The White Lotus is Modern Day Shakespeare, Hear Me Out

The White Lotus Drama and TikTok Ban Update

In this episode of Easily Entertained, host Maddy McClain discusses all things White Lotus, diving deep into behind-the-scenes facts, cast drama, and Mike White’s unique production secrets. Maddy also covers the controversial US TikTok ban extension by Trump, its political implications, and potential future buyers like Amazon and Oracle. From funding facts to surprising celebrity involvement, Maddy provides a comprehensive analysis full of things you may have missed. We wrap up with a deep dive into the White Lotus Season 3 finale, breaking down each character's arc, the show’s complex themes, and the future of the series.

Enjoy homies! 😜

01:02 The TikTok Ban Explained
05:31 Potential Buyers for TikTok
11:46 White Lotus Season 3 Behind the Scenes
16:07 Filming Locations and Tourism Impact
23:58 Casting Secrets and Fun Facts
29:21 Composer Drama and Creative Differences
33:34 Duke University's Unhappy Cameo
34:37 White Lotus Season Finale Breakdown
49:54 Final Thoughts and Season Four Tease

Sources:

- TikTok Ban USA Today

- At Thailand's Real 'White Lotus' Hotel, Where the Ultrarich Get Coddled Vulture

- Composer of The White Lotus Won't Return for Season 4 The New York Times

- 'The White Lotus' Uncensored Oral History: Season 3 Secrets The Hollywood Reporter

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Transcript

 Hello homies and welcome back to Easily Entertained. I am Maddy McClain, your host and self-proclaimed pop culture Sherpa. Here to guide you through the latest in pop culture from entertainment, news and Hollywood. Two internet convos and my latest findings from doom Scrolling adventures. I've been doing it for you, my dear homies, because I'm a martyr like that this week.

It is all mostly about white lotus, everything from behind the scenes, things you did not know, drama that went down between castmates and Mike White's Super secret. Ways of working. Well, they're not super secret because I have found them, and you're gonna hear all about them in today's episode. And we will also talk about the TikTok ban.

But, um, we are just diving right on in this week. Much like your toxic x TikTok is resurrected from the quasi dead and is here to stay at least for another 75 days this past weekend on Saturday, April 5th. That would have been the deadline for the latest extension that Trump gave initially in January for the TikTok ban that now allowed it to stick around for another 75 days.

Mind you, just in another. Example, a very minute example of Trump just kind of doing whatever he feels like doing, because he can usually, when you extend any sort of law or a deadline to make a decision on it, it's. Classically 90 days, but, but he's not like the other girls, so he went with 75 days. I just found that tiny detail to be, uh, quite chuckle inducing, if you will, after Saturday would've been the last day TikTok was around here in the United States.

Trump ahead of that deadline on Friday, April 4th, announced on Truth Social that he was signing an executive order to keep TikTok up and running for. Another 75 days, essentially until a deal may or may not be reached between the parent company bite dance in China and a few prospective US buyers. The initial ban was put in place essentially because the government and US officials are fearful of the data access that China as a country may have on Americans.

That being said. Are they aware of all the data that already exists and is likely already in their hands through, I don't know, Google, Facebook slash meta? Twitter or X even so on truth social. Donald Trump posted this. I will give you the full quotes. You have it. My administration has been working very hard on a capital deal to all save TikTok, and we have made tremendous progress.

The deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an executive order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days. We hope to continue working in capital. Good faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our capital, reciprocal tariffs in parentheses necessary.

This is all capitalized, every word except for minus the prepositions necessary for fair and balanced trade between China and the USA. This proves that tariffs are the most powerful economic tool and very important to our national security. We do not want TikTok to quote go dark. We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the capital deal.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Now, first of all, the way, and I even skipped some, but the way that Trump will capitalize random ass words throughout any sort of social post or like written statement, it just takes me out every single time. I don't understand it. It's um. Yeah, it's a very niche type of writing, I suppose, and as a journalism major that really.

Irks me, but that's not the point here. It also sounds like he's a fifth grader. Possibly cosplaying a political figure for their play or, or really what it made me feel like, 'cause like walking into a high school model, you win. I. Conference or like one of those faux debates. You know, that part does easily entertain me seeing the grammar structure.

So now that TikTok is still around the, the problem is still with us here, right? TikTok is still owned by the parent company, by dance and China, and essentially this is giving more time for a deal to go down. But that being said, despite. There being several publicly announced bids to buy TikTok. There have not been any sort of inclinations or hints as to where the deal is going or if it's going by.

Dance has really not made any sort of mention of there being an intention to sell their US steak in the company. So we'll see if that actually goes down. In the meantime, there are quite a few potential bidders that are raising their hands for that US steak in TikTok. Mind you, TikTok is currently valued at somewhere between 100 and 200 billion with a B billion dollars.

So these bidders have to have deep pockets, right? And deep pockets. They have. One of the bidders that has been more circulated and well-known is Amazon. They submitted a, I guess an official bid, whatever that looks like. Truthfully, no idea. On this past Wednesday, we have Cryptocurrency, foundation, H Bar, and Zoup, a startup co-led by the founder of OnlyFans, as well as the actual that foundation, H Bar and Zoup itself.

Now, I mean, OnlyFans and TikTok collab, that sounds like that's probably already really a thing. But anyways, we also have the private equity firm, Blackstone, which Blackstone basically has a stake in. Pretty much freaking everything that's well known in this country and beyond. Uh, so that makes a lot of sense.

They definitely have deep pockets. Um, this would join an existing group of non-Chinese shareholders led by Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic. Just two big corporate power players basically in Andreessen Horowitz, which is a California based venture capital firm, has also expressed interest in buying.

This firm also is in cahoots with Oracle, which is a major tech company. Larry Ellison's tech company, one of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as Project Liberty. Another, basically corporate collaboration. Um, it's an organization led by the former LA Dodgers owner, Frank McCourt, who has the intention of constructing a new internet infrastructure.

That's the project Liberty. Ethos, if you will, and this is jointly with Shark. Take investor Kevin O'Leary and Reddit co-founder, Alexis Hanian Word has also traveled that Mr. Beast, who is the internet personality YouTube superstar, also known as James Jimmy Donaldson, he and employer.com founder and CEO Jesse Tinsley also submitted a bid.

Then Perplex Perplexity ai, which is a US based search engine, presumably using ai, submitted a bid, and then a group of CEOs including Bobby Kotick, former CEO of video game company, Activision, Doug McMillan, Walmart, CEO, and Microsoft, who's also proposed purchasing the platform back in 2020, as well as the conservative video streaming platform Rumble.

So there are quite a few players with their hands in the mix. Whether or not that will actually happen obviously remains to be seen. But you know what I say, somebody needs to call Mike White and put all of the TikTok Bitters into one giant luxurious resort that they all pay for because they can clearly.

And I don't know, see who wins, see who's the top dog, maybe add in a little bit of survivor, vote them off the island here and there until there remains the one final bidder that will own the US Steak and TikTok. Oh my God, am I a genius, you guys? I think I'm onto something here. I think I am. I'd love to hear who you think would make it out in all seriousness.

Well, in all seriousness that I currently have in my possession right now, in that moment of recording, I kind of think that it's gonna be Amazon. They already own everything. Or there's going to be some sort of way that Trump is able to pull a fast one on us all and just add that to his portfolio, or maybe his buddy Elon.

I don't know. I don't know. While these tariff wars are going down that we won't definitely not get into because it's just. Way beyond my pay grade now. Basically, Trump is threatening China, I suppose, with these tariff wars and using that a little bit as blackmail and or bait for them to sell TikTok and fully divest to the US so that the US will then presumably lower the insanely high tariff increase that has just been enacted.

And we're gonna quickly move on and talk more about pop culture 'cause that is. Too sad of a deep, dark black hole to jump into today or really any day if you can avoid it. In the meantime, I will continue wasting inordinate. Amounts of time on that app. I absolutely love it. I have learned so much, and I am not ashamed to say that I have learned so much on TikTok and I'm talking about how to clean my dishwasher, which you know, I didn't even know you had to clean the dishwasher that cleans your dishes, but quickly learning that adulthood is just like electronics, maintenance, just maintenance.

That's what it is. Adulthood is maintenance. Okay. Look at me being all mature and almost 30 and just wise beyond my years. So there are other TikTok competitors ish. The competitors I use very loosely because it is of course things like Instagram reels and YouTube shorts, um, that are basically implementing different features that make it more and more like TikTok.

Meanwhile, gen Z are flocking back to Tumblr. They're going back to simpler days, I guess before us. Millennials ruined it, I don't know, but they're flocking back to Tumblr and that's now having a revival. And you can see this in their stocks too. We'll see what happens with that. I guess it's some sort of a mixture of Pinterest, Snapchat, e kind of vibes, but basically it's just less penetrated by corporations.

But that's just what's gonna happen with all of the major social networks. Check in in another 75 days and we'll see if we still have access to TikTok.

Now it is time to talk all about the White Lotus Season three ended with a bang. And in my opinion, I thought it was honestly a Shakespearean masterpiece in my opinion. So we may disagree there because the internet is sure divided as it always is though. So people with taste, I think we like it.

Hopefully I have ant offended half of you, but we will get into the specifics and yes, the spoilers of the season finale. That dropped this week, but before that, there is lots to discuss and break down after many of the cast members and Mike White himself have unloaded some behind the scenes tea and some cast drama that truthfully is nearly or just as good as the show itself.

I think a big misconception or something that is missed in the discourse about this show is that. Well, this part isn't missed. It's not a reality TV show, and Mike White is building on the character development as a huge part of the story. So yeah, there's not all this a ton of action in every single episode.

I. But I think a major part of it is really learning about the inner workings of these characters, and largely because this season is all about identity and desire, as well as just some really good tv. So you can also take it on seriously too. We'll take a little bit of both. You know, life's all about a good balance, right?

Everything in moderation, including moderation. So first of all, you may or may not know that the white lotus was definitely. A black horse among the TV shows, especially in HBO and Warner Brothers repertoire, if you will. It was somewhat of an indie production. Indie, I suppose, would be a little bit subjective, but from season one, each episode cost 4 million per season three is somewhere around the six to $7 million range.

I am here to guess that a large part of that budget is literally booking out the entire Four Seasons Hotel for two months. We'll get to that part too. Nobody was expecting for the show to take off in the way that it did, including Mike White himself. It was initially supposed to run as a limited series, and this was in the height of the pandemic.

So 2020 and HBO was desperate to film a TV show or series or movie, whatever. Somewhere that was covid friendly and Thailand kind of fit that very Bill. Mike White did not want to do Thailand, namely because he got eliminated from the amazing race there in Thailand. So he didn't really ever wanna come back because he spent after being eliminated.

This part. I didn't know you spent two weeks in a elimination station. So you're just hanging out with a bunch of other bitter contestants that also were voted off or lost the game, uh, for two weeks. So that sounds terrible. Anyways, so he was not exactly a, a fan of shooting season three in Thailand. In fact, he wanted to do so in Japan.

But in order to please HBO execs, Mike White and some other producers made their way over to Bangkok. And after being there for a little bit of time, Mike White actually got super sick with bronchitis. And had to go to the hospital where they gave him a nebulizer. And he described this as being basically like crack, although he says he's never done crack, but you know, we can all guesstimate what crack may be.

We all take Adderall here and there, don't we? So he's in the hospital, takes this nebulizer and basically in a drugged up haze, the season three plot, materializes in his head, basically hallucination of sorts. And, uh, we can kind of see that in the rollout of the series. But that being said, honestly, Thailand is the perfect place to set up a rather discombobulating scene.

It's so stimulating, dare I say, overstimulating at times, especially in Bangkok, the hub. Giant city, urban metropolis of it all, but it can be the very same in these Thai islands as well. He ends up moving forward with shooting it in Como, obviously. And something to consider too, while they were scouting for their location, is that once they film a series in the white Lotus, while it was not expected in the beginning, first series was shot in Maui second.

Was shot in Sicily. There's a huge influx of tourists and visitors to these countries, and they can see a huge financial gains from this. So we can expect the same thing to happen in Thailand. Mike White was mentioning how now that's kind of a responsibility that somewhat rests on their shoulders when searching for the next spot to shoot the next season.

But he has to remind himself that at the end of the day, he's a creative, he's a writer, and he's just, he's just making a quote little TV show I like. He's trying to stay humble there. But I have to say in my mind, Mike White is a comedic and storytelling genius. I think the way it was done in all of the seasons, I was worried it might jump the shark, so to speak, and go downhill with this third season.

And personally, I think they nailed it again. Some people think that it was too boring and not much. Not much happened, but I think you have to pay attention throughout the whole kinda episode, which is also a new challenge for us who are used to looking at two, three screens while doing anything at at once.

But the details included in every single episode is. Wow. Chef's frigging kiss from the books that each character is reading throughout the series in every single season. There's a lot of meaning to that. Saxon was reading a book called When Everything Falls Apart or When It All Falls Apart, A spiritual book.

I think that Belinda. The spa manager was also reading a book about narcissists and dealing with narcissists, which obviously ties into her as a spa manager, dealing with these uber needy, shall we say, rich guests and clientele in his own words. In that same Hollywood reporter interview, Mike White says The show is about identity and desire, and then there's another part of me, the mischievous gay part that's just like, how do I create something that's dirty and funny?

It's amusing to me when people approach the show in this very literal way, like the show is about incest. I'm glad we found you, but you're not really the audience. Just another show of his wittiness here. And obviously that scene, I guess that was somewhat of a spoiler, but as literally the tiniest portion in my mind.

Although obviously the most shocking and gross and unexpected, shall we say. But there was more meaning. To the idea of that happening. And he also kind of talks about how he thinks it's a little bit funny to bring in this wider audience like the show does, and then take 'em down his rabbit hole of twists and turns that they're kind of then just, uh, somewhat forced to witness on the screen wherever you can get your kicks.

Right. Going back to choosing where to film. So they filmed majority of the season in Osimo, a little bit in Phuket. Largely for the party scenes, but Ko Moi sees somewhat of a different tourist makeup than the rest of Thailand, which is very interesting to note. Ko moi, the, these sets of islands are in the Gulf, I guess the Thailand Gulf essentially along like Kota and GaN where the full moon party is and all of that.

And most of these tourists are largely from the US Central Europe and the Persian Gulf, whereas. The majority of the other spots in Thailand, say mainland Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Andaman Islands, those tourists are usually from China, Malaysia, and India, which obviously gives it a bit of a different vibe. When I was there in Thailand for a month, my brother and I spent about, uh, I don't know, like a week I think in Kosovo.

We actually loved it. We started out, um, in Ang Beach and so that's kind of, Ang is essentially. Austin's Dirty sixth Street to Nashville's Broadway and Bourbon Street and New Orleans, that kind of vibe. So obviously it's a very tourist heavy spot, but that's where then all of the good hotels are. And by the way, it may not, it definitely doesn't include the Four Seasons properties, but even other nice luxury properties in Thailand are far less expensive, far more.

Quote, affordable, if you will, then pretty much you would pay for those properties anywhere else. That's. One of the best parts, in my opinion of Thailand is the affordability. Once you're there, the flights are the most expensive part for sure. Now, specifically the Four Seasons on on Como, where much of the season was filmed is insane.

It's beautiful, it's gorgeous. We're talking, so the villas start, start minimum at $2,200 a night, and then it can go up to 30 grand. For a private residence with a live-in Butler in real life too, the Four Seasons, they are staff is trained to know everything about their guests before you even check in. I mean from what kind of car you drive, your generally, your schedule, obviously your profession, and what you do, kind of your inner circle, and whether you've stayed at a Four Seasons before.

They've done it all. I'll link this article in the show notes. It's super interesting. It has basically the whole cast of the White Lotus, um, interviewed throughout. It's very long, but that's largely what I've used here to inform this. So allegedly too, I learned that staff will typically use easy to pronounce nicknames for the guests to use specifically there at the resort.

Um, which is funny. So, and they'll choose names from, I mean, anywhere from literally like beach plate. Toe, that kind of thing. They all laugh about it. I would laugh at US tourists too, that they are resorting to, that puns are fun and every morning upwards of 40 employees will spray down the entire resort at the break of dawn so that there aren't any mosquitoes or creepy crawlies and rebuild like the literal beach, basically.

Manmade beach where it's at because the hotel. Kind of sits on the side of two mountains basically, and they will do absolutely anything further. Guests obviously. Here was a story that I found pretty interesting recently. A guest arrived at the hotel at 10:00 PM and wanted to propose to his girlfriend Right away.

He says, I need to buy an expensive ring right now. Recalls Aussie who flew in a jeweler from Bangkok since everything on the island was closed. While the guest chose a Ring hotel staff brought his girlfriend to the beach where a private dinner waited. The proposal took place at midnight. Schneider once welcomed a famous singer with a working gramophone made of sugar.

Those enrolled in the hotel's Elite tier, which is an invitation only annual membership program, received napkins and pillowcases embroidered with their initials. It's pretty insane. He says, Schneider qualifies that exorbitant requests are fulfilled only after the hotel confirms the guests can pay for it by reviewing their financial documents.

Well, that's pretty important to note, especially after our boy Timothy Ratliff. In the white Lotus, his whole, you know, financial scenario. Allegedly. When it comes to the wild request, the line I guess, is drawn at weed and sex workers, although both are pretty much on the low decriminalized in Thailand, the whole kind of sex worker scene has this crazy group of people that basically around the world just for that, and they call themselves sex pats.

So I'm sure those boundaries are quite lax though, if they're staying at the 30 grand a night private home, all to say the Four Seasons is exactly what the White Lotus is looking for and in real life. So real life inspiring art. Art, inspiring, real life. You tell me when it comes to casting for the White Lotus, as soon as season one was out, everyone.

Every actor, every actress, every producer, director, assistant producer, you name it. Everybody in Hollywood wanted to get a shot to work on the White Lotus. The interesting part is for the actors and actresses in casting the rules, everyone auditions, literally everyone, including Lisa from Black Pink, had to audition.

And that's relevant because that's not the case for. I would say majority, large, majority of big name projects in Hollywood and everybody gets paid the exact same amount for shooting the series. Pretty wild. That's definitely not usual. In addition to that, they do alphabetical billing, which matters to actors.

Instead of listing it by say, leads at the front, they're doing list listing it alphabetically. This way, Mike White argued everyone was doing the project for the right reasons to steal from the bachelor. Another casting I. Tidbit is that Patrick Schwarzenegger's very famous parents, Arnold obviously, and Maria Shriver, his mom worked against him during casting.

It gave Mike White a bit of hesitation, bringing that kind of into the role, not wanting to indulge too much in good old nepotism. But alas, Patrick proved himself and his abilities as an actor, and I do think he did quite well as Saxon. It really worked for him. A little information. Jen Coolidge. Mike White had written that role specifically for her.

Tanya was built for Jen Coolidge and um, he mentioned he's always has to have a comedic foundation with at least one person. And for this season it was Parker Poseys, Victoria Ratliff, the iconic Lorazepam popping Southern wife. I'm glad to see Lorazepam getting its flowers if I do say so myself. You know, um, Xanax really runs the game much like Kleenex runs the tissue game.

Another tidbit, Sam Rockwell, who played Frank, who was Rick's sober. Not sober at all. Friend he met up with in Bangkok, he's actually been married to Leslie Bibb, who plays Kate, the kind of more uptight girl gang member. They're married, so that's fun. But outside of those two, knowing each other, they had no chemistry reads prior to the filming.

So people pretty much had to cross their fingers and hope they got along. I think the producers set them up in group texts, and based on the interviews with all of the, the castmates, it becomes pretty clear that Mike White lets them kind of play around with their characters. For instance, Rick and Chelsea, the the actors that play them.

We're set up in a text with the the line you're now cosmically linked, which if you watch the finale you'll get that. And they kind of worked together to come up with a character's backstories in order to know how to act. And ended up pretty much doing method acting, which is essentially popular technique of acting where.

The actors are encouraged to essentially recall emotions from memories from their own lives in order to bring that into the script and in their acting so that they come off as genuine and fully in character. So sometimes basically people will think of it as actors staying in character off screen, and while they're not even shooting the movie or film or what have you.

Basically, and historically, some people think that it can lead to a lot of psychological kind of emotional wear and tear by doing that, by bringing up these memories if they're traumatic or tragic. But the actor, Walton Goggins, who plays Rick, he essentially kinda started isolating himself from the crew because he'd actually taken a trip to Thailand right after he lost his first wife.

And so it was a very emotional healing time and he was feeling all of those things, which also he channeled into his portrayal of Rick. And I do think there's gonna be so many Emmy nominations for the season for a lot of characters, Walton said in the interview, at times I felt misunderstood, like I was a fucking downer for everyone else.

I was just consumed by the story. It got to a place where they would just put my chairs somewhere different on set, or I'd sit on a rock away from everybody and wait for the weekends to hang out with people. But Amy, who plays Chelsea, his partner in the show, and I became very close very quickly, and a part of that was because when everyone else was like, oh, just leave that guy alone.

Amy constantly came and poked me and she said, he'd say, thanks for calling my bluff, because he'd be off as a lone wolf, but he didn't really want that. In the same way that Rick doesn't really want that. Another thing of his kind of one of Mike White's trademarks is his secrecy. It's top priority. He'll pass around fake scripts to the cast and crew, at least with the ending, and they'll all be different so that nobody knows the true final ending until they literally watched it all alongside us in live real time, which is crazy.

Prior to the finale airing this week. Quite a few interviews were dropped and some tea was spilled. Largely coming from the composer up from the White Lotus who's responsible for the, shall we say, epic and aggressively loved theme song. He publicly quit and then ran over to the New York Times for an interview to let everybody know and that he won't be returning for the next season or any thereafter.

In quite a drama girly way. Might I add, so Cristobal Tapia deve went to New York Times to unload his disdain for the show's creator and director Mike White. He basically described creative disagreements with Mike that began, and during season one he said Conversations with producers could be quote hysterical, and the show's creative team repeatedly requested music that was more upbeat and less experimental than the work Mr.

Tippe deve. Wanted to produce. He said, I feel like this was, you know, a rock and roll band story. I was like, okay, this is like a rock band I've been in before where the guitar player doesn't understand the singer at all. Allegedly, he'd really hoped for this new season for that same theme song as we all did to carry on into the season.

However. He did. I mean, he didn't think everybody would be quite so married to that title song and had the idea or the hopes, I guess, that this most recent newer song would build into a longer version that included the OG one from the previous seasons, but that did not happen. You can look it up on YouTube.

'cause he posted it on his YouTube, the extended version. I just find that just particularly petty. I don't know. But he purposely and told the interviewer that he did not tell Mike what he was quitting. He told basically everybody else. And bounced and then came up in this interview. He really didn't hold back on his opinions.

He called Mike's initial title song that he wanted to include in season three instead of the one that did to be quote like a clubby. Ibiza hit with no edge to it. Oof, that one hurts. Um, and that Mike does a lot of talking and needs coddling. Basically, he goes on to be a somewhat more understanding and says people don't remember, but at first some people were complaining about the music.

I can't concentrate on the characters and it's too much, and I'm so stressed out, but I'm really happy to take those kinds of risks. That is the main thing that I'm most happy about. It was worth all the attention and almost forcing the music into the show in a way, because I didn't have that many allies in there.

Woo-hoo. While it's quite passive aggressive, I will say the music is a major character in the White Lotus, because where there are those scenes or moments where, yeah, plot wise, there's not a ton going on. Not a lot of action. The music lets you know that you should either like pay attention or something's bad's happening.

I mean, you can go ahead and ask my Apple Watch because my heart rate is increased while I watch the show and my anxieties, although I'm trying not to say and claim anxiety and say my anxiety instead saying like the anxiety or when I experience it anyways, I hear. It's kind of like tricks your brain a little bit 'cause your brain's super powerful.

Back to the topic at hand, my bad, Mike White was talking to Howard Stern on his show this week after the finale aired and White was asked about this composer drama and Mike White said, I honestly don't know what happened, except now I'm reading his interview because he decides to do some PR campaign about him leaving the show.

I don't think he respected me. He wants people to know that he's edgy and dark and I am, I don't know, like I watch reality tv. Feel you, Mike. We never really even fought. He says we feuded. I don't think I ever had a fight with him except for maybe some emails. It was basically me giving him notes. I don't think he liked to go through the process of getting notes from me or wanting revisions because he didn't respect me.

I knew he wasn't a team player and that he wanted to do it his way. I was thrown that he would go to the New York Times to shit on me, the and the show three days before the finale, it was kind of a bitch move. I agree with that take. I think it was a bit of a bitch move. Another little, little piece of drama.

Uh, duke University was not so happy with the series after the use of the Duke logo and Duke tees were worn throughout the show, largely by Timothy and Saxon Ratliff. The dad and older son were wearing the Duke University t-shirt during some very, um, shall we say, edgy. Scenes, one being a threesome and one being a almost attempted suicide.

Yeah. So you can imagine the university was not very happy about this and released a statement saying that they're, they have nothing to do with that, and they're kind of not happy about the unprovoked and unsolicited use of the university and the show. It probably doesn't help too that their major rival is actually where Piper, the least problematic of the Ratliff family attends in the show.

They're probably protected by. Creative artistic self-expression. Legally, I don't think that there's any dice there, but they probably haven't made any friends with the university. Alright, let's get into the White Lotus Season finale. Full breakdown. Theories and thoughts because let me tell you, that was a trip.

Emotionally, geographically, spiritually, all of the IIes and in true my white fashion, also very morally confusing and involved a few murders somehow, some way Mike White was able to tie up the loose ends. In. In the most part, we're not gonna go super literal and find all of the potholes, although we did discuss a few of them already.

Each group of travelers all came to the white lotus searching for something and left. Completely changed, and not usually exactly the version of what they bargained for. So let's start off with the Ratliff family. I thought their whole storyline has been so fascinating throughout the season, and of course we have that.

Lovely connection to a Bravo show, Southern Charm. The Ratliff family characters did study Southern charm with Timothy Ratliff facing pretty much the end of life as they know it and all of their wealth back home being in the center of financial fraud case. Leading him to figure out what this means when their entire identity has been built on wealth, and he hears from each and every single one of his family members outside of poor, sweet baby Lachlan that they could never live with less, and they're simply not meant to live in uncomfortable life.

And honestly, honey Victoria, I get you Queen. But um, don't say that to him because he is about to take you out like Jim Jones style. So let's talk about this whole unique ending, shall we? It begins with Lachlan and Piper coming back from staying overnight where Piper was hoping to live for another year and brought the whole family here for this very reason.

And yet she comes back realizing that a no Lachlan, you cannot come with me here. That's not what she wants. She does not want her younger brother following her and quote, you know, being the reason that he quote, ruins his own life. And then she realizes in a moment of. Sad realization that she simply cannot live with less, that she needs air conditioning and she needs better food.

And she's crying this to a very obviously thrilled Victoria Ratliff, her mom, who's thrilled to hear that she does not. One to live in the monastery for a year and takes her to go shopping and celebration and saying, honey, it's okay. You know, it actually is more offensive if we don't enjoy our wealth.

Which then leads us to Tim realizing that, oh shit, all of my kids would rather die. Then come back to the reality of the mistakes that I made. Of course, we get little Easter eggs dropped, like the constant comments of, it's your last day. Go enjoy it. Tim has a conversation with the youngest son, the last one, who he is not asked if he could live life with less, with less money and wealth.

And he says, you know what? Yeah, I can. Ah. And our hearts are like, oh, yay. Maybe that means he's safe, but wait. But wait. So he convinces Lach Linda leaves and we see Tim prepare a poisonous smoothie made of the ground up seeds from the suicide tree. And alas, we see that what people have theorized to possibly happen looks like it's about to happen when he makes this poisonous pina colada mix.

And yet spares, Lachlan. Question. This poor guy, this is the part that pissed me off the most. I was screaming at the tv. So the dad's plan is to kill the entire family in front of Lachlan, but he's the only one that survives and has to live on less as an orphan. I'm confused. That to me seems like that was the Lorazepam way of thinking.

Just slow doesn't make sense. So I think. We're gonna leave it at that. But luckily he changes his mind. And one of the greatest moments of the episode, slapping the pina colada glass out of Saxon's hands and it crashing to the floor. Coconut milk is off, coconut milk is off. And Victoria, so have you ever heard of wine?

So that's, that was a terrible accident. I'm so sorry. And I'm Texan. I just don't sound like it. So. Yet it gets even more twisty, turny in the final scenes because although the family was spared after not drinking the poisonous pina coladas, then Lachlan finally decides to make himself a protein smoothie.

That Saxon had so, so kindly told him to be a man and do it for himself. Um, and I started crying right then and there. I mean, kind of. Um, but we see him about to die and he has a near death experience. And I mean, tears are flowing of, of course, the most innocent of the mall is essentially sacrificed. For the dad's inability to cop up to his felonious mistakes and tell his family what's going on, nearly kills his youngest son, and we see that that's the moment where he realizes perhaps life is more than the material items and the wealth and that the possibility of losing his family.

Is worse. So that's good. We see that him learn that in that moment. And the best part is when he wakes up and the first thing he says to his dad is, I think I saw God. Which is a beautiful tie into the theme of this battle between spirituality and materialistic hedonism, and. Who we are in the midst of those two things.

One thing to really note that was also a beautiful kind of callback was in the very first episode, there's this scene where you see the three siblings sitting, looking like the three monkeys of the Hear No Evil. See no evil speak No evil, and you've got Piper who is reading a book and headphones on. You have Saxon drinking a beverage and.

Uh, Lachlan, just kind of innocently sitting there, smiling. And then in the final episode you see them completely opposite of the way they came. Instead, Saxon's the one reading, and you have Piper who's smiling, and it was said in an interview, if you notice, when she walks back into the villa. In the morning to see your dad before they go to breakfast.

She has really messy hair. Well, a plot point that was cut out of the show according to Mike White was that she and Zion. Belinda's son was supposedly hooked up and got together. She, so she was coming back after having lost her virginity to Zion. So that's why in that scene she has messy hair and she's just a new woman and is smiling and glowing.

And then you've got Lachlan, who, poor man, just survived near death, maybe lost a bit of his own innocence. Now I do really wanna know. What happens with the Ratliff family when they get back home? You know, so maybe that's a spinoff series. Mike White, if you're listening now, let's move on to the three girly pops.

We've got Lori, Jacqueline, and Kate. And mind you, the poor girl Lori, just had a hell of a night with one of the, one of the Russians who she hooked up with and then had to jump out of a building to leave and uh, he asked her basically to z him like 10 grand or something. That was a funny comedic moment there.

Gets back to her friends, you know, happily hanging out, and there's that, just that sense of being left out and her sense of identity comparing. To her other two friends that she's on this trip with, and it was in their final dinner scene where, you know, Jacqueline kind of spouts off on this. I just love you too, Jacqueline, being the, the famous girly played by Michelle Mo Monahan talking about how wonderful the trip has been and just how perfect and lovely that their friends are.

And then Lori pipes up with this, you know, very heavy look on her face and. It kind of turns up to be the only honest one. Definitely goes not where I thought it was gonna go, but her monologue, another Emmy winning monologue. Might I add where Lori says, you know what? I have been sad this whole trip. I've been sad because I've tried to find meaning in so many different ways from.

You know, her religion was work and then her religion was love and that failed her. And then motherhood failed her too. And she came to the realization that it's time, is that what makes her life meaningful? And she ends up saying she's happy to just be at the table. I'm glad you have your pretty face. I.

Friend, and I'm glad you have your pretty life other friend, and I'm just glad to be at the table. And I think it's purposefully not entirely satisfying this ending because I think as the audience, you kind of want Lori to go off on these friends. Clearly it's a bit, they have their faults. They're talking about each other all the time when the other isn't around.

You know, there's that awkward, toxic trio dynamic going on and all of that. I think it's actually because that's real life. Real life is messy and longtime friends may go through things or may not speak for a while, but that's what's so beautiful about women friendships is there's so much meaning. And I think it was an honest ending.

And I think it also shows that actually. Lori May have been the one to take at least something out of the trip, and we don't really know if Jacqueline or Kate has, and of course Chelsea and Rick's love story, their arc, you know what I eat, my initial words. I originally had said that they seem to be the least interesting of the travelers.

But you know, they turned out to be one of the more interesting storylines. Of course, everybody loves Chelsea's innocent, pure hearted, romantic attitude, and she has a commitment to romanticizing life. And I can respect that, although we come to learn that that can also be, well, can be fatal. And it just, the juxtaposition between her and Rick, his more, his darker kind of depth theier traumatic leaning.

History. The hints were dropped throughout of Chelsea saying, you know, I feel like it's a battle between love and evil, and one of us is going to win, and this kind of fatalist look at their relationship, like, we're going to be together forever and more. Fates are intertwined. We're cosmically linked in.

All of that good stuff. We see Saxon kind of learning all of this and really learning from Chelsea. So she does serve as like a spiritual guide in a way. She may not have been able to do it with Rick, her boyfriend, but she did it with Saxon as he witnesses, kind of their very romantic beach reunion when Rick comes back from Bangkok after partying all night, and um, having the standoff with the hotel white Lotus owner who supposedly killed his father, which we all know now turns out.

That was his father. And how do we learn That, of course, is right when we think they're saved and they're happy together and Rick is, you know, somewhat comfortable with the way that shook out. He then sees Jim again at the hotel and leaves bales Chelsea, and runs away to go find the meditation. Coach or therapist, they're not very clear that he talked to you in the first episode because he needs to calm himself down largely because Jim says, you know what confronts him, says your mom is a hoe and it's a good thing you never got to know your dad.

So, um, yeah, that pissed him off and he doesn't get to talk to the therapist 'cause she's off talking to Zion, you know, just all the stars aligning in all the wrong ways. And proceeds to then see Jim and his wife Sri to law, the owners with the Girl Gang, and there's a shootout and he shoots Jim straight in the chest only to learn from RI to law.

That, that, that Jim was his father the whole time and then added even more multilayered. When we see our sweet dear Chelsea is a victim to the circumstance and is hit by one of the stray bullets and dies in front of Rick. Then the other storyline is brought into this with our guy Talk who we love, guy Talk, but the poor man, I don't know if he was meant to be a security guard.

He runs over and I guess. Sarrita law's, bodyguards didn't wanna do anything. Actually I think one of them got shot at sarrita Law's urging guy talk does end up shooting Rick in the back twice, killing both Rick and Chelsea now and a bodyguard. And having forcing Guy talk to really betray his own morals that he's been battling against this whole season, um, through his Buddhist religion and.

Just his own personal morals of being a nonviolent man that we saw in the beginning when he let the, the burglars go by at the entrance and all of that. And him speaking with mooc, asking what would the Buddha do and his kind of hesitancy to be violent. And yet Guy Talk does eventually get his promotion and his girl after.

Betraying himself. So it's kind of this, again, this whole idea of sacrificing maybe what you truly need for what you want. This is added even more clear with Belinda and Zion, their story arc alongside Gary kind of coming to a close this season. When eventually Belinda's son does convince Gary to up the ante to $5 million and against Belinda's own morals and her own hesitations, accepts the money, the hush money from Gary to not say anything about Greg's possible involvement with Tanya's death.

Another little added fun, uh, connection here is Belinda basically ends up doing the exact same thing that Tanya did to her to Hai her Thai lover who she agreed to. She didn't fully agree though, but spoke about starting a spa together. Woof. I mean, to pull all of that together and tie all of that together in an hour and 40 minutes, I think is quite impressive.

Given it was, you know. Seven plus hours of all the other episodes leading up to it. The episode was titled Amor Fai, which is a Latin phrase, as well as a callback to one of Chelsea's lines when she's talking with Rick at that breakfast before the shootout goes down, which means it's a concept that encourages embracing all aspects of life, both the good and the bad.

As they're essential and necessary for personal growth and fulfillment. Essentially, the love of one's fate and attitude of accepting what is, and really radical acceptance, which is also a bit of a Buddhist theory and concept as well, a major one, which ties in, I think, all of the story arcs and storylines in the sense that.

Nearly all of them are fighting to accept either a certain aspect or situation in their lives or about themselves. My conclusion on this, and my personal opinion is that if a TV show and a finale can have me talk in this long about it and the internet going absolutely Buck Wild the way it is right now with white lotus content and characters and you know.

This kind of thing that says a whole lot. That means that show is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Art is supposed to get you to talk, you know? And whether it's something like this that has deep meaning or one of my personal favorite Bravo shows that maybe isn't all that deep, it's all, I think that's what makes a good show is can you talk about it?

And here we are talking about it together. Season four also, by the way, has been confirmed. I believe there's a plan for something like Seven Seasons, but that's not official. I think the idea is that Mike White wants to make a season on one of each of the deadly sins. As always, thank you so much for listening, homies.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Be sure to tell me your thoughts, and if you have any topic interest that you would like for me to cover, feel free to message me. That too, it doesn't cost anything to send it. The send us a text link will be down at the bottom of the episode show notes where all the other links live, so it'll be easier to find.

You can find us online at our new website, www.easilyentertainedpodcast.com, and on all podcast streaming platforms. So choose the one you like. We will have video podcasts coming out soon. That is still being worked on, and I'm very excited to bring that to you guys. Soon. So look out for that. And, um, in the meantime, stay chill, homies.

Bye-bye.