Who Dies on ‘the White Lotus’ Season 3? Buddhist Ethics Give Some Clues

• Season three of ‘The White Lotus’ explores themes of id and spirituality in Thailand.
• Creator Mike White is enthusiastic about Buddhist rules, which influenced the character’s arcs this season.
• Greg’s storyline continues from season two, hinting at karmic penalties for his previous actions.

Id is a jail. That is the working thesis of season three of Mike White’s hit HBO satire “The White Lotus.” To be on the nostril for this season’s Thailand-set exploration of privilege and hijinks, the road is uttered by a Buddhist monk within the premiere episode.

White has used every season’s location and its that means within the American consciousness to attract out the mess of interpersonal relationships among the many resort’s workers and friends. Within the first season, the colonial afterlife of Hawaii set the scene for exploring rich, predominantly white vacationers’ extractive relationships with the locals who serve them. The romance of Italy in season two shaped the backdrop for the passions, affairs, familial and marital drama of the group who visited Sicily.

In season three, the spirituality of Thailand rattles the cages of id The White Lotus’ Western vacationers lock themselves in. It is a location that enables the present to look at Jap spirituality and satirize the way in which Western vacationers acceptable it for their very own self-help holidays.

“They’re all in some sort of harm,” White stated of his Thailand White Lotus guests in an interview with Time. The dramatic irony is that the struggling they’ve come to cleanse themselves of is attributable to the very factor that allowed them to be there within the first place — the exorbitant wealth and privilege they wield.

That irony seemingly is not misplaced on White, who takes particular pleasure in ensuring his characters — even the lovable ones — get what’s coming to them. You possibly can name it karma, which simply so occurs to be a key precept of Buddhism, Thailand’s dominant faith.

So who’s due for some karmic reimbursement this season? Here is how the main tenets of Buddhist philosophy may provide some clues.

Prisons of id

White has private expertise with Thailand and Buddhism.

“I had a Buddhist self-help section after I had a nervous breakdown in my 30s,” he informed Time in January. “I exploit Buddhist ideas as a technique to kind of set up my concepts.”

Time in Buddhist philosophy does not work the identical as time in Western philosophy. Within the West, time is linear. Our lives have a hard and fast begin date — beginning — and finish date — demise.

In Buddhism, time is round. Life is a cycle of demise and rebirth. Id is not as mounted inside a cycle of reincarnation, since you would be reborn into a better or decrease caste within the subsequent life, relying on the karma you make on this one.

To be caught up within the materials circumstances of the current creates the “jail of id” mentioned on the present. Every group of Western vacationers is fighting the prisons of their very own identities ultimately or one other.

For the Southern Ratliff household, notably the dad and mom, pill-popping Victoria (Parker Posey) and burdened Duke dad Tim (Jason Isaacs), their identities are outlined by having good values and by being profitable. All that’s about to come back crashing down, although, since Tim’s workplace is being scrutinized by the feds for a cash laundering scheme he participated in years in the past.

Rick (Walton Goggins) is clearly laid low with the jail of his personal id, which has led him on a closely implied revenge tour to Thailand to trace down the particular person liable for his father’s demise. The fixation on his father, his origin story, and the vacancy it is left him with is what the Buddhists would name attachment (derogatory) — the type that solely causes you struggling.

The trio of girls on a ladies’ journey are trapped by the competitors they’ve constructed up with each other. They’re always vying for energy over each other, to be seen as essentially the most profitable of the three. “It isn’t a midlife disaster; it is a victory lap,” Southern housewife Kate (Leslie Bibb) insists in episode one.

Karmic reimbursement

“The White Lotus” is ostensibly an anthology, however in case you’ve seen multiple season, you recognize that is not precisely true. In Italy, Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) was the throughline from the primary season in Hawaii, and you would say she met her karmic finish within the Mediterranean for the false guarantees she made Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) in Hawaii.

In Thailand, Greg (Jon Gries) is the throughline from the earlier season. Once we encounter him on Koh Samui, he is assumed an alias “Gary” and denies having ever been to the White Lotus in Hawaii, the place he met Tanya and Belinda. In case you consider every season as one cycle of reincarnation, then Thailand is Greg’s subsequent life after the one he left in Italy, which successfully concluded with Tanya’s demise.

After all, the viewers is aware of all concerning the dangerous karma Greg stirred up in Sicily by organizing his spouse’s hit. For the reason that episode 4 teaser exhibits Belinda closing in on Greg with slightly little bit of web sleuthing, it is truthful to count on his outdated life to come back flooding again.

In Buddhism, you may’t enter a brand new life with out balancing the karma, good and dangerous, that you’ve got made in your earlier one. Greg, liable for the demise of Tanya on the finish of final season, nonetheless managed to flee unscathed.

It is truthful to count on he’ll be getting some cosmic payback on the finish of this one, whether or not it comes within the type of a snake chew, a poisoned seed, or a watery demise on the resort grounds. If Thailand has something to show him, it is which you can’t begin over and not using a little karmic justice.