The White Lotus Season 3, Episode 2 Recap: Special Treatments

Welcome back to The White Lotus, where our favorite Lululemon-clad girlfriends are busy laying it on thick to each other’s faces while practicing the art of nice-nasty backstabbing behind closed doors. It’s starting to seem like the only thing these three women have in common is their blonde hair and mutual disdain for one another. The opening shot of this episode is from the point of view of someone bobbing in the ocean at nighttime, just beyond the shores of Koh Samui island, their vision dotted by warm yellow lights. Cut to Jaclyn and Kate having a go at just about everything concerning Laurie—her stalling career that she’s “always defined herself by” (and yet, despite dedicating her life to one firm, she didn’t make partner), her once-adorable daughter who’s now getting kicked out of school for behavioral problems, her bum of an ex-husband who’s collecting alimony checks, the amount of wine she’s been drinking on the trip, and even her “tired, defeated” appearance (of the trio, Laurie has the least visible cosmetic work).

Before you start feeling too bad for Laurie, the next time she and Kate are alone, they waste no time digging into Jaclyn’s lifelong tendency toward vain, competitive narcissism and her sham of a marriage to a fellow actor. Picking apart each other’s life choices makes each woman feel better about her own, and since they can’t be truly vulnerable and honest in a group setting, they have to take turns sharing their judgmental thoughts to experience any real bonding. If you’ve ever been on a girls’ trip, it’s not exactly shocking, but it is mean. Jaclyn, meanwhile, pushes Laurie to hook up with their sexy Russian wellness mentor Valentin, who’s been using the same lines to flatter both of them (but only Laurie is single). Whatever the ladies are into, Valentin is probably down.

Meanwhile, our Southern Gothic Addams Family, the Ratliffs, are off to get massages—and yes, Saxon gets hard during his and later makes a weird joke to his mother and sister about being disappointed that the treatment didn’t come with a happy ending. Victoria bursts into laughter while Piper looks disgusted. This dynamic is exhausting, and weird. Speaking of enabling, this episode brings up the drug use (or lack thereof) of a few characters, and given the season’s focus on spirituality, mortality, and mental health, it seems important to the story. Sleep is the cousin of death, and Victoria induces hers by popping Lorazepams like they’re candy. It explains some of her strange behavior, like when she rudely rebuffs Kate, who reminds her that they spent an entire weekend together at a mutual friend’s baby shower in Texas. She also keeps pushing the pills on her husband, who says he doesn’t like drugs; ever the daddy’s boy, Saxon says he doesn’t either, but Piper points out that he abuses both Adderall and steroids.

A quick word on the Ratliff’s accents, which have caused some controversy. It sounds a bit like Jason Isaacs is doing an impression of erstwhile South Carolina gubernatorial candidate and Southern Charm star Thomas Ravenel—though he’s said in interviews that he studied mayors of Durham, North Carolina, the Ratliffs’s hometown. Viewers, however, have criticized the British star for veering into Aussie territory. Parker Posey, meanwhile, has defended Victoria’s whimsical manner of speaking by saying it’s all part of the character, telling Variety she wanted a “snotty affect” like “some really wealthy people and Southerners” she’s met (Posey grew up in both Louisana and Mississippi). “I was so happy to bring that Tennessee Williams kind of drama, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” she explained. Add in Victoria’s benzo diet, and it all starts to make more sense. (Another fun fact: ‘Ratliff’ is a nod to The Staircase, which Posey and Patrick Schwarzenegger starred in together. The White Lotus’s true-crime undercurrents must never be forgotten!).

What the Ratliff children lack in accents, they make up for in incestuous tension. Piper isn’t safe from Saxon’s sexual harassment even when he’s not around; Lochlan tells her that her older brother has been speculating on her virginity, a piece of information that understandably makes her feel violated. The Ratliff boys might think their sister is a prude, but they’re acting like animals. Piper’s operating on a higher plane; when Lochlan tells her he’s had little luck with prayer and meditation, she insists he keep trying. But if Piper and Saxon represent the angel and devil on little Lochy’s shoulders (the Duke mascot is the Blue Devil, after all), so far, Satan’s winning—because Lochlan seems to be falling under his brother’s protein powder and red pill-fueled spell.

Speaking of toxic masculinity, Rick is stuck in the prison of his own—or so Dr. Amrita tells him during a meditation session that gives us a lot more insight into why he’s so depressed. Amrita asks Rick to think back to a time in childhood when he was totally relaxed, but he reveals he hasn’t had a moment’s peace since his mother, a drug addict, died when he was ten. His father, meanwhile, was murdered before he was born. (Does this have something to do with his fixation on Sritala and her husband, Jim Hollinger? It sure seems that way.) Amrita tells Rick that meditation could change his life, and that identity—even the one of “nothingness” that he’s been wearing all his life—is just a construct. The monkeys hanging in the trees around the resort now seem like an obvious nod to the Buddhist concept of the monkey mind.

Eternal grouch Rick insists that weed is the only thing that can calm his nervous system, and at this point, someone needs to get this man a damn vape, because he’s being absolutely miserable to ray-of-sunshine Chelsea. She might be a little annoying (and more than a tiny bit delusional), but she seems genuine and open-hearted—qualities that are likely to get her into trouble even more than they already have. For the detectives among us, there are a few clues that Chelsea could be in danger during her stay at the White Lotus. In the opening credits, which have offered hints at plot points in seasons past, Aimee Lou Wood’s name appears next to a helpless animal being devoured by a leopard. Chelsea also tells her masseuse that she’s a nine on the Enneagram (Mike White is a known lover of the personality typing system), referring to herself as an “easy-going peacemaker” and “quite complacent, which isn’t always good.” We see that dynamic play out when Rick tells her that he’s going to Bangkok (presumably to look for Sritala’s husband), and she easily accepts his non-answer as to why.

Chelsea’s gullibility also leads her to take her new friends, Chloe and Greg, at face value. They say they met through a “match-making service” in Dubai; Rick spells it out for her that Chloe is some kind of prostitute after the four have an awkward dinner, when the “retired” Greg says his line of work used to be “a little of this, a little of that.” Rick briefly shows his soft side, however, when Chelsea’s the victim of a crime. She’s admiring a gold snake necklace (another clue?) at the resort’s store when a masked man with a gun comes in to rob the place. When Rick arrives on the scene, he and Chelsea embrace tenderly. There’s real love there, even if it’s hidden under layers of dysfunction and avoidance.

The only reason the robbery was able to happen, by the way, is because Valentin was distracting Gaitok from his security guard post—a shady moment from a shady man. As the robber and his accomplice escape, Gaitok is pistol-whipped, but he’s quickly comforted by the effervescent Mook, who’s impressed by his bravery. Gaitok hive wins again.

Typically, the general managers of The White Lotus play a bigger role in the series, but so far Christian Friedel’s Fabian has been largely relegated to the background. That might change, as this episode shows him sharing his musical aspirations. While he watches Sritala perform a fabulous song for the resort’s dinner guests, he carefully mouths along to the words. Someday, Fabian. Belinda, meanwhile, can’t catch a break; she’s been having the time of her life, giving and getting massages from hunky Pornchai, but that blissful bubble is popped when she clocks Greg at the restaurant. We don’t know how much she knows about Tanya and her death yet, but Greg is always bad news. Get a job/stay away from her!

Mr. Ratcliff is also headed down a very dark spiral. After dodging calls from the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post all day, he finally gets a hold of the man who he most certainly committed fraud with: Kenneth Wynn, voiced by an absolutely frantic Ke Huy Quan (White loves a phone call cameo—remember Laura Dern playing Michael Imperioli’s scorned wife last season?) Kenneth, it turns out, has far bigger problems than a pesky business reporter calling him—20 FBI agents have raided his office, and to get out of this money laundering/bribery/Brunei government pickle he’s gotten himself into, he’s going to kill himself. He did, at least, get a burner phone just to tell Timothy to get a lawyer, like, yesterday. A real friend.

As Timothy hangs up the phone, he overhears Lochlan telling the rest of the Ratliffs about a young girl who tried to warn her family after noticing the signs of an incoming tsunami (like the one that devastated parts of Thailand, though not the island of Koh Samui, 20 years ago). When a tsunami is coming, the tide pulls out suddenly, leaving the beach exposed before the major wave gathers speed and strength, crashing into the shore. In Lochlan’s story, the girl was ignored, to her family’s peril. It makes me think of this episode’s opening shot: the dark waves pulling back from the precariously perched island resort, trouble up ahead. It also brings to mind Chelsea’s experience of being robbed; “I could’ve died,” she keeps telling Chloe and Rick, who, despite witnessing the event, totally dismiss her.