White Lotus: A Thai American's perspective of season 3

*Spoiler alert* I'm now a fan! The show is a slow burn with plenty of Thai culture infused in each episode.

Lalisa Manobal as Mook, a hotel worker, and Tayme Thapthimthong as Gaitok, a security guard, in season three, episode two of White Lotus. Photograph by Fabio Lovino/HBO.

A Thai person with “porn” in their name and a Theravada Buddhist monk are two characters I never thought I’d see on American TV, especially not in speaking roles. But White Lotus season three has delivered us this and more.

I’ve finally caught up on all six episodes of The White Lotus out this season, and I’m ready to share my thoughts on it. *Spoilers ahead.*

Before last week, I had never seen White Lotus. I can’t pinpoint exactly why. Maybe I was put off by the premise. What do rich white people on vacation in beautiful places have to be so miserable about? What a privilege to take your family or friends to a luxury resort in Hawai’i or Italy, especially considering the fact that Americans are the worst at taking vacation. Can’t these travelers just enjoy swimming and napping for a week? I can’t help but feel annoyed at the ennui of wealthy people who squander a good vacation, so maybe that’s why I never watched White Lotus before.

But since season three takes place in Thailand, nearly everyone in my life has asked me what I think about the show. Despite my wariness, I got curious. When I think of Hollywood productions set in Thailand, I think of Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Beach,” or Naomi Watts in “The Impossible” — both movies from the 2000s that center the stories of white tourists in Thailand while giving Thai people background roles and no character development or plot lines. Not very inclusive, and frankly, a little dehumanizing. Would White Lotus be different?

I jumped right into season three without watching the first two seasons after checking with friends who’ve watched ’em all and assured me I could start in Thailand and it wouldn’t be too confusing.

Here are some of my takeaways.

The Thai characters are believable

It was a delight to see several Thai characters onscreen that are like actual Thai people. And they all talk. And they all have stories. (Low bar — but yay!)

I’ll start with Sritala (Lek Patravadi), one of the owners of the resort in Thailand who is also the visionary behind the White Lotus wellness program. Sritala is a gorgeous gray haired lady who likes to sing in front of a crowd. She seems nice enough but her workers are intimidated by her and she walks everywhere with multiple bodyguards. These bodyguards are tough guys who bully Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), a uniformed security guard at the resort, after Gaitok asks Sritala if he could be one of her bodyguards. She brushes him off.

Why this lady needs so many bodyguards, I do not know. But I’m intrigued. One of the guests has a longtime grudge against her American husband and tricks her to meet him… maybe stuff like that happens to her a lot?

I feel bad for Gaitok. He’s gentle with a kind smile but he makes a lot of mistakes. He leaves his post when he shouldn’t. He doesn’t stand up for himself enough. He fails to catch thieves leaving the property. He loses a gun (but gets it back). Despite his flaws, I’m rooting for Gaitok because he’s the nicest of the guards.

Gaitok is also lovesick for Mook, a White Lotus health mentor played by Lalisa Manobal (a.k.a. Lisa) of BLACKPINK fame. Mook appears to be easygoing and nice, and so far her main role on the show is to serve the guests and be Gaitok’s love interest. She performs lum, or Thai classical dancing, during the full moon party. I’ve seen fan theories that sweet Mook might be a secret villain.

This season is a slow burn

Speaking of the villain, the show opens with a shooting at the resort and people taking cover to avoid gunfire. No one dies (yet) and we don’t see the shooter. This entire season is the week leading up to this shooting, so we, the audience, are trying to figure out who ends up being the shooter and why.

Season three has a slow start, in my opinion. In the first two episodes we're being introduced to several different groups, watching guests receive flower garlands when they arrive and get settled in. We see monkeys in the trees of Koh Samui and statue monkeys around the White Lotus property. An unidentified thief steals jewels and a snake choker.

I started to get hooked by episode three, “The Meaning of Dreams.” I like the discussion the Ratliff family has about dreams and symbolism and predictions and the “collective unconscious.” Interesting that Patrick Schwarzenegger’s character, Saxon Ratliff, a rich douchebag, brings up snakes dreams when he argues that there’s no deeper meaning to dreams. Thai folks say if you have a snake dream about someone it means that they’re your soulmate. (I don’t always believe in woo woo things like this but I will say I had my first and only snake dream when I first started dating my husband.✨)

There’s a lot more that happens with snakes here. Rick (Walter Goggins), the edgy guest who hates Sritala’s husband, goes to a snake show with his girlfriend, Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood). Rick is on drugs and sets all the venomous snakes free. A cobra bites Chelsea and she rushes off to the hospital, luckily in time to survive it.

Later, Chelsea tells Rick he’s deranged for setting the snakes free. “Snakes are evil. Read the bible,” she tells him. Will snakes come up again? Chelsea was the last one to examine the snake choker before it was stolen. Hopefully she doesn’t have a snake dream about Rick because he treats her awful and at one point tells her she could find someone else but for some reason she’s hooked on him.

Suthichai Yoon as Luang Por Teera in White Lotus season three, episode six, “Denials.” Photograph by Fabio Lovino/HBO.

Thai culture is infused in every episode

While the mood of season three is a bit dark, it’s so fun to see all the Thai things. I love watching people hop into a tuktuk, eating street food in Bangkok, and walking the beaches of Koh Samui. The opening credits inspired by Thai temple imagery is beautiful art and I never skip it. And the music is just perfect. There’s so many great Thai songs included, including classics like “Made in Thailand” by Carabao. It’s clear the writers and production team did their research and, for the most part, it feels like they took a thoughtful approach in including elements of Thai culture in the show.

We even get to see Songkran! In episode four a trio of best frenemies staying at the White Lotus get bored of the resort and leave in search of fun. These three American women are unaware of Songkran, when there’s water fights throughout all of Thailand to celebrate Thai New Year. There’s a funny scene when these ladies are running through the streets trying to avoid being hit by Thai kids with water guns. I laughed watching the kids chase them, but the thought crossed my mind that it was odd these ladies were unaware of Songkran. Not knowing it’s Songkran when you visit Thailand in April is like not knowing it’s Mardi Gras when you visit New Orleans in February. Didn’t these ladies google “Thailand in April” before they left? Even just to check the weather?

Something that thrills me about the show is seeing Thai Buddhist monks. Growing up around Thai temples and monks it’s exciting to see them onscreen. There’s a moving scene in episode six where Jason Isaacs’s character, Timothy Ratliff, has a short but poignant exchange with a monk revered by his daughter, Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook). First, the monk, Luang Por Teera (Suthichai Yoon) explains why young people like Piper are drawn to Buddhism:

“Many young people come here from your country. I think because, maybe, spiritual malaise. Lost connection with nature, with the family. Lost connection with the spirit. What is left? The self. Identity. Chasing money, pleasure, yeah? Everyone run from pain towards the pleasure. But when they get there, only to find more pain. You cannot outrun pain.”

Timothy listens. He lost the family fortune in an illegal way and faces jail time back home in North Carolina, but is hiding this bombshell from his family during their vacation. He has suicidal thoughts and stole Gaitok’s gun. Facing Luang Por Teera, he asks what happens when we die. The monk responds:

“When we die? Great question. When you’re born you’re like a single drop of water flying upward. Separated from the one giant consciousness. You get older, you descend back down. You die. You land back into the water, become one with the ocean again. No more separated. No more suffering. One consciousness. Death is a happy return. Like coming home.”

This resonates with Timothy and he gives his daughter his blessing to stay with the monks in Thailand.

Lisa as Mook in White Lotus season three, episode five “Full Moon Party.” Photograph by Fabio Lovino/HBO.

The cast is impressive

Every actor in this show nails it. Suthichai Yoon plays the role of a monk perfectly. When he speaks of death he does it with a slight smile — no fear. Very monk like.

Dom Hetrakul is dreamy as Pornchai, a Thai White Lotus worker who hooks up with Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), an American White Lotus worker from Hawai’i (season one, I presume). I think they’re so cute together and I love how Pornchai helps Belinda feel safe when she’s scared of the man on the hill coming after her. Even her son is happy for her after he accidentally walks in on them in bed.

Parker Posey is hilarious as the offensive and ridiculous lorazepam-dependent matriarch of the Ratliff family. She calls Thailand “Taiwan” and blurts “They don’t speak English” while trying to talk to monks. Talk about an ugly American! You love to hate her and hate to love her.

Haven’t seen Jason Isaacs in anything since Harry Potter and I’m impressed. The man can do a legit North Carolina accent. I forget he’s Lucius Malfoy when I’m watching the show. His peep show (with a prosthetic) was shocking.

The trio of best friends who shit-talk each other (Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb, and Michelle Monaghan) are too real and they’re always spillin’ the tea. I am gobbling up their drama.

I was disturbed by Rick’s old friend in Bangkok, Frank (Sam Rockwell) talking about his sexual fetish for Asian girls in episode five and how he, a white man, wanted to be an Asian girl. While Sam acted it well, I felt that this speech could have been cut. What was the entertainment value of it? All it did was creep me out. Frank tells Rick he turned to Buddhism and he’s celibate now, but that doesn’t make him any less creepy.

Muay Thai coming up

Shit really hit the fan in episode six. The nastiest thing — way more shocking than Jason Isaacs’s (prosthetic) penis — was the realization that Saxon had a threesome with his little brother. Like, no way. That had to be a horrible dream. No. No. No. Ewwwwwww!

Saxon was so gross in the episodes leading up to the threesome, weirdly talking about his siblings virginities and asserting alpha bro dominance every chance he got. He gets kicked down so much after the threesome and it was so satisfying to watch the fallout. The lowest moment is when Chelsea tells him he’s soulless. Can you think of anything worse to say to someone? Damn.

The preview for episode seven has muay Thai in it, and after hauling my son to muay Thai training over the last few months I’m excited to see how it’ll be depicted on TV. In the meantime, I may need to watch the first two seasons of White Lotus. Can’t believe I’ve been missing out on this show. Overall, a good watch.

The White Lotus is available for streaming on Max every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

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A little bit more …

A roundup of news and stray thoughts.

• Fun facts about Lisa: When she goes back to Thailand, the first thing she eats is yam mamuang (green mango salad) and sticky rice, and she’s a fan of Rihanna and Charli XCX.

• Mindy Kaling’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” was cancelled after three season, which is a bummer because this show was so funny! (Bela and Lila are my favs!) But there’s hope for more: the show’s production company is reportedly looking for a new home.

• Speaking of Mindy Kaling shows, I haven’t seen her new Netflix series, “Running Point,” yet, mainly because I’m not into basketball. Added to my watch list anyway just because I’m a fan of Kate Hudson and Brenda Song — who happens to have Thai roots and speaks Hmong in the series.

• Tiger Woods’s Thai immigrant mother, Kultida Woods, passed away last month at age 80. I love how Kultida started the tradition of giving her golf star son a Tiger headcover to protect his golf clubs — which, according to Golf Digest, included the words “Rak jak Mea” (รักจากแม่), meaning “love from Mom.” ❤️

• President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the VOA (Voice of America), which includes VOA Thai, a vital news source for Thai Americans. The president of Thai Town Council of Los Angeles, Opas Malipun, called for VOA Thai to be reinstated and noted in a Facebook post that the outlet “is more than just a news source; it is a lifeline that fosters understanding, democracy, and cross-cultural ties between the U.S. and Thailand.”

• The inaugural We Need Diverse Books Day is coming up on April 3. You can participate by reading a book by an author from a marginalized community from your local library or independent bookstore and posting #DiverseBooksDay to social media. (Side question: Would you be interested in a roundup of AAPI book recs from my shelf?)

• Songkran is so soon! Do you have any plans for Thai New Year? Reply to this email to share your Songkran photos or stories, and I may feature it in the next issue of Nit Noi. 🥳

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✨Kwamsook nit noi✨

🌟A little bit of happiness🌟 to share with you. ความสุขนิดหน่อย

I did promise that this newsletter would be 💫happy mail💫 in your inbox. So here’s something quick: I was watching videos of famed Thai pygmy hippo Moo Deng with my 9-year-old and he can’t stop giggling over this one. I think it’s Moo Deng’s butt? Maybe she farts? Here you go:

@khamoo.andthegangอะไรกันครับเนี่ย บั้นท้ายหมูเด้ง555 ขอบคุณพี่ฝุ่งครับ🥰 #hippo #moodeng #ขาหมูแอนด์เดอะแก๊ง

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