SPOILER ALERT: This piece discusses the plot of White Lotus, season three, episode seven and previous episodes
“Killer Instincts” is the title of the penultimate episode of season three of the The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic, Monday, 9pm). This is the third season of Mike White’s hotel resort-themed black comedy, where rich guests go to beautiful locations for a week to fall apart in various ways, and where one person, either a guest or staff member, ends up dead.
As with previous seasons, White created, wrote and directed the show himself. (And yes, he probably did name the fictional luxury hotel chain after himself. Would you blame him?) Season three is set in Thailand, on Koh Samui, and in Bangkok. Seven episodes in, only the denouement remains.
So, where are we now, and what are the predictions for who ends up dead, and who might the perpetrator be? We already heard gunshots and saw an out-of-focus body float across a pond in episode one.
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Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) the corrupt troubled financier from North Carolina, who believes he is going straight to jail and the poorhouse at the end of his holiday, and who had previously stolen a gun in an earlier episode, has just discovered it’s missing (taken by security guard Gaitok – Tayme Thapthimthong – from whom it was stolen). Given that Timothy has horrible recurring dark fantasies about shooting a), himself, b) his pill-popping wife Victoria (Parker Posey) who thinks she’s either in Taiwan or China, not Thailand, and who definitely could not cope with being in the poorhouse, and c) his eldest son, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), who recently ended up under the covers with his own brother, the victim or perpetrator is unlikely to be any of them. Too much obvious signalling. Besides, he doesn’t have a gun now.
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In Bangkok, troubled Rick (Walton Goggins) and his on-the-wagon pal, Frank (Sam Rockwell), show up at a fancy house on the river, owned by the couple who also own the White Lotus, Sritala (Patravadi Mejudhon) and her husband Jim (Scott Glenn). They’re there under the guise of offering a non-existent role in a non-existent movie to Sritala. Rick’s real reason for being here – with a gun he got from Frank – is believing he has the “killer instinct” to murder Jim, the man who he believes was responsible for Rick’s father’s death.
Frank swiftly falls off the wagon with a thud, glasses of whiskey clutched in both hands, having failed to prepare for his informal interview with Sritala by having conducted even the most cursory Google search on her acting history.
Rick squares up to Jim in Jim’s study, and points the gun. Nope, turns out he hasn’t got that killer instinct. He just about manages to tumble Jim’s chair to the floor, leaving Jim like a startled upturned beetle. Rick and Frank flee the scene, but has Rick not remembered he’s left girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) back at the White Lotus, vulnerable to any recriminations by the couple from his actions? No, he’s apparently forgotten all about her.
Also, he irresponsibly dumps Frank’s loaded gun in a litter bin on a Bangkok street, so Rick is also now without a weapon, and unlikely to be the killer in the final episode.
Meanwhile, the toxic-trio of so-called friends, Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), Kate (Leslie Bibb) and Laurie (Carrie Coon), are all being very passive-aggressive with each other at the dinner table. The fact is, they all know too much about each other’s pasts. “The source of your disappointment changes, but that constant is that you’re always disappointed,” Kate says to Laurie, referencing her unsuccessful marriage, and out-of-steam career – and the fact it was Jaclyn, not Laurie, who ended up in bed with “health mentor” Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius) the previous evening. Yikes.
Cue Laurie dumping her friends in a huff, and going alone to the Muay Thai boxing match that intercuts all the scenes in this episode. She meets up with Valentin and his shady Russian friends who hung out with the trio the previous night. This time, Laurie snuggles up to Alexlei (Julian Kostov) and goes off with him. She’s going back with a story to tell at breakfast.
If Alexlei has his way, she’s also going back $10,000 poorer, which is the sum he tries to exhort from her with a wheedling fairy-story about a needy mother. With increasing alarm, she says no for the tenth time, then flees out a window when Alexlei’s girlfriend arrives, but not before she’s clocked the stolen jewellery from the White Lotus robbery.
“I thought you were ambitious and wanted a better job,” Mook (Lalisa Manobal) tells Gaitok on their date, which takes them to the same Muay Thai boxing match, which intercut all the scenes in this episode. She’s wondering why he wasn’t more assertive with the robbers who recently drove unchallenged through the White Lotus security checkpoint and robbed a tonne of expensive jewellery from the hotel shop. Gaitok, who let’s not forget, proved an absolute ace at the shooting range in the previous episode.
Gaitok tells her violence is against his beliefs. Then he notices the Russians at the match, and memory shifts: it was they who robbed the jewellery, he suddenly realises. Robbed it on his watch, and got him into a lot of trouble as a result with his employer.
Meanwhile, the other Ratliff progeny, daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and son Lochlan (Sam Nivola), are staying overnight at the monastery. Lochlan really is very odd is my only conclusion.The siblings don’t appear to have a gun. That family have enough going on right now, to be honest.
Sure enough, at Greg’s (Jon Gries) party, he tries to buy off Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) with a hundred grand to set up her own wellness spa, in exchange for “peace”. She knows he’s involved in Tanya’s death, and she knows he knows. She says she’ll sleep on it, and runs away back to the hotel with her son.
Greg’s not the only one making mad propositions. Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), Greg’s young girlfriend, tries to make Saxon do something in the bedroom department he definitely doesn’t want to do. Saxon also runs away back to the hotel.
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Someone is going to die in the next episode and someone is going to commit murder. Gaitok has the Russians in his cross hairs now, and he has a gun back at the hotel, and an excellent tested aim. Gaitok badly wants to impress Mook. Gaitok is definitely doing something with that gun in the final episode. Will it be Valentin who gets it? Or someone who inadvertently gets in the way? One of the toxic-trio?
And what of the poisonous fruit that falls from the trees of The White Lotus? There is a blender in the Ratliff villa, and more than one way to kill a cat. Will an unsuspecting Ratliff offspring drink what they think is a protein shake? Will Victoria find out they are going straight to the poorhouse, and lose what’s left of her marbles?
White Lotus finale will air Sky Atlantic, April 7th, Monday, 9pm
