The Great ‘White Lotus’ Season 3 Debate

Chris and Andy break down the finale of ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 and reflect on how they felt about this season as a whole. They debate whether this finale episode had more style or substance (1:00), the Buddhist themes that were heavily present throughout this episode (14:27), and where this season stacked up against the first two (45:56). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Senior Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production and Editing: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe Show. That's right, I'm back to have the same in-depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're gonna talk about the games, yeah, the games, the X's and O's, the drama, the trades, the playoffs are coming up. And now, you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're gonna love, so make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe Show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts. Let's go!

• 0:40Speaker 01

  I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk, now!

• 0:46Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, protein shake in hand, it's Andy Greenwald!

• 0:58Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, I thought you were gonna say that I have a beautiful face and a beautiful life. But, okay, no, that's fine.

• 1:05Chris Ryan?

  Greenwald, we are here today, it's Monday, it's White Lotus Day, so we'll be talking mostly about the season three finale today. A little bit of stuff at the end. Housekeeping, obviously, ringer-tv to watch us, [email protected] to email us. You can also watch us where you listen to us on Spotify, on the on-platform player, and you can follow us on Instagram, thewatchpod underscore. Back in LA, almost died in Sunset Boulevard coming in, just loving life. I wanna get into this, though, man. I wanna get straight to brass tacks.

• 1:35Andy Greenwald?

  Do people, people watching on video see that we're raw dogging it? We got no headphones, we're just talking only to each other here.

• 1:40Chris Ryan?

  Am I talking loud?

• 1:44Chris Ryan?

  I wanna get right into White Lotus.

• 1:45Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:46Chris Ryan?

  We have not done any tipping about how either of us felt about last night's episode.

• 1:52Andy Greenwald?

  No, you were just complaining about traffic.

• 1:54Chris Ryan?

  Uh, so why don't we go just broad strokes, 10,000-foot view of how you felt about the episode?

• 2:03Andy Greenwald?

  I'm very curious to hear how you felt and eventually to hear how the world at large felt, because I loved it. I thought that it was, first of all, I thought it was a beautifully directed episode. I thought that there were moments of cross cutting and just fades from scenes of waves to people's faces and the building of tension that really reminded me how exemplary Mike White is as a director and certainly as a director of his own material. I felt exhilarated throughout much of it because we don't have many opportunities like this at the moment on TV to be on the edge of our seat about something and he really leans into that.

• 2:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:47Andy Greenwald?

  Something was ending, lives would be ended and that tension, he's among the very best, I think, in terms of conducting that dramatic orchestra of like, something's about to drop, is this the thing? Oh no, is he teasing the thing? Is he playing with us? Is he hinting? I really enjoy that.

• 3:06Chris Ryan?

  I just to jump in, completely agree. I thought this was a masterfully directed episode of television. There were some shots of specifically the blonde blob, as Leslie Bibb said that they are referred to.

• 3:18Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 3:19Chris Ryan?

  Carrie Coon coming out on her balcony and seeing her friends in the pool, that sort of shot of them all in repose together on the chaise after dinner.

• 3:29Andy Greenwald?

  We're gonna be circling back to that moment because I have a lot of questions about how old friends are meant to behave. So, please, put a pin in that. It's in my notes.

• 3:37Chris Ryan?

  So, yes, I agree with you and then there are moments in this episode that I thought were, you know, I wouldn't go as far to say like Hitchcockian, but like, very, very, very well done in terms of like, building tension, building suspense, torturing the audience to some extent. And I think that there was, there's an interesting conversation to be had about Mike White as like, maybe trolling his audience a little bit in some places.

• 4:02Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think that he is, I think one of the things that's tough to get your arms around with the show, it's responsible for many of the reasons that many people love it. And I think the reasons that some people bump against it is that there's very much a ghost alive in this machine. He is the animating force behind it. His devilish sense of humor at times, his meta-awareness of how entertainment works, his unironic love of elements of camp, satire, of parody, and of, also of luxury. It's alive throughout every episode. And I think sometimes what is jarring, there are moments on the show, and this season really was a test case for it.

• 4:42Andy Greenwald?

  There are moments where you feel one person's hands on the dials. And sometimes it feels discordant or jarring because it's maybe too far in a certain direction. That's a moment that, I had that experience last night in an episode that I loved, when Zion was selling Greg on his mother's investment plan. I was like, this feels like it's tuned in from a different show. Both just like how it's shot, how it's being performed, how broad it feels, how maybe stupid it is. Not in, not in the framing, but like in what he is doing in this moment. But that is the ride you buy the ticket for when you invest in a show that is the work of one creative guy

• 5:26Andy Greenwald?

  with one particular Liam Neeson voice, set of skills and sensibilities. Do you know what I mean? And I, and I think what's been interesting for my journey across the season was trying my best to get attuned to the guy at the controls. And for the most part, I felt like I was locked in by the end. I thought that this episode delivered in a very interesting and very meaningful way on the promises set up seven weeks ago.

• 5:51Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was 70% of an excellent episode of television. And then I thought the last 30% really fell flat for me.

• 5:58Andy Greenwald?

  I can't wait to talk about that.

• 5:59Chris Ryan?

  So I'm speaking mostly about the end of the episode and we can start there.

• 6:02Andy Greenwald?

  You want to work backwards?

• 6:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we can work backwards, we can jump around, we can just hit the characters themselves, but.

• 6:09Chris Ryan?

  I think that there's always been a very smart usage of these people will leave, you know, like their departure from these resorts is not necessarily going to be timed perfectly or allow for CODAs or allow for resolution. And I'm really not addicted to those things in general. Like, I'm fine with abrupt endings. I thought that there was something a little bit underbaked about the way that these people left the resort.

• 6:36Andy Greenwald?

  You mean without following proper police protocol?

• 6:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't need like a procedural to begin, but I just thought like Saxon was pretty close with Chelsea by the end of that week. Like, I think that he would have commented or wanted to have recognized that she had just been shot, you know, like I thought that there was like a weird missing piece in this episode.

• 6:57Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, well, let's go run right at that. I may be, and by the end of this podcast, this may be just clear, that I'm willing to do a little labor behind the scenes to make it make sense and to make it work. My takeaway, like, for example, for me, one of those moments that I kind of solved in my own head was why Lachlan doesn't wash out the blender. And I was like, oh, he kind of was curious about pina coladas. And he felt like he wasn't given his chance to try one. So he didn't mind building his power smoothie on the back

• 7:26Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 7:26Andy Greenwald?

  of a poisoned pina colada. And then I was like, okay, so that explains why that happened. And then I moved on with my life. In that, in what you're speaking to, I was willing to just kind of assume that the timing was fudged, that they were already on the boat or on the dock when the gunshots were ringing out, you know, that there wasn't much of a, I did not re-watch.

• 7:46Chris Ryan?

  They're on the same boat as the girls, and the girls witnessed the murder.

• 7:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you're piercing my belief balloon here.

• 7:52Chris Ryan?

  I think that this is the balancing act that I, Mike White, does very well for the most part, which is the more impressionistic, kind of like, let's talk about these people and their connection. Let me show these people and their connection to their environment and the way in which the water and the heat and the jungle kind of influences their behaviors and stuff. And then there is the sort of very practical, like, timing and pacing and tempo. This was a supersized episode, about an hour and a half long, I believe.

• 8:22Andy Greenwald?

  It was. Hour 27.

• 8:24Chris Ryan?

  I was just very surprised, given the runtime. Honestly, I would have taken two hours. I just thought that there was something missing at the end of the season.

• 8:32Andy Greenwald?

  I'm definitely gonna be caping up for it, in a way. And I should say that I am very open to some of these criticisms, and I probably don't disagree with a bunch of them.

• 8:41Chris Ryan?

  I'm not necessarily saying that like negates the accomplishments.

• 8:44Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think there's two things. Like, I think you can make the case, from a hazy, we're just kinda watching it on TV, 10,000-foot perspective, that, yes, the blonde blob was present for a shooting, they ran. So they probably were hustled onto the dock. They don't know that there were more victims of that shooting, right? Like, they don't know who it was.

• 9:03Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 9:04Andy Greenwald?

  The names hadn't been released yet, or whatever. So I'm willing to believe that they're spooked, but they don't actually know what happened.

• 9:10Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 9:11Andy Greenwald?

  Specifics of it. The second thing is, there is, and I'm not, genuinely, I'm not trying to like paint you with this brush, but I do think that there is a tendency in a lot of group think, or group-written television shows, to show your work and explain the answers to everything. How did these events affect each character that we've come to know, and what is their takeaway from it? And we will just put all the cards on the table. One of the things that I think the season was slow to reveal, but I think the end really, really brought home, is that you can kind of divide the primary characters into two groups. The ones that Mike White felt very, very interested in, and almost alive inside of,

• 9:51Andy Greenwald?

  in terms of their psychological journey in Thailand, and maybe a little bit through the Wikipedia entry for Buddhism, was very, very present. And the others, who he was amused by and interested in, but only really as reflectors, or reactors, or instigators to those people. And it's not impossible to come out of this finale and be like, oh, this season was about Tim, it was about Rick, it was about Guy Talk, and maybe it was about Lori. And everyone else was in service to their journeys across the season. So I think the hard, maybe we start with the Radliff's, because I think the hardest thing

• 10:30Andy Greenwald?

  for me to get my head around in the first half of the season, in fact, I was complaining about it a lot in the studio, was... Wait, when is the shoe gonna drop? When is he going to tell his family? When are they going to have their grieving and mourning processes over this horrific event that is now at, you know, arm's length because their phones are in a bag in Pam's office? Eventually, I realized, they're not going to find out. Eventually, I realized, this is about Tim's liminal life in this bardo of his own making, where he has to wrestle with what he's done without it actually hitting. Now, for that to work, you need to have Jason Isaacs delivering what may be a low-key career best performance of a guy who just sort of shakes his head like a wet dog and necks pills?

• 11:14Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, that's wild that that's what he did for seven episodes. But that was his journey, and the rest of the family were kind of on board for it. So, I turned off the episode feeling very satisfied with what we were shown in that storyline, that anything more than them looking at their phones and being like, "What?"

• 11:34Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 11:34Andy Greenwald?

  I was good with that, but that is very specifically an autorous creative choice, showing us what he was interested in. And I think one of the nature, part of the nature of White Lotus being so successful, and each character spawning all these fan theories and obsessions, is that some people are gonna be frustrated, being like, "Actually, no, I wanna know what Saxon thinks."

• 11:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think that there's a distinction between, say, the way that people talk about Severance, or the way maybe we've talked about Severance, where-

• 11:58Andy Greenwald?

  Did we talk about Severance?

• 11:59Chris Ryan?

  There are symbols, or images, or plotlines, or character arcs that don't have a satisfying explanation. And then there's just like, "Never mind, you guys don't need to know about that." And it's like, I think it felt a little bit more like, "Never mind, you guys don't need to know about that."

• 12:16Andy Greenwald?

  For which one specifically?

• 12:17Chris Ryan?

  For, I think for the Ratliffs. I think for the Ratliffs coming out of like, I think for everybody who survived that experience, it felt like they were on the boat and that that experience hadn't happened.

• 12:28Andy Greenwald?

  The shooting experience?

• 12:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:30Andy Greenwald?

  But I think the shooting experience wasn't about them. And I do think that is consistent with other seasons of The White Lotus, where some of the characters, when they leave-

• 12:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but that's when like, one body washes up on shore. This isn't like, a mass casualty event that happens at a resort.

• 12:43Andy Greenwald?

  Well, there were multiple bodies in season two. But, good-

• 12:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:46Andy Greenwald?

  But, but I take your point, and I do think that there was a lot, there was some convenient- A lighting of stuff to get to where he wanted to go, which in, and actually, I don't know, maybe I'm just showing my cards here. Like, I do have just more patience for that when it's someone trying to show us something that he cares about as opposed to a failure in a well-staffed eight-person room who dropped the ball when they were tasked with making all the pieces join up together perfectly.

• 13:16Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 13:16Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, one of the major, major flaws, you could look at it two ways. So, one of the major flaws, I think, of the season, and we talked about this when we were previewing the finale last week, was Rick goes to Bangkok to confront Jim.

• 13:31Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 13:31Andy Greenwald?

  And then, as soon as he reaches this moment of enlightenment, goes back to the White Lotus Hotel, parentheses, owned by Jim.

• 13:39Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 13:39Andy Greenwald?

  To greet Chelsea and be happy in his life, and makes no effort to say, "We should probably get out of here, or maybe I'm ready to go," inevitably forcing the conflict that happens. And so, you could look at that and be like, "That's just a huge flaw." Or you could say, "So much about this show is a metaphor for our inability to get out of our own way, to avoid the traps that we set for ourselves, and that maybe there's a Buddhist somewhere who's just like, 'Ah, well, yes, we are never able to check out of ourselves a day early,' or whatever. Am I doing a lot of water-carrying right now?

• 14:16Chris Ryan?

  No, you're not.

• 14:17Andy Greenwald?

  Water that is beautifully crashing against rocks?

• 14:19Chris Ryan?

  I think it's okay to just be like, "I like the show." And I did too. And I thought, thematically, there were ideas that came across in this episode and across the course of this season, specifically about, I think, the way that innocence or purity gets poisoned by things around it, and killed and corrupted in this case. You know, you had Lachlan, who is very self-aware and understands the malignant narcissism of his family members, and is just trying to help and try to participate in their lives. And they, essentially, each one of them rejects him right after he has done that.

• 14:53Andy Greenwald?

  Right after he has made an effort for this.

• 14:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:55Andy Greenwald?

  A real hand-to-hand effort.

• 14:57Chris Ryan?

  And in fact, all he really wants to do is participate in whatever rituals that they have going on, and he does that. Even up to the point of drinking Tim's, you know, sacred pina colada in the morning.

• 15:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that his dad wanted him to.

• 15:09Chris Ryan?

  Chelsea is destroyed by Rick's capacity for violence, you know, and his, his honestly, like, she talks a lot about fate and she talks a lot about what's meant to be, but what was meant to be was that Rick was gonna die, you know, like Rick, I don't think came back from Bangkok really with the enlightenment.

• 15:27Andy Greenwald?

  No.

• 15:28Chris Ryan?

  Like, he came back, he honestly seems like he's starting to get annoyed with Chelsea even before Jim walks back into the hotel.

• 15:34Andy Greenwald?

  There's an interesting moment there. I would also push back on the idea that he, that she was destroyed by his capacity for violence. I think she was destroyed by his inability to escape himself, right? That like,

• 15:42Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 15:42Andy Greenwald?

  She, she says something, it's funny, like, there, there, there's so many people watching this show, and there was some stuff out today that, that, that this season is by far the highest rated cycle of White Lotus, that it's approaching House of the Dragon numbers for HBO. So there are definitely just different types of viewers, and some of whom are gonna be like, wow, a lot of what was said in this episode is surprisingly profound, and it's making me think about stuff about my own life and the patterns that I'm stuck in. And then there are gonna be people who are like, this is pop psychology, that when I Google Buddhist attitude towards choices, that the AI write-up of it is basically the finale of this episode. There's very, there's differing, differing views on that, and they're all kind of valid. I think the interesting thing about the show is its ability

• 16:25Andy Greenwald?

  to maintain the big tent of, God, we really want to explore ourselves, but we also really want rosé.

• 16:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:32Andy Greenwald?

  Who among us? Anyway, the, the, um, the Chelsea thing, I think, is fascinating and tragic, and where I feel the episode, if the episode shorted us, the audience, in any way, it was that it just, I guess by the nature of itself, shorted some of these characters. So that Chelsea's devotion to Rick is...

• 16:54Andy Greenwald?

  It's not that it's thin, because Amy Lou Wood is like the breakout star of the show. And you believe everything that she does and everything, look that she gives with those eyes. But it does seem tragic in the capital T Greek sense of the word, right? That she has bound her fate to him.

• 17:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Mike talked about that on the after- after-episode sort of interview.

• 17:14Andy Greenwald?

  And the moment when I think that you were picking up, I was doing this as well. It's like, has he learned anything? Is he annoyed with her again? It's the moment at breakfast when she says, "We're gonna be together forever." And he says, "That's the plan."

• 17:24Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:25Andy Greenwald?

  And she melts like he just, you know, hit an engagement ring in a donut. Like, it's the most meaningful thing that he said to her. But he says it in a, they must have had a conversation about how he delivers that line, right?

• 17:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that there's probably, um, I think your reading of Rick and Chelsea kind of depends on, I don't know if it's like a worldview test or a litmus test of how you see things. I didn't really think that he was ever going to get what he was looking for. I think that the whole point of that character was that there are some people who want to hang on to the wound forever. That's what's definitional about them, you know? And I think Walton Goggins has talked about that, where it's like, you know, these two people. And I think he's, he's spoken about like seeing this beautiful love story with him and Chelsea, the characters. But he's like, "This is about like a trauma that you just can't ever escape."

• 18:15Andy Greenwald?

  He says, "He ruined my whole life." And she says, you know, "Why can't you let go of the love you didn't get and pay attention to the love you have?"

• 18:21Chris Ryan?

  Well, there's irony in it. I mean, they're in a ridiculous resort in Thailand. They can do whatever they want.

• 18:28Andy Greenwald?

  He has unlimited shirts and they're all beautiful.

• 18:30Chris Ryan?

  And he cannot spend more than five minutes with her the entire time.

• 18:33Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it's absolutely true. I think that, um, the other aspect, and I realize we're jumping around a bunch. But I started to think about the Chelsea character and what else she, what else we were given? And what else she did in, uh, in the show. And again, like I find this fascinating because, um...

• 18:56Andy Greenwald?

  There are aspects of it that I want to bring up that I think are absolutely open to intense criticism. Like, we meet Rick and Chelsea. Rick's immediately like, "I gotta go to Bangkok." He spends half of the season on a different show.

• 19:09Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:09Andy Greenwald?

  And then they come back only for this absolutely, um, when I say like historically tragic, again, I mean like what Mike White said, like, "Oh, this is..."

• 19:18Chris Ryan?

  Romeo and Juliet, yeah.

• 19:19Andy Greenwald?

  It's Oedipus. It's Greek tragedy. I mean, this is an episode where for a moment, and maybe the most fraught moment of its runtime, we are living with the reality that a man has killed his son and a son has killed his father.

• 19:32Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:33Andy Greenwald?

  That's pretty heavy.

• 19:34Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 19:35Andy Greenwald?

  But the Chelsea parts that I'm struck by were the effect that she, the effects that she had on people when Rick isn't around, right? Without being completely devoted to someone whose, whose being she feels tied to, whose, there's an ego in it too, I guess, and I think the show is open to considering that her romance is also fatalism, as she says to him. Like, "To truly love your fate." She has hitched her wagon quite literally to Rick and dies because of slash with him. When Rick is gone and she is still to some degree tethered by the phone, we see a different version of her, which is fun-loving, which is open,

• 20:18Andy Greenwald?

  and which seems to have very healthy boundaries. Like, she...

• 20:22Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 20:22Andy Greenwald?

  She may have both, by not sleeping with Saxon, she may have saved him in a way. Like, the book that she gives him, the advice that she gives him, the resistance that she gives him, may have actually saved him, when in fact she was so focused on saving Rick.

• 20:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:41Andy Greenwald?

  I like, even as I'm, even as I'm monologuing and even as I'm taking on more and more water for the show...

• 20:47Chris Ryan?

  You're fine, man. I think it's cool.

• 20:48Andy Greenwald?

  But I enjoy that, that the show allows me to do that.

• 20:51Chris Ryan?

  I don't want to live in a world where like TV has to be solved and that there is like a right way to make a show and if you don't check all the boxes and balance all the equations, then you've somehow failed. I think that that is something that obviously people think about a lot. You've been in writer's room. I'm sure there have been moments where... Everything needs to be tight and and explained and there are some moments there. It's just like the people will get it. People will infer or we just need this person to be in this room at this point. And we may not be able to have like a airtight, watertight explanation for why.

• 21:22Andy Greenwald?

  By the way, what is the monks? The monks monologue that begins the episode is there is no resolution.

• 21:28Chris Ryan?

  Yes, that's very convenient to put on the beginning of a finale of an episode.

• 21:31Andy Greenwald?

  But again, I think the reason why the show is so compelling.

• 21:34Chris Ryan?

  It's very powerful, but I also think it's like then we can say that for if if a show says they're Buddhist.

• 21:39Andy Greenwald?

  You're fair. It's fair, but here's the thing about White Lotus that I find so compelling. This is a show about pop psychology and sometimes there's a comma between those two words. You know what I mean? It is equally interested in the salacious lifestyle. People are catty with each other. How crazy and fun is this? You're like, Mike White is devilishly giggling on his laptop when he's having brothers jack each other off. And he basically confirms that in his interviews that he wants to be.

• 22:05Chris Ryan?

  Provocative.

• 22:05Andy Greenwald?

  Provocative. He wants to be subversive, but there is a genuine, genuine reverence for very basic tenants of psychology and eastern thought that is rare.

• 22:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Andy Greenwald?

  And the biggest one in this episode, and I think the biggest thesis idea for the season is this fundamental idea that is very, very hard for all of us to to grapple with. And especially in in the way that we built life in in in the West pre tariffs. Now I think we're all pretty into this idea that everything is a choice. Right? That absolutely every single thing we do is a choice. Should we sink the global economy today? Okay, that's a choice.

• 22:44Andy Greenwald?

  The moment with Rick on the bench is one of the greatest examples I've ever seen on screen of the of the truth of that statement. We are on a razor's edge that everything is a choice. We are on a razor's edge of completely different outcomes. And the way that Mike sets this up, the way that he films it, makes it very tactile. Like we're living inside of Rick and he grabs, he he does ask for help. He does.

• 23:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:18Andy Greenwald?

  He he rushes to Amrita and he's like, can you help me? Now. I don't think therapy or mindfulness really works like that. Again, that's a very western shortcut way of like, I took a breathwork class once. I'm good, mom.

• 23:34Andy Greenwald?

  I don't think it really works that way, but he's trying. And she says she'll see him in an hour because what could an hour do? But what could a single second do? Talk about like the butterfly flapping of the wings. When he makes that decision.

• 23:45Chris Ryan?

  I think that that all made sense to me. I didn't mind anything about the way that their story concluded. I think you and I had an interesting disagreement the last time. We talked about one of these episodes where I think that the Rick plotline was speaking to you in a way. And it wasn't speaking to me. And I was like.

• 24:02Andy Greenwald?

  I've been to Thailand, you know.

• 24:03Chris Ryan?

  But I was also like, I think that this guy's.

• 24:07Chris Ryan?

  This smile and this state of kind of equilibrium that he has found is short-lived. Now, that turned out to be right, but for the wrong reasons, probably in my mind. I had nothing, there was nothing wrong with like, I thought everything about the way that he has this meltdown. And that Scott Glenn character kind of like continues to torture him and almost like.

• 24:28Andy Greenwald?

  Twist the knife.

• 24:30Chris Ryan?

  It was almost like cartoonish. He keeps showing up places, you know? And he's got that cane and he's like, ayy.

• 24:36Andy Greenwald?

  And Scott Glenn is quite old now.

• 24:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Andy Greenwald?

  And I think that it was shot to make his limitations physically now a strength. He's so still. And I don't know if that's, I think that's partly because he's just a pretty old guy now. But I think that that helped, like he just, he's like.

• 24:53Chris Ryan?

  He definitely did not have quick twitch time when the guy.

• 24:57Andy Greenwald?

  He didn't do well in the combine. No, he just haunts the place.

• 25:00Chris Ryan?

  He got distracted by like one dude taking self, like selfies. I had no problem with the way that that stuff was staged, all the guy talk stuff.

• 25:09Chris Ryan?

  Or as somebody on Twitter said, forget guy talk, this is gun talk.

• 25:15Andy Greenwald?

  I'm glad we still have jokes.

• 25:16Chris Ryan?

  I had no problem with any of that. And to go back to my innocence being poisoned, obviously, like the gun in the office was always gonna corrupt Guy Talk, you know?

• 25:25Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:27Chris Ryan?

  But I think it was what happened in the last 10 minutes that made very little sense to me. And you can say it's so Western of you to want resolution, but I think that it was dramatically, there was a, there was a, something just out of whack with it dramatically.

• 25:43Andy Greenwald?

  I want to run it back into the other ways that like the choices that we make filtered through, you know, because I think that that was the basis of the Lori storyline as well. I think it was the basis of the Belinda storyline in interesting, interesting ways that complicated what otherwise would be like, wow, that was a happy ending.

• 26:01Andy Greenwald?

  But I don't want to let it go when you're talking about the last 10 minutes. So but specifically, do you mean the way it all played out? And then you felt that there ought to have been more ripple effect, using the water metaphor, of the shootout on the faces or in the storylines of the people leaving the resort?

• 26:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think you could make an expla-, you could say for, say, the Ratlets, you could be like, these are such narcissistic people that they would not have noticed that Lachlan clearly is not well on that boat.

• 26:29Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I would say that also in my experience at hotels, I've never been to a White Lotus, but were one of the guests to fall to his knees and scream for help? I feel like help would come and perhaps too much help in the form of like stomach pumping and things.

• 26:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, also, I, I think we can just, not to get Mr. Yelp here, but suicide tree might be like a little bit of a exaggeration. It seems like everybody imbibed.

• 26:54Andy Greenwald?

  Just a little bit.

• 26:54Chris Ryan?

  In those.

• 26:55Andy Greenwald?

  It's just, it was just a mini sui. It was alright.

• 26:57Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 26:59Andy Greenwald?

  You think, or are you saying the groundskeepers perhaps should have pruned those trees?

• 27:02Chris Ryan?

  Well, first of all, yes. I mean, I don't know why it's just like, don't touch those ones, I could kill you.

• 27:07Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, but that, that's the beauty of it, though. Like, you're right.

• 27:10Chris Ryan?

  Yes, I know.

• 27:11Andy Greenwald?

  But it's also, it's like, it's Garden of Eden, baby, man.

• 27:14Chris Ryan?

  I know, I get it. I- I don't want some eight-minute thing where Victoria is like, what did you do to our son? You know, like.

• 27:25Andy Greenwald?

  Or what did you do to our life?

• 27:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I don't necessarily need Saxon falling to his knees, being like, Chelsea. But.

• 27:34Andy Greenwald?

  Can you do that one more time?

• 27:35Chris Ryan?

  Chelsea. And in some ways, honestly, now the more that I talk about it, it does work in a sense of like, for Saxon, Chelsea is like, like this passing little C-plot of his life that he had for one week while he was on vacation, where everything else in his life changed. It's not like he's like, she's the one that got away.

• 27:56Andy Greenwald?

  No, but, but, for me, the most dramatic thing that happens to Saxon in this episode, if not the last two episodes, is his face when Chelsea runs down the beach to see Rick. And it's very intentionally shot so that their, their reunion is very like, gauzy and romantic, and very, honestly, Mick Bane's boat, it's called Live Forever.

• 28:20Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 28:20Andy Greenwald?

  But it lingered on Saxon being like, this guy? It was very Jason Bateman on Arrested Development, talking about Anne.

• 28:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:29Andy Greenwald?

  And he's like, her? And I think that that was such an important structural hit on the, the, the temple of himself.

• 28:39Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:39Andy Greenwald?

  Where he was like, I, I fundamentally don't understand. The wires are crossed here. I am everything. I'm great, as he said. I went to Duke. I can read a book.

• 28:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:48Andy Greenwald?

  Can't close out a Final Four game, though.

• 28:50Chris Ryan?

  Hey, I was wondering if you watched that.

• 28:52Andy Greenwald?

  I didn't, but I just love to skitch on culture, get you laughing. And, and yet, he doesn't score. He doesn't get the things that he feels that he is owed, which I think is a artful foreshadowing of what happens next. Because again, I think that his, until some of the Radliff's come back in the All-Star season, who the hell knows? I think that.

• 29:17Andy Greenwald?

  Mike White was like, the value of the story for me is in the small moments of disillusion before the big tsunami hits.

• 29:25Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:25Andy Greenwald?

  Because then what is the story? Is the story the screaming and yelling? Which we did get a taste of in the gunshot fantasy stuff, right? Like of seeing Piper, Parker Posey scream, actually seeing Piper also. I think that, again, I'm doing a lot of defending here, but like, them learning the news and then reacting to it is the beginning of a story?

• 29:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Andy Greenwald?

  A story that will go for decades.

• 29:48Chris Ryan?

  I don't need my handheld to find out like, what the actual messages on their phones were. I thought that their story as a family was complete.

• 29:57Andy Greenwald?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:57Chris Ryan?

  For sure. It's just a little bit strange to me to have a 90-minute episode of television, to go visit Muay Thai, to like, watch people eat fruit for seven and a half hours, and then you put the crime at the end of the season is something pretty significant, and that would have like, had. I don't think you walk out of there and you're like, the same person, unless that is

• 30:20Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Chris Ryan?

  Mike White being like, that's how off on their own shit these people are, is that Belinda doesn't care that there was just a mass shooting there that almost hit Zion. She's just happy she got $5 million.

• 30:32Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's all, I think, I think the slippery beauty of the show is you could say yes.

• 30:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:37Andy Greenwald?

  You could say, you could say both. There is always going to be, and it's baked into the first scene of the first episode of the first season, which is, there's a rubbernecking element, that everything that happens on vacation didn't really happen to you, and it's a little bit like driving past a crash on the freeway.

• 30:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but there's like, a big difference between like, I ate bad seafood and

• 30:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, well, look, let's

• 30:56Chris Ryan?

  There was a gunfight.

• 30:56Andy Greenwald?

  Let's stay in a couple of different of these storylines. Like, the Ratliff one, I don't want to give short shrift to the fact that that was batshit. That he blends up some suicide smoothies and serves them to his family, but spares his youngest son

• 31:10Chris Ryan?

  Cause he's the one who's renounced materialism.

• 31:13Andy Greenwald?

  With one

• 31:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Andy Greenwald?

  Just passing conversation, and you need to have a Coke instead. And so, and then he makes us sit with it. Now, sometimes when we talk about like, we're too TV-pilled, and like, we're ahead of the show, or we're already assuming, and I, and I made that comment with the Tim shoots himself fantasy, like, I, I got on this podcast and I was like, I found that annoying, because we knew it wasn't real and he knew we knew.

• 31:37Chris Ryan?

  I thought that the smoothie thing was a fantasy. I was like, this is a long fantasy if we're gonna do this again in the finale.

• 31:42Andy Greenwald?

  But I was like, this is not This isn't gonna go the way that-

• 31:47Chris Ryan?

  We're not getting Jonestown?

• 31:48Andy Greenwald?

  We're not Jonestounding it. Shout out to the studio. But yet, I was okay with it because I was like, this is an incredibly stakesy and unique and insane direction for the show to be going in. And so, it was, to my mind, speaking of like the TV brain, it was more like the provocative dare of starting the last season of Breaking Bad with Walter with the rifle in his trunk. I was like, how are they gonna get out of this one?

• 32:15Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 32:15Andy Greenwald?

  How are we going to emotionally undo this horrific thing that he is in the process of doing? And it did lead to... So as soon as he didn't do it, I also, like probably many people in the audience, was like, Lachlan's making that smoothie. Like, that just felt inevitable.

• 32:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:31Andy Greenwald?

  Because there'd already been the scene about, you know, Saxon wouldn't make it for him. The show had its death cake and ate it too with Lachlan. And I wanted to know how you felt about him not actually being dead. Did you believe that he was? Did it change your opinion about the show when he wasn't?

• 32:48Chris Ryan?

  I thought it was a great moment where a couple of these characters had these backdoor religious epiphanies. And sometimes those epiphanies cost way too much. Like, Rick's face in the lily pad in the pond is the smile that I think you were talking about for two episodes ago. That's the real, like, it's over. Like, and I am gonna be with this person forever. And that is-

• 33:15Andy Greenwald?

  That's what the plan.

• 33:16Chris Ryan?

  Like this perverse kind of doomed romanticism.

• 33:19Andy Greenwald?

  And they're facing the wrong direction.

• 33:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then, I thought that Laurie's, honestly Emmy-worthy performance from Carrie Coon with this speech, but her speech about friendship was possibly like the most beautiful thing I've seen on this series across all the seasons.

• 33:38Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's fair.

• 33:40Chris Ryan?

  And her kind of being like, I have come up with a new language or vocabulary to describe how profound friendship and relationships and human contact can be.

• 33:51Andy Greenwald?

  A belief system.

• 33:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, absolutely. Lachlan seeing God as he is kind of going on this half-poison, half ayahuasca-

• 34:01Chris Ryan?

  Poolside trip.

• 34:02Andy Greenwald?

  Did that remind you of the birthday when you had Jaeger at 7pm? And had to be escorted out of the bar? Did you also see four stern figures looming over you? But it was me, John Caramanica, Sean Howe.

• 34:13Chris Ryan?

  Carrying me to a cab and somebody being like to the cab driver. It's just like, here's an extra $10 in case this guy dies. Yeah, thank you to Jaegermeister. I never had it again. I liked the unique and very bespoke way different characters had epiphanies. And I was also gonna say that there's like a kind of ping ponging it back to you. I loved how cruel Mike White could be to his characters, which is something that creators never talk like this, and he didn't say it. But you always hear writers be like, I love my characters. And sometimes they just start talking to each other and you know, like,

• 34:52Chris Ryan?

  Mike White is that fucking dude who will be like, you guys all like Belinda? Like, Belinda is corruptible. You guys all thought Piper was the only, like with her little prairie dresses? Like, Piper is wearing like ugly sequins and buying shit by the end of this.

• 35:10Andy Greenwald?

  Yep. Yeah, he's unsentimental about that. Uh, I also, when you, when you did your stereotypical TV writer's voice, you did the Nicole Kidman, I'm single shimmy that Heim just did also on the cover of their single. I thought that was really nice.

• 35:24Chris Ryan?

  Oh god, that was really, that one was for Kaya, that joke.

• 35:28Andy Greenwald?

  Kaya's in the room with us, we gotta make her, it feels good, like the way it's supposed to be. Yeah, I, I think that's a really, really smart point. And I think that's also something that we are not as used to anymore.

• 35:42Andy Greenwald?

  It's, Mike, have we been calling him Mike? It's just, when we start repeating people's names, it's not as bad as Benny Offenweiss, like back in the Game of Thrones days, but we're like, Mike White, Mike, Mike, we don't know him, we never met him. I do think it's worth trying to remember that he's had many different iterations of a career. And for a while, what he was most known for, if he was known, was a kind of deeply cringey discomfort in his writing. From some of the, like Chuck and Buck and like the movies that he did earlier in his career.

• 36:09Chris Ryan?

  Even Enlightenment, you're like, I think part of the issue that enlightenment had maybe with

• 36:14Andy Greenwald?

  Enlightened, yeah.

• 36:15Chris Ryan?

  was enlightened, sorry, was sitting with Amy and being like, are you comfortable watching this person like and you know, like the cheering idea or whatever? But this is like a complicated character to spend this much time inside their head.

• 36:28Andy Greenwald?

  And I think this is again, this is a sign of like the seriousness and the just this is worth unpacking to this degree because you can have conversations like this that are circling depth or contradiction, but keep somehow keeps supplying you with more rope to build your own analogy, which I'm failing at. But the the Lachlan thing for me was at the moment when it seemed like they had all died. There's a brief moment before it cuts to Lachlan's eyes opening. And I was like, this is so much darker than I had ever anticipated. This season as a whole is much darker, and I still think that's the case. The the death and mayhem of season two was on the boat.

• 37:11Andy Greenwald?

  And it was in the Tanya storyline, which was the most extreme in terms of tone of that season.

• 37:17Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 37:18Andy Greenwald?

  It was sort of almost siloed away, whereas here it was the main, it was running through the main cast like a cancer. Lachlan coming back was, you know, you could make the case that it's it's manipulating or manipulative. But I also think that it's the counter to that argument is that Lachlan's whole life is in the service of these narcissists and coming back served his father's story of I have now had a revelation. I now know what's important. Family is above all. And when it cuts to his family, hearing him say this, they are all varying degrees of what the fuck are you talking about? None more so than Lachlan, who is very ill, having been near fatally poisoned.

• 38:02Andy Greenwald?

  Last thing on the rat lifts, I If we're talking about stories that got slightly short shrift, I would say Piper's story as a whole, like I don't back away from the criticisms we made earlier in the season about like, wait, she conned her family into going to vacation so that she could interview someone, but she wants to live there.

• 38:21Chris Ryan?

  But then, didn't the second anyone wanted to be a part of her life?

• 38:24Andy Greenwald?

  She didn't want to do it anymore. And I, and I think that if all of that was in service of Parker Posey's face when she realized she won, die, you like, we're good, man.

• 38:34Chris Ryan?

  Parker Posey thumbs up.

• 38:35Andy Greenwald?

  Incredible performance, and I hope the Emmy voters agree.

• 38:39Chris Ryan?

  That will be the image I use every time the Eagles use the tush push next year.

• 38:45Andy Greenwald?

  At Green Bay Packers.

• 38:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, just to lafleur.

• 38:48Andy Greenwald?

  Just thumbs up. But, but then again, even the thing that I'm criticizing, you could flip around and say that's actually foundational support of the overall story point, which is only a dilettante narcissist would trick her family into a luxury vacation so that she could dabble in something she wasn't that serious about. So it's circular.

• 39:11Chris Ryan?

  You're Scott Besson right now. You're just like, it's gonna work.

• 39:14Andy Greenwald?

  It's circular logic, baby. It always, it always works. Let's talk about, well, you mentioned Belinda. We should talk about the Belinda.

• 39:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. You know, this was a really interesting gambit because I thought that there's a way to, Belinda can continue to be a punching bag, you know, and can be just, it can be reinforcing the things that we learn in the first season about, you know, these are the, these people who work as in service of the guests are always, it's always going to roll downhill on them. And no matter like, how close they think they've come to their, you know, to their guests, it's not real. I, you know, that first season and her story arc was so good. Bringing her back, having her life kind of come blossom, you know, come

• 40:06Chris Ryan?

  to use a word that I think they used at the blonde blob table.

• 40:10Andy Greenwald?

  Come blossom was the word?

• 40:11Chris Ryan?

  What?

• 40:12Andy Greenwald?

  What was he saying? Having her life come, come a blossom?

• 40:15Chris Ryan?

  Come to life and blossom.

• 40:16Andy Greenwald?

  Is that a word they say?

• 40:18Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 40:19Andy Greenwald?

  I'm trying to get you in trouble, the way you trapped me into saying a certain thing last week.

• 40:22Chris Ryan?

  Look, I think you believe in tariffs. It's okay, man. We're gonna find out in the long run. Belinda.

• 40:31Chris Ryan?

  Winds up, I mean, obviously, basically follows the same arc that Tanya follows. And many people have pointed this out, but he uses some of the same language.

• 40:38Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 40:39Chris Ryan?

  With Porinchi, like, you know, is, uh, that was that guy's name, right?

• 40:43Andy Greenwald?

  Porinchi, yeah.

• 40:44Chris Ryan?

  Porinchi, where she basically is like, you know, it's just not, I can't commit to anything right now.

• 40:49Andy Greenwald?

  It's not the right time. Circumstances have changed.

• 40:51Chris Ryan?

  Even, even that moment when Zion's like, you can, now you can start your business. She's just like, can I just be rich?

• 40:56Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Chris Ryan?

  Um, five million, probably not as much in today's economy as it was.

• 41:02Andy Greenwald?

  Also, Bank of Hawaii just notoriously lacks on surprise overnight drops.

• 41:07Chris Ryan?

  Bing!

• 41:08Andy Greenwald?

  You know, like any, I feel like, I feel like that wire transfer might be flagged for like 24 hours.

• 41:13Chris Ryan?

  I know. It's also like, given Zion's proclivities, like you probably have a lot of Bitcoin shortages to cover now.

• 41:20Andy Greenwald?

  Did you feel like, was that image of like the, the five million dollars in the black showing up on her computer? Was that the opposite of your experience waking up this morning and looking at your S and P holdings?

• 41:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think, um.

• 41:34Andy Greenwald?

  The corruptibility, I think, is really, well, I think was, was meaningful. I think it was interesting. Um, I think that the, there are a lot of different ways to, to, to, to look at it, which is what makes the show strong. Um, the humanity, and particularly the, the humanity in Natasha Rothwell's performance, when she's like, can I just fucking have something for a minute? You, that you could stop there. I think that we've been in, bid this character enough to understand how deeply felt that is. And again, from our position on our couches as fans, she earned it. She deserves something. Um, but then you extrapolate it further and there's just actually a much more sinister cast to it of how everyone upstairs, downstairs, guests and help are all just pawns in a pretty corrupt system.

• 42:19Andy Greenwald?

  And the best you can hope for is to flip, flip the board.

• 42:21Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 42:22Andy Greenwald?

  Basically.

• 42:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, you could bring her back and forth and have her be Tanya. I mean, I don't think five million is, is gonna.

• 42:27Andy Greenwald?

  It's, it's not what it was a few years ago in season two, let's say.

• 42:30Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 42:30Andy Greenwald?

  But I did think that the.

• 42:34Andy Greenwald?

  Never forget that the show is written and directed by the same person. And so the camera lingering on Porn Chai as she leaves was meaningful. And it sucked. That was, that's a pretty rough beat from my guy, who, who really, who really did like her. He chased the monitor lizard out of there.

• 42:49Chris Ryan?

  I guess we can talk a little bit more about some of the people who worked at the, the White Lotus. Fabian, Great Fall Backwards.

• 42:56Andy Greenwald?

  Great Fall Backwards, the most underserved actor and character in the season.

• 43:00Chris Ryan?

  I can't believe that guy was in Zone of Interest.

• 43:02Andy Greenwald?

  I know. It's wild.

• 43:03Chris Ryan?

  Have you seen Zone of Interest?

• 43:04Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I watched it on a plane. Why?

• 43:06Chris Ryan?

  Did you really?

• 43:08Andy Greenwald?

  It's one of my most reliable plane jokes, um, which I've now burned, so I guess I can't use it anymore.

• 43:13Chris Ryan?

  Sorry.

• 43:15Andy Greenwald?

  Zone of Inti? Come on. Z O I? I, my guess is that in addition-

• 43:21Chris Ryan?

  He plays a bad guy in that movie.

• 43:23Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, really? You didn't think he was one of the good Germans in that one?

• 43:27Andy Greenwald?

  Is that for the people who don't know?

• 43:31Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like there, there were, there's probably no greater victim of the cuts made to Mike White's initial 90-minute versions of every one of these episodes than that character.

• 43:43Chris Ryan?

  And his musical career.

• 43:44Andy Greenwald?

  And his musical career. There, there was a moment midway through the season when it was tracking his like, I'm going to sing tonight. When I was like, ah, the, this will be the show's truest expression of the karmic release given to us in life when we choose to perform without guardrails. And then I was like, actually, he cut out, just to go back to like Lori and, and Jacqueline being like, should we do yoga?

• 44:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there was the, somebody else pointed this out, but the whole scene with, uh, Lori recognizing Victoria and being like, we're, we've been at like, uh, the same baby shower or whatever.

• 44:22Andy Greenwald?

  Not Lori, was, uh, wasn't it Kate?

• 44:24Chris Ryan?

  Kate, sorry. Kate doing that, uh, went nowhere. Like, that was just, and I guess you could say that indicates, the first indication that perhaps Kate's like, running in more conservative circles or something like that. But I thought that was really interesting that they had this connective tissue between these two groups of people and never explored it.

• 44:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, there, there was-

• 44:45Chris Ryan?

  Speaking of things that may have wound up on the cutting room floor.

• 44:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think, we, we were sitting here complaining and I think there's probably basis to say we were right or basis to say we weren't right about the overlap between the groups in the season feeling less important than in past seasons.

• 45:01Andy Greenwald?

  Like with everything else I've said today, like, ah, that's just an example of how we are all prisoners locked on our own life kayaks and we can't ever actually know someone else and it ultimately doesn't matter. Or you could say there was a much goopier, smeary, you know, 17 hour version of this season and that then, and then some cuts were made.

• 45:21Chris Ryan?

  I wonder whether also there's actually like, uh, in terms of like the physical layout of the resorts, these were more villas that were separate from one another.

• 45:30Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 45:31Chris Ryan?

  Whereas in other seasons, well, specifically in the Italy season, everything is, it's hotel rooms, you know, it's just basically a nice hotel.

• 45:37Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I think.

• 45:38Chris Ryan?

  With a restaurant.

• 45:38Andy Greenwald?

  I think in some interviews I read with Mike White, he was saying, he doesn't understand the criticism because season one was just people sitting by the pool. That said.

• 45:46Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 45:48Andy Greenwald?

  You remember it well. That said, uh, there were COVID restrictions and also that was a hotel with a central pool.

• 45:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Andy Greenwald?

  Not like private villas and also a beach and also Bangkok and other places, uh, other places to go. I did want to, you mentioned in passing, I do think that, um, I thought that Laurie's monologue was incredible and I think that, um, there was an interesting piece that Catherine Van Arundel wrote for Vulture today, basically saying that that was the thesis statement of the season. It was the, the, the crescendo point in some ways for the emotional storytelling. And that in her view, the show didn't earn it because of the way that it got there and the choppy way that it was communicated and everything else that came after. I read that piece and in the spirit of all good criticism, I was like, I actually can't rebut any of this and I functionally get it.

• 46:39Andy Greenwald?

  I don't agree that it wasn't earned and I'm a big, does it earn it guy?

• 46:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:45Andy Greenwald?

  Partly because I thought that it was so beautifully expressed. Um, and also I think because it was a comment on how these moments of, um, revelation or transcendence are unplanned and unknowable.

• 46:59Chris Ryan?

  Sometimes that makes sense.

• 47:00Andy Greenwald?

  And it.

• 47:01Chris Ryan?

  She didn't have that revelation when she was, um. Having dinner with them. I mean, they'd fought for half the week, pretty much. I think she had that revelation when she saw them and saw them as the girls she grew up with.

• 47:13Andy Greenwald?

  But, but also what she did was she owned the sadness.

• 47:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:16Andy Greenwald?

  She was no longer aspirational. She was no longer trying to be either of them.

• 47:21Chris Ryan?

  Angry at other people because they had found something in their life that was keeping them afloat.

• 47:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, and for everything we were saying about how life is, everything in life is a choice except dying, basically. Although, you know, Tim Ratliff tried to, tried to put his thumb on the scale on that one. That was the criticism that struck home that Jacqueline delivered to Lori in a previous episode, was that your unhappiness and your continued prison is a choice. And I said at the time, like, that was pretty inartfully communicated, but it wasn't necessarily wrong. And it certainly is consistent with Buddhism and some of the more aggressive New York therapists that I've spoken to.

• 47:55Chris Ryan?

  Did I miss your Buddhist phase?

• 47:56Andy Greenwald?

  No, I don't have one. I just, I find it interesting. I, I am 100% a tourist. I have no, no, I like to read books about stuff that I don't do.

• 48:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, no, I was just making sure that there wasn't like a, a text thread that I missed, like, I was just like...

• 48:10Andy Greenwald?

  As I mentioned, I went to Thailand in 2011.

• 48:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, okay.

• 48:12Andy Greenwald?

  And when I wasn't writing blog posts and short articles for Grantland from the hotel room.

• 48:18Andy Greenwald?

  I walked past it and I saw who was going in.

• 48:20Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 48:21Andy Greenwald?

  No, I thought that the Lori stuff was, was, um, was quite beautiful. And I did then want to ask you if you felt what I did in the subsequent scene, where they have now bonded, they've been honest with each other, they cried, they said, "I love you." And then, as old friends who've known each other since they were young, they then reclined on a daybed and fondled and kissed each other. Now, do you feel that like when our big five O's are coming up, is that where we're headed? Do you think that we should be a little more physically expressive?

• 48:51Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I think it's more indicative of like that, that phenomenon where like, guys will go out and sit across from each other for an hour and just be like, "Who do you think we'll get in the fifth round?"

• 49:02Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds, that's honestly pornographic.

• 49:05Chris Ryan?

  Who do you think we'll get in the sixth round?

• 49:06Andy Greenwald?

  That sounds so good right now.

• 49:07Chris Ryan?

  Did you see Black Bag yet?

• 49:09Andy Greenwald?

  No, but I saw a couple mocks that say Walter Nolan's dropping.

• 49:13Chris Ryan?

  And then when like women go out, it's like, you're like, "Didn't you go out on Wednesday? How is it Friday? Now you're just coming back." It's just like tear streak mascara.

• 49:23Andy Greenwald?

  It's fair.

• 49:23Chris Ryan?

  So I think that there's, not to be a, you know, gender essentialist about it, but I think that people express themselves in different ways. Plus, I think they probably had like four bottles of wine by that point.

• 49:32Andy Greenwald?

  Four bottles of wine that, that hour.

• 49:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:35Andy Greenwald?

  Right. I mean, they were, they were really, they were getting through it pretty good. What is, uh, what does Victoria say? Tim, there's wine. I feel like that's memeable.

• 49:44Chris Ryan?

  Did you, uh, I wanted, before we get to Guy Taka Mook,

• 49:50Chris Ryan?

  I wanted to just mention that Sam Rockwell's somersault that he does.

• 49:54Andy Greenwald?

  That's so good.

• 49:55Chris Ryan?

  His tumbling that he does in the hallway is astonishing.

• 49:59Andy Greenwald?

  Everything about his performance in this episode was deeply special.

• 50:02Chris Ryan?

  I believe Goggins called him Sammy Rocks in, uh, his Instagram post. And, uh, I so desperately wanted him to show up and just start hanging out with Kate Laurie and Jacqueline.

• 50:15Andy Greenwald?

  But having still not slept?

• 50:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he was just like way into the ice.

• 50:18Andy Greenwald?

  Who do you think they're getting in the sixth round?

• 50:20Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I'm glad that he found, uh, Buddha again. It seemed like that's, you know, back on the road to recovery for him.

• 50:26Andy Greenwald?

  Well, no, or he's just, he's ping ponging. He's on the, he's on the wheel. Like there actually isn't, he hasn't broken the wheel, as, uh, your friend Daenerys used to say.

• 50:35Chris Ryan?

  That was actually when,

• 50:39Chris Ryan?

  when Rick is leaving Frank, and yes, I can understand why you might be like, it is time to go.

• 50:47Andy Greenwald?

  When that ugly light, AKA the morning sun gets turned on.

• 50:50Chris Ryan?

  When he hasn't yet gotten into speed, but is already doing knife fighting on pillows? It is time to go. But the way in which, I think Frank says something along the lines of like, you started this?

• 51:03Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:06Chris Ryan?

  That to me, I was like, the, that was when like the light bulb went on that I was like, everything that Rick's a part of is gonna explode now. Like, because I think that his- His trip, his whole like, my dad, I'm, you know, Luke and Darth and all this stuff.

• 51:22Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:23Chris Ryan?

  It had so much collateral damage when you think about it.

• 51:27Andy Greenwald?

  The, the.

• 51:27Chris Ryan?

  And it starts all the way back with the snakes. It starts with the like, everything, but.

• 51:31Andy Greenwald?

  Well, the, the snakes is everything that happens afterwards, right? He, he, he lets loose violence and Chelsea is the victim of it. And so it.

• 51:39Chris Ryan?

  And it comes in threes.

• 51:40Andy Greenwald?

  It comes, look at you. The, um, the butterfly wing flapping. I mean, that, that, that, that old saw, I mean, that's what this season really, really was. And I, and I appreciate the hyper focus on it.

• 51:52Chris Ryan?

  Guy talk and mooc.

• 51:55Andy Greenwald?

  Ladies love violence. That's the takeaway.

• 51:58Chris Ryan?

  I, I, mooc was a simple gal. She, she loved strength, you know?

• 52:06Andy Greenwald?

  Mooc was perhaps the least, uh, uh, complicated character.

• 52:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:10Andy Greenwald?

  Of course, this.

• 52:10Chris Ryan?

  I don't have a ton to say about it. I thought, I thought that the, the, it all ended in the right place. I mean, him becoming now like a lioness and being like in the, in the front seat of.

• 52:23Andy Greenwald?

  To be fair, everyone else was dead.

• 52:25Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 52:26Andy Greenwald?

  He was the only one.

• 52:27Chris Ryan?

  That's true. He is the last.

• 52:28Andy Greenwald?

  He was.

• 52:28Chris Ryan?

  Security guard in Thailand. Um.

• 52:31Andy Greenwald?

  There, there was some, there was something I thought that was affecting about an arc that felt telegraphed. That, that, speaking of life is choices, that like, he chose violence.

• 52:42Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:42Andy Greenwald?

  And, but not in a cool way.

• 52:44Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 52:45Andy Greenwald?

  You know, like he, he, he shot a absolute disaster of a man in the back. And was rewarded for it, uh, with everything that he thought that he wanted. And his, his moments of spiritual questioning, you know, like, would, he starts comparing himself to the Buddha. And everyone's like, take a beat, take a beat buddy. Um, I found very affecting. I thought that was a great performance, too.

• 53:10Chris Ryan?

  Um, just because the, the moment where Guy Talk shoots Rick comes right after, uh, the Scott, the Jim revealing he's.

• 53:21Andy Greenwald?

  Luke, I'm your father.

• 53:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. What'd you think of that?

• 53:22Andy Greenwald?

  Well, he doesn't, but.

• 53:24Chris Ryan?

  She does, yeah.

• 53:24Andy Greenwald?

  Seasonal asset. Uh, felt inevitable. Um, felt.

• 53:29Andy Greenwald?

  Felt obvious and agonizing. And again, I, he knows what he's doing. And so when, when in the post show thing and then in interviews, when, when our buddy Mike is like, well, this is just Greek tragedy. This is what, what it, what it is. I'm not inventing it. I'm just honoring it. I'm like, yes, that, that, that worked for me because he, he was aware of the tropes he was playing with. I mean, I, I think to get my arms around the whole thing, I think that I, what I felt more than anything at the end of the season, especially a season that began with a sense of, wait, what was this? Because it was off the air for so long. And a lot of my enthusiasm in the first two episodes was just happy being back in a place like this.

• 54:07Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 54:07Andy Greenwald?

  Something to talk about. And then I had my own, you know, shadows of doubt.

• 54:11Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 54:11Andy Greenwald?

  And then I've accepted religion and fate again.

• 54:14Chris Ryan?

  You read your night at the monastery.

• 54:15Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. But I, I do feel lucky that we have a show that just tries, even if it doesn't always succeed, in getting its arms around our messy Western existence in that like we're, there's a vague, it's a passing interest in meaning and trying to matter. And then maybe we should dabble in philosophy, or maybe we should have health food smoothies in the morning. Maybe we remember reading Greek tragedies in college and well, they still have something to say to us, huh? But mostly it's on to the next shiny thing, especially if the shiny thing contains alcohol in it.

• 54:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Um, I don't know where I'm at. I think it was a, it was probably my least favorite season of the show, but that's okay, because it's, it was still very good. And I love the first two seasons. It's an extraordinary act to watch this guy kind of be able to pick and choose and take all these different things that he feels like are in the culture or in his mind. And I think he's a very playful and funny and inventive writer that I really like respond to. There was just something a little bit tweaked or off about the pacing of this season.

• 55:23Andy Greenwald?

  It was.

• 55:23Chris Ryan?

  And.

• 55:26Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if, if the "it was all inevitable" stuff is hitting for me.

• 55:31Andy Greenwald?

  Well, also, or like-

• 55:32Chris Ryan?

  I think even beyond like, you guys should have had a five-minute scene where everybody's like, "Wow, so Chelsea's dead, huh? Like, that's crazy."

• 55:39Andy Greenwald?

  But I also think you're responding to something that is also baked into it, which is the, the blonde friends. They were sharp, it was pointed, it was well-observed, it was funny, it produced a lot of great scenes, like the, the Trump reveal, or, you know, it, the meme-able and, and sparked conversation and sparked moments of laughing or recognition. Incredible opportunity for three great, underutilized actresses. I mean, Keri Coon's not underutilized, but she's underappreciated still even now, and I think the opportunity to show all the things that she can do.

• 56:09Chris Ryan?

  I do feel like we're kind of getting to a point where it's like, with Keri Coon, where it's like, everybody's like, "We do not talk about LeBron James enough," and I'm like, I really do feel like-

• 56:17Andy Greenwald?

  Don't you think it's like Mike Trout? Like, she's been putting up MVP numbers on-

• 56:20Chris Ryan?

  No, that would suggest that every time Keri Coon starts a show, she gets injured and has to leave it.

• 56:25Andy Greenwald?

  That's your Mike Trout slander?

• 56:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:28Andy Greenwald?

  I, I mean, I, my version of it is that like, historically great, but playing in Anaheim.

• 56:34Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I see.

• 56:35Andy Greenwald?

  But she, oh, sure-

• 56:36Chris Ryan?

  He hasn't played in like, three years!

• 56:38Andy Greenwald?

  Shit on Mike Trout. I guess that's where you're at. If there were any Angels fans, they'd be mad. Anyway, um, but that whole sequence and that whole storyline, there's, it's absolutely valid to be like, "It was all for Lori to have a moment of self-awareness about what really matters in life, and then everything else was noise," like trying to shoehorn the Russian storyline and the, the robbery, which ultimately had no payoff, into it, was clumsy, you know, and then the crosses with Victoria were ultimately unearned or unimportant. It's a totally valid response to the season, and, and, and I think I need a couple more days or weeks, or even wait until the next season to kind of think about this.

• 57:22Andy Greenwald?

  I, I think I, again, I think I agree. Like, I think that-

• 57:25Chris Ryan?

  I think, you know what, part of the reason why I'm reacting this way is that for- As it was building up, like as Zion and Belinda are first going to meet Gary, and I was just like, this is fucking awesome. Like this, let's go. Let's like, this is so great.

• 57:40Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 57:40Chris Ryan?

  I feel like I'm fine. Like, I feel like they were given something to do in this episode.

• 57:46Andy Greenwald?

  Active, not reactive.

• 57:47Chris Ryan?

  And I was like, I was just flying all over the place because of that. And then I think that the end kind of just really felt abrupt to me.

• 57:54Andy Greenwald?

  Did it remind you of activities you did with your mom? Like, just being like,

• 58:00Andy Greenwald?

  Mom?

• 58:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:01Andy Greenwald?

  Let me tell you how this is gonna go. Just let me talk.

• 58:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:04Andy Greenwald?

  I, um,

• 58:07Andy Greenwald?

  yeah, because I'm thinking about it and I'm like, I could happily do another hour with you explaining why season one was the best one, or why season two was the best one, and why it really worked, and what made it special, what elevated it and made it entertaining and gripping and also meaningful. But something about, something about the, the, the, the struggle with this season is also hitting with me. That it was attempting something, sometimes more clumsily than I would have expected, and landed, I mean, to use the cliche, like it really, to me, the landing was stuck. But much like my flight home from Philadelphia, it was a bit turbulent at times and had me questioning things.

• 58:48Andy Greenwald?

  So in a weird way, I feel like I'm sitting here defending something that I feel in, I'm in, I, I'm surprisingly emotionally animated by. But objectively, I, I think it'd be hard for me to say this was the best season, but I feel somehow really locked in with it.

• 59:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, I, I feel like it's important to distinguish the, like, the idea of like, I know that we also like, spent quite a bit of time this year talking about Paradise and Landman, and being like, god damn, that was real good. That was real fun to watch. And obviously would not hold up under any real scrutiny, you know, and any of this sort of stress testing that we're doing. And God bless Mike White, he doesn't end on cliffhangers. We, you know, probably won't see many of these people ever again on these shows.

• 59:31Andy Greenwald?

  Well, sorry, I won't cut you off. Finish your thought.

• 59:34Chris Ryan?

  You want to talk about the All-Star season?

• 59:35Andy Greenwald?

  Well, no, but finish, I, I think you're saying something important for how we should be, like, just making it clear, like, that we're not always talking, it's not all apples.

• 59:43Chris Ryan?

  That's what I'm saying. But like, you know, I think that- I'm still trying to decide what piece of fruit White Lotus is.

• 59:51Andy Greenwald?

  Hmm. Is it the suicide fruit?

• 59:55Andy Greenwald?

  No, it's not, but I didn't want to talk about All Stars, but it is interesting that there is no obvious candidate to return. So, but it is, it is now the DNA of the show that someone.

• 1:00:08Chris Ryan?

  Who would you think, who would be the most likely?

• 1:00:11Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think that the, out of this season, I think, I mean, there's also the side conversation that I just feel like the star making of the season and the expectation setting for the next chapters of careers for some people. And the emergence of like, I will be checking for Amy Lou Wood. I will be checking for Sam Nivola, who I think was really, really good.

• 1:00:29Chris Ryan?

  He was excellent.

• 1:00:30Andy Greenwald?

  I think Jason Isaacs is like your guy, Mike Trout, been well respected and well liked, but you know, not always playing in the biggest stadiums.

• 1:00:38Chris Ryan?

  Are you talking about Mike Trout, the guy who's won multiple MVP awards?

• 1:00:41Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 1:00:42Chris Ryan?

  But then has now missed like four years of his career.

• 1:00:44Andy Greenwald?

  Well, who among us hasn't gotten dinged up?

• 1:00:50Andy Greenwald?

  I also, I take in the big picture. You're just, you're just episode to episode. Okay?

• 1:00:54Chris Ryan?

  You could just be wrong or you'd be like Buddhism.

• 1:00:57Andy Greenwald?

  That's literally what I'm doing right now. I know. No, I, I was saying, underappreciated, playing in a smaller market.

• 1:01:03Chris Ryan?

  I got you.

• 1:01:04Andy Greenwald?

  Anyway, uh, but like Jason Isaacs was, that was an incredible performance. The season wouldn't have worked without what he did. Parker Posey, amazing. Uh, Walden Goggins on a different echelon, unless you also watch Gemstones, in which you know where the real truth lies. So of this season, I think, I, I'm, I'm cool. I mean, Greg is the only one who's been in all three seasons. I don't know how much more story there is to tell there.

• 1:01:30Chris Ryan?

  I don't, I doubt, I think if I were him, I would just stay in Thailand. And he seems also to have found a place where his sexual proclivities could be satisfied. So.

• 1:01:38Andy Greenwald?

  He can walk in on anybody.

• 1:01:39Chris Ryan?

  That whole thing that Chloe talked about with like, he wants to watch because of his parents. It's true. So.

• 1:01:45Andy Greenwald?

  That's a beautiful thing and we don't kink shame. I think, um, I would a hundred percent welcome Parker Posey back, but I, that also feels like a bit of a cheat in the sense that she was filling some of the Coolidge energy.

• 1:01:58Chris Ryan?

  Oh my God, you're right.

• 1:01:59Andy Greenwald?

  And where does that story go?

• 1:02:01Chris Ryan?

  Well, she could get a divorce.

• 1:02:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:02:03Chris Ryan?

  And take a trip to.

• 1:02:04Andy Greenwald?

  How's she paying for that trip?

• 1:02:07Andy Greenwald?

  So I think the real question, and we don't need to do it today, and I'm sure the internet's already done it for us.

• 1:02:12Chris Ryan?

  Not with a dollar, I'll tell you that.

• 1:02:14Andy Greenwald?

  Great point. She just gets really interested in like Sanibel Island in Florida, White Lotus Jacksonville. It would be someone that we're not expecting from a previous season, having a chance to come back. And I haven't watched them in a while and I haven't thought about it, but I think it would be just as likely that someone from the Will Sharp Aubrey Plaza storyline might show up for a reason or whatever. The other thing this season did that I think was exciting was that it expanded the palette so that the characters that you spend the season with aren't necessarily the ones that are announced with great fanfare and put on the poster. So not only was Greg a surprise, like John Grease didn't show up at the premiere, he didn't want people to know that he was back on the show and played a big role, but that

• 1:02:58Andy Greenwald?

  Sam Rockwell was just like, I think you and I both were like, how amazing he showed up to do a monologue. And in fact, he was a supporting character for the second half of the season. And that's a character I think could come back as well.

• 1:03:12Chris Ryan?

  Don't tempt me.

• 1:03:13Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:13Chris Ryan?

  Rockwell and Posey coming back in some capacity, I would be a very pro. Do you want to talk about anything non-White Lotus before we get out of here?

• 1:03:21Andy Greenwald?

  It feels almost like an afterthought, right?

• 1:03:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:23Andy Greenwald?

  Should we just on Thursday, because we want to talk about some trailers coming out of CinemaCon.

• 1:03:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Andy Greenwald?

  That we were excited about, maybe we throw that at the top of it.

• 1:03:29Chris Ryan?

  And I just want to mention, yeah, maybe we'll save because they're coming soon on HBO or coming soon on Max.

• 1:03:35Andy Greenwald?

  Had some stuff.

• 1:03:35Chris Ryan?

  Had some stuff that's very relevant to our interests. I will just say, seeing Nazaree.

• 1:03:42Andy Greenwald?

  One more time.

• 1:03:42Chris Ryan?

  Got it going for me.

• 1:03:45Andy Greenwald?

  Do you think the algo would ever just like suggest to Casey and the team at HBO that if they made a show about dirty cops in Philadelphia who also blow off steam by surfing?

• 1:03:56Chris Ryan?

  You know that movie, it's called Point Break.

• 1:03:57Andy Greenwald?

  It's on the wrong coast, brother. You put that in the Schuylkill River?

• 1:04:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:02Andy Greenwald?

  Now we're talking.

• 1:04:04Chris Ryan?

  All right, well, we'll wrap it up there then and we'll move this stuff to Thursday. Thanks to Kaya. And on Thursday, without getting too deep into it, we will definitely be talking about the pit finale.

• 1:04:15Andy Greenwald?

  We got some special stuff.

• 1:04:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, so see you guys on Thursday night.

• 1:04:18Andy Greenwald?

  Namaste.