5 Reasons You Need To Watch The White Lotus
What are you doing this second? If the answer is not watching this show, then you are wasting your time. Here’s why you need to discover it right now.
1. The Premise
You know how you hated Nine Perfect Strangers? This is the elevated version of that show. A group of strangers come together on vacation as guests of The White Lotus, a ritzy Hawaiian hotel. But far from leaving their troubles behind, their troubles become spotlit amid the palms and tiki torches. In the first few seconds, you know that somebody has died in the past week. You just don’t know who it is, or how it happened. But it’s not a whodunit – it’s a social satire turning every zeitgeisty cliché on its head, with a big dollop of humour.
Take hotel boss Armond (played by Australian actor Murray Bartlett, who is one of the best things about this show) telling his trainee staffer how to greet VIPs off the boat: “You don’t want to be too specific as a presence, as an identity. You want to be more generic. It’s a Japanese ethos where we’re asked to disappear behind our masks as pleasant, interchangeable helpers. It’s tropical kabuki.” If you can’t already tell, the writing is off the charts.
2. The Characters
You feel like you’ve never seen these exact people on the screen before but you recognise them immediately. There’s Nicole (Connie Britton), the CFO of tech company POOF, a micro-manager who immediately rearranges her suite’s furniture to improve the feng shui and the Zoom background. She wears Piaget bracelets rather than Bulgari ones, likely because she saw Gwyneth don one on Goop. Her daughter Olivia (Sydney Sweeney) is a college student who has swallowed all the wokeness in the world at once but doesn’t realise she’s still acting like an upper-class bratty kid.
From the beginning, you’re waiting for the honeymoon couple to explode. Shane (Jake Lacy) is a wealthy guy whose sense of entitlement leads him to fixate on the fact that he hasn’t been given the honeymoon suite, despite having paid for it. His wife Rachel (Alexandra Daddario) is a struggling journalist who suddenly realises that her glamorous lifestyle comes at a price.
The stand-out is Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), a lonely entrepreneur who has come to the island to scatter her late mother’s ashes, only to confront some home truths about her life. And here’s the thing: although they will all grind your gears in different ways, they’re never painted as caricatures, just flawed individuals with their own attributes.
And it’s not all Rich People Woes: the Upstairs Downstairs quality to the show and the tension between the upper and working classes is what creates the drama.
3. The Costumes
There are three front-runners in this category. Tanya wears more caftans than Aussie designer Camilla has in her current season; in fact, quite a few of her delightful, swishy ensembles are from Camilla. And while her dresses are practical (if only in terms of comfort – you wouldn’t want to get a pina colada anywhere near all that silk), her wedges aren’t exactly built for long beach walks.
Nicole sports a dialled-down, Hamptons-esque version of that look: she’s more ResortWear 101 and it’s easy to imagine the producers of the upcoming Byron Baes reality show moodboarding her outfits. They’re easy, breezy boho and probably fabulously expensive.
But Rachel wins the I-Wanna-Have-It prize thanks to Instagrammable outfits such as the Valentino leisure suit she dons for dinner on a boat (the retro print is divine) and the polka-dot swim pullover. Even Carrie Bradshaw is eyeing off her green Goyard tote bag.
4. Molly Shannon
It’s more of a cameo than an actual part, but this comedic veteran has a moment in the sun (literally) as Shane’s Mother Knows Best.
5. Because It’s The Best Antidote To 2021
Is it awful to watch the scenes at The White Lotus, with its gentle waves, white sands, heavenly pool and poolside cabanas? No. Shot at the Four Seasons hotel in Maui (although the rooms were tricked up to look much more retro), it’s as close to a holiday as many of us will get this year, and we’re happy to take the trip. But it’s not all frivolous fun - it will get you thinking. Already the characters have worked their way into the top echelons of pop culture. The New York Times featured a story on teenagers Olivia and Paula (Sydney Sweeney and Brittany O’Grady) calling them “the scariest girls on TV.” The Guardian called it “magnificently monstrous” and the show has spawned a ton of memes (don’t go searching for them – too many spoilers). Can’t wait for season two.
The White Lotus is streaming now on Foxtel and Binge.