Watching the trio of female best friends on Season 3 of “The White Lotus” exchange loaded glances over goblets of wine and pieces of vibrant fruit, you might find yourself reacting the same way “Great British Bake Off” judge Paul Hollywood would to a perfectly executed Schichttorte: Look at those incredible layers!
The actresses portraying said pernicious pride of liberated lionesses are, of course, delivering exactly what creator Mike White ordered when he conceived the roles.
Speaking on the show’s official companion podcast, Michelle Monaghan – one third of the triangle completed by Carrie Coon and Leslie Bibb – shared that White envisioned the three women as “a big, blonde blob,” interchangeable figures whose toxic positivity was perhaps an even more recognizable shared trait than their physical attributes.
“I think what’s really relatable with the three ladies is the way that we explore the way that we’ve been conditioned as women to compare ourselves to one another, to judge ourselves – this thing that we’re always confronted with our own life’s choices and questioning our very lives based on other women’s failures or successes,” Monaghan said.
The podast’s host put it even more succinctly: “There is a specifically feminized way of laundering the most unkind impulses through the most kind language.”
Here lies the characters’ utter brilliance. In a series that tricks you into thinking the biggest questions are “Who died?” and “Who did it?,” the blonde blob challenges us to ask darker ones. Do we love them? Do we hate them? Are we them!?
And be certain, these women are excellent at tricking themselves into thinking they love each other.
Monaghan plays a successful actress named Jaclyn who gets recognized often and is married to a handsome man with whom she rarely shares a zipcode, her friends allege. They are on a trip because they haven’t seen each other in “forever” and Jaclyn wanted to treat her two longtime best friends to an expensive getaway that they all need – and maybe secretly dread.
Laurie (Coon) is a Brooklyn mom and divorcee who, despite reporting what her besties deemed to be a suspiciously low body fat percentage, is championed by her friends – unless they’re badmouthing her attempt to parent a seemingly troubled daughter in the big, bad city.
Kate (Bibb), meanwhile, is a clandestine conservative from Austin who loves her city (because it taught her how to like beans, among other things probably), her church (full of “nice people” and “really good families”) and declares herself an Independent despite having a Republican husband. She also probably voted for President Donald Trump, though she skirts her friends’ question with, “Are we really gonna talk about Trump tonight?”
They have shared memories from their past that to one is cherished, another is forgotten and another is a trauma. By day they celebrate, by night they scrutinize. Because whispers are the currency in which they conduct their business, they mistake their friendship as full when, in reality, it’s bloated, brought to a brink of sorts by an abundance of emptiness.
On one hand, you root for them to do the dirty work of opening the wounds, cutting out the infection and seeing if anything healthy remains.
On the other hand, the one familiar with the feeling of letting go out of self-preservation, you want them to run. You want them to individually find that hard-earned wisdom that some people aren’t your people. You want to tell them that there are other people out there – good ones, real ones.
But you’re also not sure they deserve that.
Just three episodes into the third season, more on all points stands to be revealed. And because this is “White Lotus,” we know it’s going to be killer.
