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LINDA HOLMES, HOST:
A resort should be relaxing. But the HBO series "The White Lotus," which takes place at a resort of the same name, is instead uncomfortable, even painful.
GENE DEMBY, BYLINE: Boasting a cast that includes Connie Britton, Jennifer Coolidge and Natasha Rothwell, it's about the way self-involved, rich guests interact with a staff that has no choice but to tolerate them. I'm Glen Weldon.
HOLMES: And I'm Linda Holmes. And today we're talking about "The White Lotus" on POP CUTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. So come right back.
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HOLMES: Welcome back. You just met Glen Weldon. Also with us from her home studio is Aisha Harris. Hey, Aisha.
AISHA HARRIS, BYLINE: Hello, Linda.
HOLMES: And rounding out the panel is our pal, the co-host of NPR's Code Switch podcast, Gene Demby. Welcome back, Gene.
DEMBY: What's good, y'all. Long time, no see, Linda. Oh, my God.
HOLMES: Yeah, absolutely. It's been way too long.
So "The White Lotus" is the creation of Mike White, who also made "Enlightened" for HBO and wrote the screenplay for "School Of Rock." He's even been a contestant on "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race." He's an interesting guy. The staff at "The White Lotus" is led by Armond, played by Murray Bartlett, and his confidant, spa manager Belinda, played by Natasha Rothwell.
There are three parties of guests. We're going to go through this. The Mossbachers are Nicole and Mark, played by Connie Britton and Steve Zahn, their son Quinn, played by Fred Hechinger, their daughter Olivia, played by Sydney Sweeney, and Olivia's college friend Paula, who's played by Brittany O'Grady. Then you have the newlywed Pattons, Shane and Rachel. That's Jake Lacy and Alexandra Daddario. And finally, rich, single woman Tanya, who is indelibly played by the great Jennifer Coolidge. Glen, what is your bottom line on this show?
GLEN WELDON, HOST:
I eventually acclimated to it. It's kind of like getting jetlag arriving at a resort.
DEMBY: (Laughter).
WELDON: It took me an episode or two to acclimate to it because I wasn't laughing, and I expected to be laughing more. I mean, I think some of that is expectations. I see a mustachioed hotel manager, I think "Fawlty Towers," you know, I think broad, wacky, farcical. I see Jennifer Coolidge and I think broad in every sense of the term. She's a broad.
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: And I thought, and she usually plays broad. And when we meet her in that first episode, you think you're going to see the same Jennifer Coolidge you know and love. But when she opens her mouth, you clock immediately that this is a woman in pain - physical pain, which she talks about constantly, but mostly a kind of a deep, searing emotional pain that her money and her privilege can't touch. And that was my way into this. As soon as I clocked that, I was in.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE WHITE LOTUS")
JENNIFER COOLIDGE: (As Tanya McQuoid) I feel like taking a nap right now.
NATASHA ROTHWELL: (As Belinda) Why do you think you're so tired?
COOLIDGE: (As Tanya McQuoid) I think it's because I'm so close to the floor.
ROTHWELL: (As Belinda) In general.
COOLIDGE: (As Tanya McQuoid) Well, my mom passed away in June.
ROTHWELL: (As Belinda) I'm so sorry.
COOLIDGE: (As Tanya McQuoid) And I'm still dealing with it.
WELDON: That pain is compounded by her station in life, right? It makes her self-absorbed because she can so easily be self-absorbed. She's in a station in life where she can be. But she's self-absorbed in a way she cannot see because she's also, at the same time, hyperaware of how nice she is to the staff.
This is Mike White. His satire has always been knowing about the hypocrisy of privileged. And I've seen reviews of this show. It's like, whoa, they're really satirizing the 1%. And it's like, nope. They're kind of satirizing humanity. I mean, it's not really about making fun of super vacuous rich people - or it is, but that's kind of one part of this elephant. Everyone convinces themselves that they're good people. But then they act in ways that expose that they're not. It's more extreme with the guests, but it's also true of the staff, and that's one of the smart things about the show.
As it goes on, it becomes pulpier, with some thriller elements that I kind of found distracting and kind of undercooked. But whenever Natasha Rothwell was on screen, I was like people, that's your heart (laughter). There is your engine.
HOLMES: Yeah.
DEMBY: Right. Yep.
WELDON: This is what people are tuning in for.
DEMBY: Yep. Yep. Yep.
WELDON: Why are we spending so much time with everybody else? That was my bottom line.
HARRIS: Yeah. I, unlike Glen, was actually kind of all-in on this in the first episode. And then as it was going along, I kind of felt like it wasn't hitting the notes that I wanted it to hit. And HBO has been doing this for a while now. This is their bread and butter - "Succession," "The Undoing," "Big Little Lies." Like, rich white people reveling in their rich white peopleness (ph) is what they do. And I'm starting to get a little bit bogged down by it. And I feel like, what are we doing different here? What is being done differently? And I was missing that here. It needed less of the 1% and more of the staff.
We get a lot of Armond, which I think is really interesting. His character sort of devolves. You know, one of his biggest issues is that he is a recovering addict, and that becomes (laughter) a big issue later on in the show. And so it's interesting to see his sort of play back-and-forth with the Jake Lacy character, who is just an absolute tool. He's terrible. I'm sad to say I have dated people like this before.
(LAUGHTER)
DEMBY: Oh, my God.
HARRIS: I've had to deal with this. And I love that dynamic, but I wish we could have leaned even more heavily on the staff, like Natasha Rothwell's character. She does so much with her face that I find so fascinating. There are moments when she's interacting with the Tanya character played by Jennifer Coolidge, and the way in which Tanya - that sort of dance that they do, where Tanya is dangling this opportunity, this business opportunity, in front of her - and at first it's very clear that Belinda is like, I don't know about this rich white lady. She's just blowing smoke up my butt. But then you see their back-and-forth. And she keeps pulling her in and pulling her in, and she starts to believe it. And the way Natasha Rothwell conveys that on her face - oh, my God. It's just, like - it's heartbreaking to watch that entire just, like - that up and down and the way in which it works. And I wanted more of that.
HOLMES: Yeah.
HARRIS: Like, I wanted more. Because so many times when we see these stories, it's almost always from the perspective of the rich. And...
HOLMES: Yeah.
HARRIS: ...I feel like it was kind of trying to go for "Parasite." But what was good about "Parasite" is that we focus so much on not just the rich family, but the upstairs, downstairs. We saw more of the downstairs than we have here. And I wish there could have been more of that here.
DEMBY: Oh, man. So it's funny because everything that I felt about this, y'all have already identified. But I feel like I dislike it a lot more than y'all did. Like, I felt that, again, like Natasha Rothwell was probably the heart and soul of the show, or she should have been. And I think if you watch the first episode, you are being set up for this idea that this is going to be kind of, like, broad and a farce. And as the show goes on, it's not really that at all. I was thinking (laughter), like, I love y'all, and I've done a bunch of these shows with y'all, right? We talked about "Succession," and we talked about "The Crown." And I was trying to figure out, like, what is it about these rich white people that I can't, like, muster enough schadenfreude to, like, power me through this show?
And I think it's because those shows that I like a lot more than this show - there are stakes involved. Like, Aisha mentioned "Big Little Lies." Like, there's actually, you know, a murder at the center of it. There's a mystery at the center of it. This felt like, you know, there was no big institution that was sort of binding these people together, right? There's no sort of thing that was, like - there's no gravity pulling these people together except for just, like, family ties, or sort of - the newlywed couple. They have, obviously, this sort of momentum of being newlyweds. But like, it was hard to feel both, like, angry at them and/or sorry for them. So I was just like - as it went on, and we'll probably get to this, like, I kept waiting for something to happen. And nothing really happens. Nothing really sort of that interesting happens with any of the characters.
HARRIS: (Laughter).
HOLMES: Yeah. What's interesting about what you say about stakes is that, you know, there's an effort to do that with the fact that this is one of the - many, maybe even the majority, of current prestige dramas/comedy dramas start with, here's a scene, and then you flashback. And that's exactly what happens in this show. The first thing you see is a body being loaded onto the plane as the Jake Lacy character is leaving. And you don't have any idea who the body on the plane is going to turn out to be out of all the people who are involved in this story.
So they do try to set up those stakes. I agree. That particular, like, way of putting the stakes into the show, I didn't think was that effective. Because, I mean, it is in the sense that I did keep changing my mind about who I thought the body was going to turn out to be.
HARRIS: Same. Same.
HOLMES: And that, you know, in a way is entertaining. I will tell you why I really admired this show. And that is, I felt incredibly indicted by it.
(LAUGHTER)
HARRIS: Wait, are you secretly part of the 1%, Linda?
DEMBY: Say more.
HARRIS: (Laughter).
DEMBY: I know. Now I'm really curious now.
HOLMES: Here's why I felt indicted by it. I felt like this was a show about complicity. And I felt like it was a show about the difference between - let's take, for example, the newlywed couple. The interior story of the newlywed couple is that he is a monstrous bully and she is a generally decent person who is realizing much too late that the guy she has married is a horrible bully. In the interior story, they encourage you to kind of feel for her - for her frustration - because he is such a jerk.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE WHITE LOTUS")
JAKE LACY: (As Shane Patton) Yeah, but what? You're on your honeymoon. You're going to hole up in the hotel room, just write some disposable garbage?
ALEXANDRA DADDARIO: (As Rachel) It's not garbage.
LACY: (As Shane Patton) Yeah. Fine. But it's like so many of the assignments they give you. It's just clickbait gussied up as some, like, high-minded, trendy, woke bull****.
HOLMES: There is an appearance by his mother, played by the great Molly Shannon, who shows up, and you understand Rachel's frustration and her anger and how she feels like her sexist jerk husband is such a pain to be around. At the same time - and I think without kind of revealing where they're going with this story, I will say - I wound up feeling like there's a difference between the interior story and how they interact with the larger world as privileged people in which it really doesn't matter. Because as long as she is with him, she is benefiting from him being a bully. She's staying in the nicer room. She is getting the treatment that he inspires by being a bully.
HARRIS: Right.
HOLMES: And I felt the same way about the character of Tanya, the Jennifer Coolidge character. You are encouraged in the interior story - there's a whole story about her grieving for her mother. She's going to scatter her ashes. There's a story about where her life is regarding relationships with men. But it doesn't matter to how she interacts with the world as a privileged person.
And this was why I think I was able to understand why it was so focused on those people, is that the focus on them gives all this space to build up their humanity in these interior stories. And they make you realize, right, but they still have the same effect on the world around them unless they do something actively not to.
And that's the difference between, to me, this show and "Succession." Those people are just horrible, right? You get very little of those interior stories that are like, oh, this person is very sympathetic in this interior story, with a couple of exceptions.
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: Well, you want to talk about relatable. Can we talk about the teenage girls...
HARRIS: Yes, please.
WELDON: ...For a second? I spent a long time trying to get a fix on what function they were serving, like, what they were doing in the story. Are they the Greek chorus? And then I realized, no, no, they're "Macbeth's" witches.
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: They are monsters. But they are also truth-tellers. And how much of this show is characters knowing that they are being actively appraised by these two and found wanting? That's something I related to. Anyone who's walked down the street and seen a group of teenagers...
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: ...Knows that fear.
HARRIS: Yeah. I also appreciate that the Paula character - and Paula is an interesting version of the upstairs-downstairs because she is along with this white family as sort of the plus-one. And she wouldn't be able to go to this resort if not for them. And so that kind of weighs on her. But at the same time, she's also kind of insufferable in some scenes, like...
DEMBY: Yes.
HARRIS: ...In the way that most college sophomores, or whatever, can be like. Like, I'm sure I was in that vein.
WELDON: We all were.
HARRIS: I also really appreciated that dynamic. I think Tanya and Belinda were my favorite sort of dynamic. But Paula and Olivia, I think, have another really interesting dynamic. It made me think a lot about "Zola" and the way in which that film, which we discussed on another episode, was about this weird dynamic between white and Black friends/acquaintances.
Obviously, the dynamic's a little different here because these are, you know - they've known each other for a while. They're sort of best friends. But there are several moments in this show where it's very clear that even Olivia, as "woke," quote, unquote, as she thinks she is, as progressive as she thinks she is, she's clearly basically her mom, played by Connie Britton. She's just a younger version but thinks she is, you know, the more enlightened one. And that, to me, is even scarier (laughter) than the Connie Britton type.
HOLMES: Right. And her mother and father are kind of looking at her the whole time, like, ugh, why is she like this? But it's like...
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: ...You are responsible for her.
WELDON: I learned it from watching you.
DEMBY: I learned from watching you - exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
HARRIS: Can I just play a clip that sort of encapsulates that distilled into this one conversation between Olivia and her dad?
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE WHITE LOTUS")
SYDNEY SWEENEY: (As Olivia Mossbacher) Just seems like all of the white straight men are doing just fine. They're still thriving.
STEVE ZAHN: (As Mark Mossbacher) I mean, for years, I was the good guy, you know? I was the one in the room saying, like, hey, that's not cool to all the chauvinists and bigots. And now I'm the bad guy. Or at least I shouldn't say anything on account of my inherited traits.
HOLMES: Yeah - I...
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: So on the nose - it's so on the nose.
HARRIS: So on the nose.
DEMBY: Yeah. That was the thing.
HARRIS: And I think that was part of my issue, was just like so much of it felt like you copy and pasted from Twitter.
DEMBY: Yes. Absolutely.
HARRIS: (Laughter) It's just like, ah...
DEMBY: It was like, oh, no. Tumblr is writing a screenplay.
(LAUGHTER)
DEMBY: You know what I mean?
HOLMES: But, like, it's not that far from...
WELDON: No, of course.
HOLMES: Like, it's pretty...
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: ...Close to what people actually say.
WELDON: Yeah. And it's extremely...
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: ...Well-delivered, like, the distained in the daughter's voice. It's just, ugh.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: Well, again, Olivia inside her own family versus Olivia's impact on other people.
WELDON: Yep.
HOLMES: And I think Paula, too - it's not lost on anybody, I think, who watches the show that Paula is the only one of these guests who is a person of color. And she's the only person who really expresses any interest in or sympathy with the people on the staff. And these are really the people that you don't see very much of...
HARRIS: Yeah.
HOLMES: ...The people on the staff who are native Hawaiian, who, among other things, are seeing elements of Hawaiian culture sort of turned into entertainment for tourists. She's really the only person who cares about that. And so inside her conversations with Olivia and with the family, she's the person who has some awareness of that. But then sort of, where do you go with that when you are also with this family? You're benefiting from them bringing you with them. But you're very uncomfortable with how they treat sometimes you, sometimes other people. I don't know.
DEMBY: What you do is, like, conscript one of the brown people who you feel like you're in an alliance with to, like...
HARRIS: Yeah.
DEMBY: You know, I mean? Like, it was...
HOLMES: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DEMBY: ...One of the things I thought was actually really sharp about the show was that...
WELDON: Yeah.
DEMBY: ...Like, she was, you know, kind of sanctimonious - not kind of sanctimonious. She was real sanctimonious.
HARRIS: Oh, yeah (laughter).
DEMBY: And she basically convinces this native Hawaiian kid with whom she's having this summer fling to do something that would have enormous consequences for him but not necessarily have consequences for her. So to your point, Linda, like about the sort of interior logics that they use versus, like, the way they interact with the world, like, even though she is not them, she clearly is like proximate enough to them to be operating...
HOLMES: Right.
DEMBY: ...You know - like, some of those same physics still apply to her.
HOLMES: Exactly. That's what I admire about it, is exactly what you're putting your finger on is that the dynamics of proximity, as you say - and maybe this is why I felt so, you know, as I said, indicted by it is that even if you really try to think of yourself as a good person in one-on-one interactions, your proximity is a responsibility that you have. And I think that's one of the things the show is about. And again, it's possible that I'm giving it credit for things it's not consciously trying to do. But to me, that's really what it's about for people like Rachel, the wife. And, boy, let me tell you, both Sydney Sweeney, who plays Olivia, and Jake Lacy, who has a reputation for playing...
DEMBY: Nice guys.
HOLMES: ...Extraordinarily nice men.
WELDON: Out the window.
HOLMES: They are both so chillingly awful in this (laughter) show.
HARRIS: See; people keep saying that about Jake Lacy. But I feel like I've always sensed...
DEMBY: (Laughter).
HARRIS: ...That he had this capability.
HOLMES: Yeah.
HARRIS: Like, he just has the sort of face where I'm just like...
WELDON: He's got the face.
DEMBY: Yeah, that's right
HARRIS: ...You seem like you could easily be the villain. But - (laughter).
HOLMES: Yeah.
DEMBY: So I'd never seen this cat before, ever. And I Googled him like, who is this super villain?
WELDON: (Laughter).
DEMBY: Like, he's, like - and then, of course, it was, like, all these, like, 10 times when Jake Lacy was the nicest nice guy. And I was like, word, like, this kid? Like, he was clearly - like, he was, like, the quintessence of evil frat boy, like, privileged.
WELDON: Yeah. Yeah.
HOLMES: God, he's so bad.
DEMBY: Like, he just - it was like, he's like malevolent in this way.
HOLMES: And I do want to also shout out - I think we haven't talked much about Murray Bartlett, who plays Armond, who was on "Looking."
DEMBY: Oh, yeah.
HARRIS: He's great.
HOLMES: And he is so good in this.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE WHITE LOTUS")
MURRAY BARTLETT: (As Armond) See, in situations like that, just always stay positive. Remind these people of all the fabulous things they already possess, unique room, western view. You have to treat these people like sensitive children. They always say it's about the money, but it's not. It's not even about the room. They just need to feel seen.
HOLMES: I admire his performance in this a lot.
WELDON: Very much. And he's involved in a scene, a very explicit sex scene, between two men involving an act I never thought I would see on HBO.
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: I mean, I think the intimacy councilors earned their keep that day because, wow, I was taken aback by that.
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: Do you guys think - I - my husband disagrees. But I think all these interstitial shots of the resort, of the water, of the trees, combined with this music - every time, it wasn't about, look how beautiful it is. It was - there is something sinister going on here. There was a sense of foreboding every time we got a nature shot. Did you guys feel that?
HOLMES: The score is, the score is.
WELDON: Yeah.
HARRIS: Oh, yeah. Yeah, the score is just, like, this drum beat that sort of pounds at you and makes you - it just adds to the (laughter) discomfort you feel while watching this show. It's - I feel like this is a very fringe show.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HARRIS: I actually kind of liked it. Like, it propelled me along. Even when I wasn't necessarily going with it all the way, I kind of liked that incessant beating...
HOLMES: Yeah.
HARRIS: ...In the background.
DEMBY: I can't remember if this is a thing that - Linda, that you said about "Succession." But one of the things about that show is that, you know, they have everything in the world, right? But, like, every sensual pleasure seems to be so irradiated by their wickedness.
HOLMES: Right.
DEMBY: Like, they have nice clothes, but it doesn't seem like they enjoy wearing them. The sex doesn't seem that, like, satisfying.
HOLMES: Yep.
DEMBY: Like, this felt the same way. Like, they're in this perfect place. And when you're watching it, at no point do you feel like, oh, I would love to be there. You know what I mean? Like, something about it...
HOLMES: Yeah.
DEMBY: ...Felt so tainted. You know what I mean?
HOLMES: And the only person who I think you see really enjoying being there is the son, the Mossbacher son, who does sort of learn to enjoy the water. And there's a story there. But again, he comes into this story as, you know, an incredibly privileged kid. And so, again, I think there's an interior story in which you really feel for him. But at the same time, like, what's he going to be like in 10 years?
DEMBY: OK. Yeah. Yeah (laughter).
HOLMES: And what is his interaction with the world going to be like?
DEMBY: Oh, I was watching it like, this is absolutely going to be in his Peace Corps application. Like, you know what I mean?
HARRIS: (Laughter).
DEMBY: Or his Teach For America application is going to be like, this is pictures of me hanging out with indigenous Hawaiian people. Like, you know what I mean? Like...
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: And I'll just say, as Gene knows, I applied to Teach For America.
DEMBY: Oh, sorry.
HOLMES: So you want to know why I felt indicted by this?
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: I was being indicted by this.
DEMBY: I completely forgot about that, Linda, my bad.
HOLMES: No, no, no, it's - you make a good point.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: You make a good point.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HOLMES: It's safe to say we had a lot of thoughts about this show. You can find it on HBO streaming, wherever you get your HBO stuff. We want to know what you think. Find us at facebook.com/pchh and on Twitter at @PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show. Thanks to you all so much for being here. I loved this chat.
WELDON: Thank you.
HARRIS: Thank you.
DEMBY: I appreciate y'all. This was fun. Thank you.
HOLMES: And, of course, thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. If you have a second, subscribe to our newsletter. It's over at npr.org/popculturenewsletter. And we will see you all tomorrow.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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