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The “White Lotus Kill-or-Be-Killed Report” is a weekly check-in with the guests and employees at this cursed hotel chain to speculate who’s most likely to murder, and/or end up murdered, following this week’s episode, “Killer Instincts.”
It’s very Virgo of me to ask this, but I wonder if anyone staying at the White Lotus has ever successfully planned anything in their entire, miserable life. For here we find all our guests and staff struggling to execute basically anything — a confrontation, a sexual encounter, a murder — despite having allegedly committed significant time, thought, and energy to these missions. On a related note, I think if this show were confident that any of its entanglements were really interesting, we would get to stay with any of these characters for more than a half-page of dialogue before cutting to somebody else. Everything just feels disjointed, like watching someone else swipe through TikTok.
But let’s stay focused: With only next week’s finale left to go, we have one last chance to make our predictions about who will kill and who will be killed. Will we succeed in our mission, or will we, at the last minute, sort of do nothing and then scamper away to frolic around a sex club with an off-the-wagon con artist? Only one way to find out!
I’ve seen a lot of speculation that the LBH who is married to Sritala is actually Rick’s dad. Given the way his eyes light up at the mention of Rick’s mom, this certainly seems like a possibility. I wish I were at all invested in this, but despite my deep and unyielding devotion to all things Walton Goggins, I simply am not. He spends this entire episode just saying these dumb Zen koans to his supposed archnemesis, who has to repeatedly say that he “does not follow.” Neither do I, buddy!
I love a strategic anticlimax, but this entire season has basically been the threat of massive blowups followed by very little blowup and/or fallout: long, lingering ruminations on What happens when the brothers finally have sex? What happens when Timothy’s secret gets out? What happens when Rick meets the man he believes killed his father but might actually BE his father? And in Rick’s case, the answer is he panics, gets cold feet, and … knocks over the guy’s chair? Are you fucking serious? You’ve been plotting this moment your entire life and you didn’t even come up with a good cover story for the fake movie your friend is supposedly directing? You didn’t want to watch at least one of Sritala’s movies, perhaps on the 17-hour flight to Thailand? This is amateur hour through and through!
Will he kill or be killed? Looks as though he doesn’t have the killer instinct after all. But he could definitely die!
This character doing all the heavy lifting to keep Rick’s ruse afloat and Sam Rockwell doing all the heavy lifting to keep this plot interesting: Thank you for your service, gentlemen. I loved his description of their fake movie as being a “fun caper” with “everything … all the stuff that people like.” I will also award points for his take on Sritala’s early work: “It’s like MC Hammer, Peter Pan. It’s got a little, umm, Pippin.” Okay, Fosse!
Will he kill or be killed? Their gun is gone, so he’d have to get another. Hardly seems like an insurmountable obstacle — plus he’s off the wagon. I think he could kill!
I’m not against Laurie going for it with Aleksei (I mean, I hope he wore a condom), but I do think a woman in her victory-lap years should know better than to go, drunk and alone, to the home of a total stranger in a country where she does not speak the language without telling any of her friends. Drop a pin, Laurie! Also, if the point was to get with one of Valentin’s boys and prove to Jaclyn that anything Jaclyn can do, Laurie can do, too, and therefore Jaclyn is not actually special, why wouldn’t she bring him back to her villa so that she could get “caught” by her “friends”?
Thank God his girlfriend showed up before Laurie could do something deeply stupid, e.g. Venmo/PayPal/CashApp/Zelle this loser $10,000.
Will she kill or be killed? I’m considering the possibility of her becoming a killer in some post-humiliation rampage.
Kate leans into power like a flower toward the sun, so as she sees Laurie topple, she aligns herself with Jaclyn despite Laurie’s tantalizing reference to the time Jaclyn was “all over” Kate’s husband at Laurie’s wedding. To top off this cowardice, Kate passive-aggressively asserts her moral dominance over Jaclyn with a snide little “I feel bad, but I guess you don’t.” Arguably the most evil of the bunch in a classic faux–innocent-bystander way.
Will she kill or be killed? I’ve said it all along: Kate is the killer-est of this trio.
Not sure what this says about me, but I thought Jaclyn’s dig at Laurie — “If you always choose the short stick, is it bad luck?” — was a vicious but totally fair assessment. I also see she is taking my advice re: dropping the act about not having slept with Valentin and instead claiming it as a thing she not only did but had every right to do and isn’t even that big of a deal!
Will she kill or be killed? I feel like she is marked for death … sorry to her fans!
Gaitok has finally put the pieces together regarding Valentin’s connection to the robbery bros. Does this put a target on his back? A target that Gaitok — who, for all his other failings, has great aim — is going to hit?
Will he kill or be killed? He is ASKING to be killed!
His outrageously transparent scamming makes me want to vomit. “My mom is sick” — are you KIDDING me?!
Will he kill or be killed? Between his girlfriend and Gaitok, there certainly are enough people around here who want him dead, no?
Yet ANOTHER episode in which Timmy does literally nothing except pop lorazepam, zone out, almost confess his sins, and fantasize about murder-suicide. I am so bored I could cry.
Will he kill or be killed? Neither. It would be too interesting.
She’s doing really well considering she has no meds and must spend another evening with “the boat people.” I like that she is trying to assist the young girlfriend of the LBH by promising to set her up with some “respectable men” in North Carolina. I’m not really sure how I feel about this show insisting that every single young gorgeous woman here is genuinely in love with her rich, age-gap boyfriend — like, really? We can’t even have one of them just own that she’s in it for the money? (Besides Victoria, who isn’t cut out for that uncomfortable life.) Even Chloe claims to feel real affection for Greg-Gary, and he’s obviously evil!
At night, Victoria prays to the Lord to save her daughter from the monastery. She wants Jesus to take the wheel, and, honestly, whatever gets this show going in the right direction!
Will she kill or be killed? I would love it if she killed! But I feel like … neither?
What is the point of building this guy’s entire story line around (1) him giving in to the tension with his brother and literally committing incest and (2) his professional life being wrapped up in his dad’s fraudulent, doomed empire if NEITHER of those events amounts to anything? He and Lochlan spend this entire episode separated from each other… why?! So that Saxon can just have the same conversation he already had with Chelsea? Am I really supposed to believe that in his postcoital horror, Saxon’s top priority would be his dad’s weird business dealings that he hasn’t mentioned for several episodes? Is that some kind of post-incest clarity? There is no way this self-obsessed psychopath is suddenly aware that his dad has been acting weird and that he would connect the dots from “dad acting weird” to “business in trouble” when, as far as we know, Saxon has zero reason to be suspicious about anything regarding his family’s financial situation.
Will he kill or be killed? Gets killed while meditating in an attempt to impress Chelsea.
Imagine getting cast in The White Lotus thinking you’re going to be this year’s Meghann Fahy and instead your scenes consist of thrilling things like sitting in silence while you and your brother have a meal and wearing a nightgown that makes you look like Wendy Darling. (As Frank would say, “A little Peter Pan.”) Of course she’s horrified by her brother’s impulsive decision to join her at the monastery, as she was envisioning a solo adventure, proving that she is Not Like Other Girls.
Will she kill or be killed? Sorry, but neither! I think she’s stuck on the sidelines of the good stuff till the bitter end.
Is it just me or are these accommodations at the monastery a lot nicer than we were led to believe? I know Victoria’s standard of living is a five-star hotel, but I thought we’d see these kids actually struggle by, like, sleeping on mats in some big room surrounded by strangers. They have private rooms? With beds? Seems about as comfortable as the average college dorm and hardly the sort of situation they wouldn’t be able to stomach for a night to prove Victoria wrong.
Anyway, yet again we basically get no payoff for the Lochlan-Saxon sexy slumber party. He’s taking it all a little too well, don’t you think?
Will he kill or be killed? I think he emerges unscathed on both counts.
Love her, but how many ways can we hear a girl insist that she loves her rich, mean 50-year-old boyfriend for his personality? Her line readings continue to be impeccable — “He has this sadness. It really touches me!” — but she is saddled with a plot that goes nowhere and a complete misunderstanding of how yin and yang work. (Am I wrong here, or is the entire point of yin and yang that one side never wins over the other?) I have no idea why she brings Saxon back to her place to teach him how to meditate and why she feels the need to do that while sitting on her bed; we know she finds him repulsive, and I don’t buy that she has changed her mind about this after learning that he let his baby brother jerk him off.
Will she kill or be killed? I pray for her survival, but I fear for her life!
I was rooting for her before, but everyone is being so dumb I can no longer be in their corner. Why on EARTH would she go to this party and then be alone with this man?? Why is she drinking at this party, where she knows someone is capable of and interested in MURDER? Also, baby, in this economy $100,000 is hardly enough money to buy somebody’s silence and make up for Tanya bailing on the business plan. That’s, like, five cartons of eggs. Isn’t this guy a multimillionaire? When she said, “That’s very generous of you,” I shouted, “NO, it is NOT.” She says taking the money would make her an accomplice to murder, which, first of all, if anything she’s an accessory after the fact, and second of all, who CARES? Get OUT.
Will she kill or be killed? I sure wish she would try harder NOT to be killed!
“You’ll be safe because I’m there” is a very sweet and stupid thing to say, and Belinda should not let her beautiful jet-lagged son be driving the bus on these decisions.
Will he kill or be killed? We saw him survive in the first episode, so he seems marked for safety. Then again, maybe he walks into a shooting spree since his survival instincts appear to be nonexistent.
Is anyone else getting a kind of French-maid vibe from Chloe’s dress? I appreciate her commitment to getting with Saxon again despite her evident disappointment that Lochlan didn’t show. I want her to thrive.
Will she kill or be killed? I don’t get killer or victim from her. Do you?
An absolute cheapskate when it matters the most. Only $100K to get rid of the woman who knows you killed your wife? Buddy, now is the time to SPLURGE.
I think Chloe made up that entire story about his kinky childhood trauma, by the way. Hard to imagine him going to all the trouble to spin that lie. How does no one find it suspicious that this man spends the entire party just sitting alone giving the evil eye to everyone?
Will he kill or be killed? He has made too many enemies to survive the season.
Well, he finally gets that date. Mook is very beautiful, so naturally Gaitok ignores the fact that she spends the duration of their date trying to convince him to be a completely different person so that she can feel good about dating him. He does connect the dots about the robbery — committed by the Russians — and I guess we are to believe that after Mook eggs him on about how violence is natural and real men love to kill people (paraphrasing only slightly), he will seek vengeance on the men who cost him his big promotion.
Will he kill or be killed? He will think about killing and choke at the last minute, losing Mook and his job for good.
Mook was attracted to Gaitok, allegedly, because of his ambition; her type, evidently, is not the kind of guy who says things like “I never want to hurt people.” Maybe you two crazy kids are completely incompatible. Happens all the time!
Will she kill or be killed? She’s got the killer instinct, but do we think she’d actually pick up a gun? Or does she just want a boy to do it for her?
The monk, who believes that everyone has the “capacity to kill”; Fabian, who performed an original song for some reason; Pornchai, whom I really missed this episode and thought Belinda would’ve brought to the boat-people party, but no one here is thinking straight; the guy who maybe is Rick’s dad or killed Rick’s dad, who has no idea why any of this is happening (relatable); Aleksei’s angry girlfriend, who has a LOT to say about finding Laurie in her beloved’s bed; that fruit that can kill you, because it gives me a bad feeling; the monkeys!
