This is what I’ve wanted from season 3 all along. Looking for a recap of season 3, episode 5? Check in here. Welcome back, vacationers. If you read my recap last week, you’ll know that I finally came clean about my issues with The White Lotus season 3. I can watch only so much of a slow burn before I burn out. Thankfully, this episode hits like one of Victoria’s lorazepams in my bloodstream. Aside from the trio of Jaclyn, Laurie, and Kate—who continue to spin out over stale high school beef in a distant corner of the resort!—we actually see the rest of series creator Mike White’s exceptional cast make some moves. Saxon begins to confront some hard truths about his muscle-bound life. Piper tries to break free from a generational cycle of privileged pain. Belinda and Greg come face-to-face, and Gaitok handles his gun like a goddamn champ. More than that, though, episode 6 finally delivers the deeper explorations of spirituality that we expect from season 3. Don’t get me wrong: Sam Rockwell’s monologue from episode 5 was great. But I loved that this episode had an earnest note of spirituality in our smartphone life. I’ll just drop what the Buddhist (excuse me, BOOOOODIIIIIISTTTT, as Victoria would say) monk tells Piper. “Many young people come here from your country,” he says. Why? “Spiritual malaise,” he continues. “Lost connection with nature, with a family. Lost connection with the spirit. What is left? The self. Identity. Chasing money, pleasure. Everyone runs from pain towards pleasure. But they get there, only to find more pain. You cannot outrun pain.” That’s this season in a nutshell, right? I’m looking at Tim, Rick, and Laurie, especially—all characters who are trying to outrun some sort of pain at home. And let me tell you: Chasing money and pleasure (and revenge, in Rick’s case) ain’t working for them. At long last, we’ve finally moved on from giggling about the Ratliff clan’s accents—which, fine, I know I just did—to exploring the root of their pain. There’s what Piper told the monk: “I’ve been feeling a little lost. Lately, it’s felt like everything is pointless and the things my family cares about I don’t care about, you know? And your books have helped me get through a lot of bad days.” Last episode, Tim admitted to feeling like he was fucked from day one of his life. Now Piper’s quest to break free from the Ratliff dynasty finally makes sense. Not long after Tim’s serious contemplation of suicide, he asks the monk, “What do you think happens when we die?” The answer: “No more separated. No more suffering. One consciousness. Death is a happy return. Like coming home.” Later that night, Tim once again imagines his own suicide—but he kills Victoria first. Which makes sense, in a sick way, because she just told him that a life without immense wealth isn’t worth living. It’s almost as if he’s ready to die, but love for his family is holding him back. As for the Ratliff boys? Yikes. Just yikes. In short: incest! So much incest. Like, Lochlan-jacked-off-Saxon-in-a-drunken-stupor incest. Our good friend Chelsea transcends this moment from a classic White Lotus shenanigan to something a little more meaningful. At the pool, Chelsea says to Saxon that “once you’ve connected with someone on a spiritual level, you can’t go back to cheap sex. Hooking up with you would be an empty experience.” Saxon replies, “I mean, how would you know that?” The kicker, from Chelsea: “Because I know. Because you’re soulless. Sad…” The look on Saxon’s face says it all. Excited for the return of ‘The Last of Us’? Don’t miss essential news, interviews, and recaps in our newsletter. Sign Up Now This is such a good line from Kate, even though she continues to stir the damn pot. In episode 6, we see the aftermath of Jaclyn’s “sleepover” with Valentin. Kate alerts Laurie about it. Laurie doesn’t like it. Laurie confronts Jaclyn. “It’s like nobody ever changes,” Laurie says. “We’re the same people we were in the tenth grade.” Once again, I am begging for this crew to play with the rest of season 3’s vacationers. The White Lotus keeps telling us that bad things always happen in threes. Well, it’s time to show us what this trifecta is capable of! My other small nitpick this episode is with Rick. His relationship with Chelsea is so interesting. They’re the show’s first age-gap couple, and the first sugar-daddy situation, to actually have some real heart behind it. Instead, he’s way out in Bangkok, spending a good two episodes ramping up to a confrontation with the man who killed his father. Rick convinces the dopey Sritala to host him and director Sam Rockwell for drinks at her home. Then the last sound we hear in this episode is her mysterious husband’s voice. The final shot shows Rick walking toward him. My only question is: Did he follow through with his promise to leave the gun behind? Belinda and Pornchai! Finally! They wake up the morning after their implied boinking, only to meet … Belinda’s son, Zion. You should remember him from the season 3 premiere—he’s midway through a wellness session when he hears gunshots. Zion’s in Thailand to hang with his mom and blow off some steam after finishing his schoolwork. Unfortunately, we already know that he won’t have much of a vacation before disaster breaks out. So let’s just jump straight to the Greg of it all. He wants to throw a party at his massive home. As he tells Chloe: “Bring [the Ratliff brothers] over tonight. I want to have people over … I want to deal with something. And I need your help.” At the very end, he approaches an understandably jumpy Belinda to invite her to the party. “I think we should talk,” he says. “Last house, top of the hill. Come anytime.” There are only two episodes left in season 3. The shooting takes place on the White Lotus premises—not at Greg’s house during a dinner party. Here’s my prediction. My best guess is that episode 7 will see the Ratliffs, Chloe, Chelsea, Belinda, and Zion converge upon Greg’s pad for dinner. Chaos will absolutely ensue, but we won’t see any bloodshed. In the finale, it’s possible that the girls-trip storyline will somehow go down as the Chekhov’s gun of this whole thing, with Valentin and his crew of Russian mobsters descending on the resort for another robbery. Yes, BrotherSteve, I’m rolling with your theory that you commented on my last recap: Valentin and his boys r0bbed the jewelry store earlier this season. Let me add one wrinkle. This time, Gaitok saves the day. At the shooting range, Gaitok is asked if he has a killer instinct—and he says yes. I believe it. Inside the Real-Life White Lotus in Thailand I Wanted Payoff From ‘The White Lotus’ Episode 5 ‘The White Lotus’ S3 E4: Greg, the Endgame Villain Thank Jason Isaacs for Lucius Malfoy’s Iconic Wig Jason Isaacs Is the Master of the Serve ‘The White Lotus’ S3 E3 Makes Everyone a Suspect When Every Episode of ‘The White Lotus’ S3 Airs ‘The White Lotus’ S3 E2 Blows the Mystery Open A Guide to ‘The White Lotus’ S3’s Vacationers ‘The White Lotus’ S3 Could Use a Spiritual Cleanse Was Patrick Schwarzenegger Nude in ‘White Lotus’? Patrick Schwarzenegger Will Have a Martini, Please A Part of Hearst Digital Media We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. ©2025 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Attribution:
This article was summarized and republished from the original source.
Please check the original article here: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a64223456/the-white-lotus-episode-6-recap/.