SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the Season 3 premiere of HBO‘s The White Lotus.
The Season 3 premiere of HBO’s The White Lotus lays the foundation for yet another poignant and timely commentary on class consciousness.
Set at the fictional resort chain’s Thailand location, the episode introduces audiences to the four major storylines for the season, told through the eyes of three new groups of faces and one very familiar one, Belinda Lindsey (Natasha Rothwell), the spa manager at the White Lotus Maui who is visiting the Thailand resort to learn from its world class wellness program.
While the rest of the resort’s guests are simply lavishing in its opulence, Belinda is straddling two worlds — one as a guest, and one as an employee.
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“I think it was exciting to be able to show her on vacation. It’s not a full vacation, it’s a working vacation. But I think when you travel, it allows you to sort of explore a different version of yourself, and I think it was a cool way to introduce the world to a different side of Belinda,” Rothwell told Deadline.
In the premiere, Belinda is waiting for her son to arrive at the resort, trying to become acquainted with the resort and understand her place as she both studies under the resort staff and takes advantage of the amenities, giving her a reverence for Thailand that her fellow guests don’t seem to have.
Much like in Season 1, Belinda provides a much-needed perspective on the resort that the other character’s perspectives can’t.
Season 3 also revolves around the Ratliffs (Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey, Sarah Catherine Hook, Sam Nivola, Patrick Schwarzenegger), a well-to-do family from the South who seem like some financial and legal problems with patriarch Timothy (Isaacs) might haunt them from all the way across the world. Then there’s Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and Rick (Walton Goggins), a couple with quite an age gap who seem to be living la vie bohème. Finally, Kate (Leslie Bibb), Laurie (Carrie Coon) and Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), old friends who escaped to Thailand to catch up, only to be confronted by the fact that their differences in priorities are only becoming more stark as they age.
Rothwell points to a specific scene in the premiere episode, where Belinda spots another Black couple at dinner and the three exchange a polite wave, which she says is a perfect illustration of the awakening Belinda may begin to have this season now that she is able to view herself as worthy of the same experiences as the more wealthy echelon of White Lotus guests.
“I think it’s allowing her to see the potential of what’s available to her. She can aspire to not just be in the role that she’s in,” Rothwell mused. “I think it’s a subtle nod to class and feeling like you’re not allowed to aspire and dream, and feeling stuck. Every season, Mike really does force conversations around class and affluence and the haves and the have nots. I think Belinda’s presence, it’s such an agitator. She’s there to remind people of what it takes to run these resorts. She’s the heart. It’s important, showing the value add of diversity, and not just within the story of the show, but just recognizing who is responsible for making these beautiful resorts run and recognizing them.”
White establishes the season’s tension early on, by opening the episode with a young man (whom audiences later learn is Belinda’s son Zion) meditating when the sound of gunshots somewhere in the resort send him into a panic.
The episode then jumps back in time to Belinda’s arrival, and she’s alone. Audiences learn her son is meant to join her in a few days, setting up an ominous tone as viewers are left to wonder what will unfold in the meantime that may leave Zion in danger.
Rothwell teases that “it is excellent how [White] lays out and builds that tension.”
And it may or may not have something to do with Greg Hunt (Jon Gries), Tanya’s (Jennifer Coolidge) opportunistic husband who plotted her demise in Season 2. While Wood’s Chelsea is at the bar one night, she meets another young woman who says she lives up the road from the resort with her older boyfriend, who is introduced as Gary but just so happens to look a lot like Greg.
It’s unclear at this point how he and Belinda’s paths might cross, but no doubt it will raise questions when they do. Belinda wasn’t in Sicily when Tanya met her demise in Season 2, so it’s unlikely she knows that her former potential business partner is dead.
But, one thing is clear. Whatever Greg’s presence at the White Lotus Thailand means, it can’t be good. Belinda hasn’t had any interactions with Greg yet, but it seems like it’s only a matter of time before she does.
“It just feels like a threat. It raises the stakes,” Rothwell teases. “I think once she puts the pieces of the puzzle together, she’s in real fear for her life, because she knows what he’s capable of. It’s no longer about Tanya. It’s about her son and her staying safe and not getting mixed up in whatever he has going on.”