by Spence Whitmore, Guest Contributor
Let me start by saying I’m obsessed with White Lotus. All three seasons are, in a word, immaculate. The cinematography? Lush. The writing? Acidic. The characters? Beautifully broken in a way that makes you feel smarter, more self-aware, and, if we’re being honest, better than them. Unless, of course, you’re one of those people. (In which case… ouch. But also, congrats on self-awareness. That’s growth.)
Every season drops us into a luxury resort with morally sunburned elites who weaponize therapy-speak and hydrate exclusively with Aperol spritz. It’s like watching a social experiment where the subjects think they’re the scientists. Everyone’s emotionally constipated, spiritually bankrupt, and dressed impeccably.
It’s satire, sure but like, bespoke satire. Satire with an exotic skincare routine. Producer Mike White is basically a modern-day Molière in a Hawaiian shirt and just enough class guilt to make it art.
That said, there’s this moment in Season One with Shane, God, Shane… A walking indictment in boat shoes. Entitled, petty, obsessed with getting the exact room he thinks he deserves. I watched him like a cultural anthropologist, sipping my Negroni and muttering, “This is why people hate us.”
But then came that scene. He’s on the phone with his mom, complaining about the suite, and she’s validating every word. “You deserve better,” she says. And suddenly… I couldn’t laugh. I felt, what’s the word, a little implicated.
I mean, sure, my mom never called hotel management. But she did once email the dean when I got waitlisted at Yale Law. Total misunderstanding. I didn’t ask her. Not directly.
And no, I’ve never berated hotel staff. But I have texted my private banker on Christmas Day because the villa payment transfer hadn’t cleared. (It was time-sensitive.)
Still, I’m not that guy. I say thank you to waiters. I know the names of my lawn guys, the kid who washes my car. I overtip. Religiously. I mean… that counts for something. Right?
Season One: Aloha to Decadence
So anyway, Season One is basically a slow-motion panic attack in paradise. You’ve got the Mossbachers: Type-A tech mogul mom, spiritually neutered husband, two Gen-Z cynics playing nihilism like a sport. Then there’s Shane and Rachel: honeymooners with matching baggage (emotional and Louis Vuitton), and Tanya, a grief-soaked heiress mainlining spa treatments and codependency like it’s a self-care routine. Armond, the resort manager, tries to keep the vibes high and the chaos low… until he fully unravels. Someone ends up dead. Someone ends up in jail. But that’s honestly kind of a footnote.
I binged the whole season on a flight to Maui, sipping mai tais in first class. A friend had suggested the show because they recognized that the resort I was going to was the one it was filmed at! Watching it, I remember thinking: ‘These people are the worst. Thank God I’m nothing like them’.
(Which, I mean, sure. But ironically… I did spend half that trip trying to get my cabana changed because the one they gave me was too close to the kid’s pool.)
What makes White Lotus so brilliant is how it lets the dysfunction marinate. It’s a Greek tragedy wrapped in terry cloth luxury bathrobes and served with a complimentary fruit plate. Everyone arrives dragging suitcases full of unprocessed emotional baggage, thinking palm trees and poolside cocktails will somehow fix them. Newsflash: they won’t.
Money here isn’t just insulation, it’s performance art. It turns the staff into emotional concierges, orbiting their guests’ dysfunction like moons around a very rich, very chaotic planet. Belinda? Trapped in Tanya’s wellness fantasy. Armond? Fed to the wolves. Their empathy is transactional; their care, commodified.
The show even dares to peek under the lei-wrapped surface and gesture at colonialism. The resort’s basically built on erasure. Paula tries to “do something,” and ends up ruining Kai’s life. It’s… awkward. But also kind of the point. Allyship with a checkout time.
And the men? All flailing. Emasculated, performative, desperate to stay relevant in a world that’s not asking for their input. It’s painful. And familiar. But also funny. In the most devastating way.
In the end, no one grows. No one learns. They just rebrand their dysfunction with a tan and fly home. Which honestly is probably why I found it so relatable.
Beautifully shot, though.
Okay, Maybe I’m a Little Like Them
There’s this line, I can’t remember who said it, maybe Rachel, maybe it was just implied but it went something like “I just want to feel something real.” And it landed. Quiet, but sharp. Like hearing your own laugh echo back at you in an empty hotel suite.
It made me pause. Not for long. Just long enough to notice the kitchen Bluetooth speaker auto-playing my “Mindful Mornings” playlist in the background.
Do I even know what “real” feels like anymore? Most of my conversations are in disappearing messages. My last birthday party was a themed destination vacation event with a hashtag and a mood board. I once consoled a friend through a breakup entirely through reaction gifs and emojis. She said it helped. I think?
But that’s modern life, right? We have tools. We streamline. We optimize. We manage.
I mean, I’m busy. I’ve got my trainer. My alt-investment group chat. My breathwork coach. I do cold plunges. I journal. I have a therapist and a backup therapist for when she’s on sabbatical. I do the work, man. I even did that seven-day digital detox retreat in Tulum. You probably saw my posts about it the moment I got back online.
That counts for something… Right?
Season Two: All Roads Lead to Italy (and Emotional Ruin)
If Season One was about wealth as insulation, Season Two is about sex as currency and Sicily is the perfect place to burn slowly under your own projections. Everyone’s gorgeous, everyone’s spiraling, and everyone’s pretending not to notice.
The men perform outward confidence but leak insecurity. Cameron? Peacocking to hide his rot. Ethan? The “evolved” husband with an ego complex buried under Patagonia fleece. They’re both chasing validation.
And the women? Lethal. Daphne turns optimism into a weapon. Harper wears sarcasm like sunscreen; protective, but eventually toxic. Lucia and Mia dance through the chaos with a kind of transactional joy that feels almost like power. Almost.
Then there’s Tanya; eternally adrift in chiffon and unprocessed grief, still mistaking luxury for safety and flattery for love. Watching her fumble through the old world, clutching her curated friendships like designer handbags, I said out loud: “God, she just wants someone to love her. Poor thing.” And then I realized I was holding my phone, rereading a text from my girlfriend I hadn’t answered in four days.
“The Vibe Shift”
So. Anyways, there’s this moment with Cameron, post-coital, wine-drunk, still wearing his stupid shell necklace. He leans back and says, “Bad people get rewarded. Good people get stuck.” That hit me harder than I wanted.
I’ve always seen myself as one of the good ones. I say the right things. I date responsibly. I Venmo my trainer with a tip. I know the difference between boundaries and gaslighting. Mostly.
But sometimes… I catch myself mid-rant at a rooftop party, talking about how we need to dismantle legacy wealth while sipping $28 cocktails. I hear myself saying things like “I support women” right after interrupting one. And when something I do crosses a line, I don’t change. I pivot. I rebrand. I go to therapy. I journal. I drink water. That counts for something. Doesn’t it?
Season Three: Everything All of the Time (and Then Some)
This season goes full tilt. Thailand. Tension. Tantra. It’s like Euphoria met Succession in a wellness resort and then immediately asked for a refund. Everyone’s glistening. Everyone’s vibrating at a frequency just slightly higher than sanity.
The accusations fly like champagne corks. Fast, fizzy, and always slightly misdirected. You’ve got Rick, a wellness bro turned failed crypto monk, who’s basically a human Goop candle with abandonment issues. Kate, all soft smiles and surgical exits, cuts people down without raising her voice. And Hollinger; tech CEO, hotelier, and walking indictment of unprocessed colonizer energy. His whole vibe is “I spiritually gentrified Thailand and now I host conferences about it.”
Then there’s New Cameron. Rebranded, beaded bracelets, practically glowing with microdosed self-awareness… until the cacao ceremony. When he accuses his wife of not liking his “true self.” (She doesn’t deny it. She just adjusts her sarong and asks for more mint.)
The show knows what it’s doing. Everyone thinks they’re playing chess. Really, it’s Guess Who? in a hall of mirrors, and nobody’s winning. Every episode peels back another onion layer of curated identity until you’re not sure who anyone is, least of all yourself.
Midway through episode six, I paused the screen. My face was reflected faintly on the glass.
“God,” I muttered, “what a mess.” I meant the characters. Probably.
I took a breath. Did a neck stretch I learned from my somatic therapist. Reopened the Calm app. Set an intention: “Presence. Clarity. Integration.”
Am I Just a Very Involved Observer?
There’s a scene in the last episode—you’ll know it when you see it—where a character stands in front of a mirror. Just… stares. Not at their face. At whatever’s behind it. Ten full seconds. No dialogue. Just breath, glass, and whatever truth won’t quite come out.
I watched it twice. Once with a smirk.The second time in silence. And for a second, I swear, just a second, it felt like the screen was looking back at me.
I got up. Poured a drink. Opened Instagram. Scrolled aimlessly until the feeling passed.
It’s not like I’ve done anything wrong, exactly. I’m a good guy. I shop local. I compost. I’ve donated to multiple GoFundMes. I took a three-day digital detox once, came back radiant.
But lately… I’ve noticed things. I don’t like the way I cut people off when they talk about burnout. Or, how I described someone as “resilient” after ghosting them. The way I use words like “empathy” and “alignment” like they’re assets in a portfolio.
Maybe there’s a bit of a Cameron-shaped shadow following me around. Not fully. I don’t gaslight people in jacuzzis. But maybe… I use charm as insulation. I disappear when things get too real. I perform depth. I flirt with accountability, but never stay the night.
And yet…
The morning after I finished Season Three, I booked a trip to Turks & Caicos with a few college friends. Just to reset. Get some beach time. Some beers. Maybe do some light journaling between massages. I even found a boutique resort that promises “mindful disconnection through curated luxury.”
It should help me reset. Or at least distract.Which is basically the same thing. Right?
I’ll probably rewatch Succession on the plane. I’ve been thinking more about the family foundation now that Dad’s easing out of the portfolio.
Honestly…I can’t wait.
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