As Mike White’s dark satire returns for a third season, we look back on some of The White Lotus’s most memorable characters.
The White Lotus looks like a dream holiday, but this resort is anything but paradise. Set in an exclusive five star hotel resort, HBO’s award-winning series is a dark satire that skewers the lives of the rich and privileged and the power dynamics with the staff who pander to their every whim. It’s an electric, often bewildering drama that plays with themes of class, desire, gender and status, and reveals that beneath the glossy veneer of wealth is a world of lies, betrayal and misery. Everyone behaves terribly in The White Lotus, and yet, the brilliance of the series is that you’ll quickly find yourself sympathising with these terrifically awful people.
Seasons one and two of The White Lotus were set in Hawaii and Italy, and the upcoming third season takes place in Thailand. This time, there’s a New Zealand link to the international hit series, with Morgana O’Reilly (Friends Like Her) joining a stellar ensemble cast that includes Parker Posey, Michelle Monaghan, Carrie Coon and Walton Goggins. O’Reilly described filming the show as “transformative” and while few details are known about her role, we know that she will be playing a staff member, Pam, at the five star Thai resort. “Pam hates you, but she will look after you,” O’Reilly recently teased on Instagram.
O’Reilly joins a series that’s already full of spellbindingly awful characters who viewers love to hate. Appearances always deceive on The White Lotus, and while not always clear who the heroes and villains are (or indeed, if there are any heroes at all), there’s no shortage of compelling and mesmerising characters. Let’s meet 10 of the finest so far.
10. Belinda (season one)
Possibly the most benevolent character on The White Lotus, spa manager Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) is the foil to demonstrate how selfish and fickle hotel guest Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) can be. Amid a heaving sea of rivetingly awful people, Belinda is too trusting for her own good, a trait that ultimately leads to brutal disappointment. Expect to learn more about Belinda when she shows up in Thailand in season three – but will she have learned any lessons from her original White Lotus experience?
9. Quinn Mossbacher (season one)
Quinn (Fred Hechinger) is a rare character in the White Lotus world, in that his stay at the exclusive resort sparks a genuine transformation. While everyone else in the Mossbacher family behaves like spoiled brats, this socially awkward teenager makes the sudden decision to abandon his materialistic family and embrace a newfound passion. Sounds… fine? Surely Quinn represents every parent’s dream of what happens when your phone breaks?
8. Kai (season one)
Kai’s (Kekoa Scott Kekumano) backstory gives an insight into the politics of colonialism and privilege that underpin The White Lotus. When the hotel employee hooks up with spoiled hotel guest Paula and tells her that the resort was built on land stolen from his people, Paula encourages Kai to commit an act of revenge. There’s a lesson here: rich people have a lot of bad ideas, and while everyone else gets to leave the island and return to their comfortable lives, Kai becomes a victim of his own recklessness.
7. Jack (season two)
Jack is the quintessential geezer, a persuasive talker with a cheeky grin and irresistible charm. He’d be right at home on Love Island, but instead of causing havoc in that particular villa, Jack pulls Tanya and her assistant Portia into his tangled web of deceit in Sicily. Played by the enigmatic Leo Woodall (One Day), it’s not long before we realise that nothing about Jack is what it seems.
6. Daphne Sullivan (season two)
At first glance, Daphne – wife of the deliciously narcissistic Cameron – seems like just another shallow and superficial housewife. She ignores her husband’s repugnant behaviour so that she can maintain her wealthy lifestyle but, as season two unfolds, Daphne reveals herself to be much more calculated than we first thought. A bravura performance by Meghann Fahy in bringing Daphne to life with such nuance and complexity.
5. Shane Patton (season one)
Shane wants to speak to the manager, all the time. It’s hard for this mummy’s boy to eat due to the massive silver spoon in his mouth (he’s thrilled when his mother gatecrashes his honeymoon), but that doesn’t stop Shane from persuading his new bride Rachel to give up her career to become his trophy wife. The wonderfully petty Shane spends the entirety of season one obsessing about how he can get upgraded to the idyllic Pineapple Suite, and there’s no low he won’t sink to to make it happen. Pineapples! Nothing but trouble.
4. Harper Spiller (season two)
Harper (Aubrey Plaza) may be the most self-aware and introspective character in The White Lotus universe. She’s a successful lawyer who knows her marriage is in trouble and hates that she’s on vacation with people who are only interested in her because her husband Ethan is newly rich. Plaza is hugely compelling as the sharp-tongued, unimpressed Harper, who feels like an outsider at The White Lotus. Ironically, that makes her one of the series’ most relatable characters.
3. Quentin (season two)
This swaggering, debonair Englishman (played by Tom Hollander) is living la vida dolce in Sicily, and swoops in to rescue the troubled Tanya with glamorous parties in beautiful Italian villas and emotional trips to the opera. But there’s something not quite right about Quentin – just what are he and his wide-boy “nephew” up to? As always, a scintillating, mesmerising performance from Hollander.
2. Armond (season one)
No other character in The White Lotus unravels quite as spectacularly as Armond. Australian actor Murray Bartlett won an Emmy for his portrayal of the gloriously twisted hotel manager, who cracks under the pressure of catering to an endless stream of greedy guests and becomes trapped in a nightmare entirely of his own making. It’s one heck of a vicious spiral, culminating in a climax that will make you lock your doors and hide your suitcases.
1. Tanya McQuoid (seasons one and two)
Arguably the most bewitching character of The White Lotus, Tanya becomes the show’s tragic heroine. To read the character description you’d think Tanya was just a deluded narcissist, but Jennifer Coolidge’s layered performance (and Mike White’s brilliant writing) give the character so much more than a single dimension. Tanya is both insensitive and insecure, a grieving daughter who tries to fill an emotional void by befriending hotel staffer Belinda only to drop her as soon as she meets new lover Greg. It’s a decision that has disastrous consequences, but captures how fickle and entitled Tanya is – and also how vulnerable and fragile she is, too.
This was the Emmy-winning role that breathed new life into Coolidge’s career, and as one of two recurring characters, Tanya is the glue that holds both seasons together. Even in all her overprivileged and demanding ways, Tanya joins all the other captivating White Lotus characters in making it impossible for us normal people to look away.
What dramas will season three hold for the new cohort of self-obsessed, dysfunctional hotel guests? What dark and deadly secrets will be uncovered amongst Thailand’s idyllic waters, and will Morgana O’Reilly’s Pam make it out of the resort alive? Welcome back to paradise, indeed.
