The White Lotus recap: ‘Near-death experiences’, mean girls and the Greg/Gary riddle

Welcome back to The White Lotus Wellness Check, a scientific ranking based on nothing. Grab a fruity cocktail and let’s go!

Warning: These recaps, where we rank which characters are having the most relaxing stay, are packed with spoilers. Only read if you have watched episode two of season three of The White Lotus.

MOST RELAXED

Belinda: The only stress in Belinda’s life is that the person soaking her feet in milk is too handsome, a type of stress that I wish for us all.

Belinda, every nerve in her body absolutely electrified with stress.Credit: HBO

She did seem slightly stressed when she spotted Gary, formerly known as Greg, but it was the type of stress that doesn’t compare to a handsome man saying, “Do you want me on my back?”

Gaitok: Gaitok is having such a great day! First, he and Mook eat lunch together and he confesses he likes her! She just laughs, but that’s OK!

Later on, Mook tells Gaitok she is worried about him! OK, this is because Gaitok was attacked by an armed robber who he accidentally let into the hotel because he was busy pretending to be a boxer, but still. Mook was worried about him!

“Mook asked me why my head was bleeding, should I set the wedding date yet?”Credit: HBO

NOT TOTALLY RELAXED

Jaclyn, Kate and Laurie: Kate is strategically diabolical, like the meanest girl you went to high school with or a fascist dictator. Her playbook is simple: wait until one friend leaves the room, lightly compliment them to the remaining friend and then turn that compliment into an observation about them looking tired (old), being overly concerned with ageing (narcissist), or having the gall to raise a child in New York, where children throw furniture and are probably fellating each other at eight years old (ah … no, there was no subtext to that one).

Jaclyn and Laurie, both panting to not be the most tragic there, are willing participants. Jaclyn suggests Laurie looks “defeated” because she probably didn’t get that promotion at work she was bragging about.

Kate: “I thought she looked great.”

Jaclyn: “She does, very great, you’re spot on about that.”

Kate: “She does, she does ... A little tired though.”

Jaclyn: “YES TIRED, VERY TIRED, IS SHE AN ALCOHOLIC DO YOU THINK?”

Should this image come with a trigger warning?Credit: HBO

But hey, don’t you worry about Laurie! Sure, she’s divorced, sure she’s secretly miserable! But her health mentor told her that she has the levels of a much younger woman! Her friends are so supportive of this revelation.

Laurie: “My fat mass was under 25 per cent!”

Jaclyn: “... Are you sure?”

Kate: “At home, I only eat chicken, nothing else.”

Laurie decides Jaclyn is also secretly unhappy because her younger husband never wants to see her. Kate agrees and adds “she’s so funny” which, when said with a certain inflection, is the cruellest thing one woman can say about another.

Rick and Chelsea: Chelsea is determined Rick should have a stress management session with a woman named Amrita, who quickly discovers Rick was born stressed because his mother was an addict and his dad was murdered. Hard to meditate your way out of that one!

“It’s good to talk about things with a wise Indian,” Chelsea advises. Rick advises her that she is an idiot.

After her “near-death experience” (standing in the corner of a shop while it was being robbed), Chelsea convinces Rick to have dinner with her new friend Chloe and Chloe’s boyfriend “Gary”, who we know as Greg. You know, the Greg who maybe had Jennifer Coolidge’s character killed for her fortune?

Gary/Greg is not very good at pretending to be an innocent man. When Rick asks what he did for a living, Gary/Greg replies, “This and that”. Determined that he remains the most suss man on the island, Rick is like, “I ALSO DO THIS AND THAT, FAIRLY MYSTERIOUS, NO?”

“I’m pretty dodgy too, just FYI.”Credit: HBO

Rick is now off to Bangkok to pursue ailing businessman Jim Hollinger (do we think he killed Rick’s dad?), which Chelsea is confused by for exactly two seconds before making out with him anyway.

LEAST RELAXED

The Ratliff family: Victoria Ratliff is having a hell of a time. She’s barely awake. She’s taking benzos while getting a massage. She’s being rude to acquaintances at brunch, looking at irritating women like they’re a baby trying to eat their own nappy. She’s saying things like, “Actresses are basically prostitutes” to enormous laughs.

“Live, laugh, love, right guys. OK, mama needs to sleep now.”Credit: HBO

Piper is having a horrible time. Creepy men are staring at her during yoga. She is surrounded by “rich bohemians from Malibu in lululemon yoga pants” when she wants to be surrounded by Buddhist monks. Her Adderall-addled older brother keeps speculating about her sex life, and her other brother won’t admit the existence of God. What’s a girl gotta do to finish her thesis around here!

But Timothy is having the toughest time of all. Firstly, the time in Thailand continues to be the opposite of the time in the US. Then, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal keep hounding him, and neither of them wants to do a “We love Timothy” article. Then, when he finally gets on the phone with Kenny, his business partner, Kenny is crying and saying things like, “You need a lawyer, like, yesterday”.

Timothy, full of empathy, tells Kenny to kill himself.

“I NEED A LAWYER, LIKE YESTERDAY,” Timothy hisses into the phone to his assistant while watching his rotten family go to bed.

“Wait a second, are any of my rotten kids lawyers?”Credit: HBO

The White Lotus streams on Mondays on Binge.

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