-songwriter, his performance takes place mostly in the background to the gal-pals’ big dinner argument.
It’s also funny — in a dark, dark way — that after Saxon tells Tim he would be nothing without his job, Tim’s murder-suicide fantasy expands to include himself, Victoria and Saxon. It’s a good thing that when he opens the drawer where he stashed Gaitok’s gun, the gun is gone.
Another Saxon scene that strikes a sour note: Chloe inviting him to have sex with her while Gary watches, so Gary can relive what it was like to watch his parents have sex. It was hard to tell whether or not Gary actually made this request or whether Chloe lied about it as part of some sick, nefarious plan. Either way, the whole moment feels like perversity for perversity’s sake.
Saxon does have some nice moments with Chelsea, trying to convince her he is not as shallow as she assumes. Perhaps he yearns to be moody and complicated like Rick, whom Chelsea describes as the “pain” to her “hope.” (“It’s like we’re in this yin and yang battle,” she says. “Eventually one of us will win.”)
Last week, Victoria described the accommodations at the monastery as “grim,” but Piper and Lochlan both appear to be staying in big, cushy private rooms. That’s my kind of asceticism.