The thing to understand about this season, it seems, is that it’s no longer a satire. It’s a drama with satirical elements. It’s darker. It’s weirder. It’s more serious. It does dream sequences about tsunamis. It’s not Succession anymore, it’s Mad Men. It may not seem like it, but the gulf between the effects of those styles of writing and directing is cavernous. It’s not that there’s no longer room for humor — watching the stars of Fallout and The Zone of Interest compete to properly pronounce Sritala’s last name is funny, I don’t care who ya are — but it’s not the focus. The focus is deeper.
I get the impression that what is at the very least a vocal minority of White Lotus fans feel, therefore, that the show is slipping. I don’t know what people used to see in it that I didn’t, and I don’t know what I’m seeing in it now that people aren’t, but if you’d hid the title of the show, changed the name of the hotel, and simply screened these first three episodes for me, the only way I’d be able to tell it’s the same series from the same filmmaker is the presence of Greg and Belinda. Otherwise I simply would not have believed you. I mean, that opening scene alone is more interesting than anything that happened in the first two seasons by a comfortable margin. Emotionally, tonally, visually, aurally, it feels like a different show. Maybe that’s why people who were happy with what they’d been getting have soured on it a bit, but it sure is sweet to me. The episode closes with Victoria asking a pilled-out Tim “Is something going on?” The answer, in every sense, is yes.
I wrote about this weekend’s The White Lotus for Decider.
Tags: the white lotus, TV, TV reviews