Spoilers below.
They say good things come in threes. In Christianity, the number symbolizes divinity: There’s the holy trinity; Jesus died at age 33 and rose on the third day; and three wise men visited him after his birth. Even in other religions and beliefs, there are the Three Jewels of Buddhism, and the angel number 333. But in The White Lotus season 3 (!), trios aren’t so divine. Perhaps they’re even cursed. As Chelsea says on the phone with Rick, “bad luck comes in threes.” Take Jaclyn, Kate, and Laurie’s gossiping girls’ trip, which has taken a combative turn, or Lochlan and Saxon’s night with Chloe, which turns out to be downright shocking. If this season of The White Lotus is about religion and spirituality—especially questioning Christianity’s dominance in the West—it’s telling that these trios of Westerners are having a very bad time.
While his sons are on a boat doing God knows what, Timothy imagines what would happen if he shot and killed himself at their hotel. He envisions Piper and Victoria finding him dead and wailing over his corpse—he can’t do that to them. He hides the gun away in a drawer instead and goes to bed.
Early the next morning at the girlfriends’ villas, Kate sees Valentin leaving Jaclyn’s place and realizes he stayed over. Meanwhile, Saxon wakes up on the yacht to find his brother naked, ass out, next to him in bed (in a reversal of that moment from episode 1). In his hungover haze, he remembers kissing Chloe last night…and her having sex with Lochlan next to him…while he jerked off. (Oh, so last week’s kiss was only the beginning.) Luckily, Chelsea chose to not get involved. She calls Rick in Bangkok again like a worried mom. “I don’t want something bad to happen!” she tells him.
Saxon is a disheveled mess as he hobbles onto the deck without his usual cocky demeanor. He starts to remember more details from last night: His own hand wasn’t down his pants, it was actually Lochlan’s. His younger brother was jerking him off while having sex with Chloe beside him???!!? Guys????! Lochy doesn’t remember anything, but Saxon runs off to vomit. These boys are going to need a lot of therapy, as if they didn’t already.
Belinda also had a night. She wakes up in bed with Pornchai just as her teenage son, Zion, arrives in her room. Luckily, he’s pretty chill with her sleepover. Laurie, however, is not so chill with Jaclyn’s. When Kate tells her the tea over breakfast, Laurie takes that personally. Jaclyn spent the last few days encouraging her to get with Valentin, and then ended up sleeping with him herself. Laurie’s anger starts to build as she says Jaclyn “has not changed at all” since they were teens and “literally lives off male attention.” When Valentin stops by their table, Laurie gives him the cold shoulder, feeling betrayed by him too. Speaking of betrayal, Jaclyn’s husband finally returns her call, saying he was unresponsive because he was filming and his phone had died. Whoops.
When the Ratliff brothers stumble home, there is no time to relax as their mother, Victoria, reveals Piper wants to move to Thailand to study Buddhism. Lochy attempts to stand up for his sister to make up for missing their family dinner last night. He even joins her and their parents as they scope out the nearby Buddhist monastery for themselves.
Meanwhile, Greg/Gary is suspicious of Chloe, believing she hooked up with one of the brothers on the boat. He forces her to reveal which one she slept with. He wants to invite the guy over, along with a few other guests tonight. “I need to deal with something and I need your help,” Gary says. Totally normal and not weird at all!
Pornchai wants to help Belinda achieve her dream of opening her own spa; it’s not as hard in Thailand, he says. Belinda looks gracious but also wary. She’s been in this same situation before with Tanya and was let down. Is she ready to trust again?
In Bangkok, Rick meets Sritala, still posing as a producer and scheming to get invited to her house. He convinces her that his big-shot Hollywood director friend (who will be played by his buddy Frank) is still writing the script for his film and would like to observe Sritala in her home for research. Somehow she agrees. Why hasn’t she asked for the director’s name yet?
During the Ratliffs’ cringe-inducing visit to the monastery, Piper tearfully asks the monk she hopes to study with, Luang Por Teera (played by veteran Thai journalist Suthichai Yoon), to speak to her parents and he humbly obliges. When Piper returns outside, Victoria is already interrogating other monks if it’s “safe” to live here and if they speak English. Timothy takes the meeting solo instead, and he’s surprisingly moved. The theme of identity comes up again as Luang Por Teera teaches Timothy about the “spiritual malaise” humans feel from chasing money and pleasure. “You cannot outrun pain,” he says, which resonates with Timothy, who is trying to do just that with his looming financial ruin. Actively listening now, Timothy asks Luang what he thinks happens when we die. Luang likens human life to a water droplet that splashes up from the waves and returns to the ocean at its end. “Death is a happy return, like coming home,” he says. His words sit with Timothy. He approves of Piper’s post-grad plans, to Victoria’s chagrin. The protective (and petty) mother makes a bet: If Piper can stay at the monastery overnight and still want to live there, then she’ll allow the move. Lochy volunteers to accompany his sister.
At the hotel pool, Saxon asks Chelsea why she wouldn’t hook up with him. She’s said it so many times, dude: She has a boyfriend who is her soulmate! “When you’re connected with someone on a spiritual level, you don’t go back to cheap sex,” she says matter-of-factly. Sleeping with Saxon would be an “empty experience…because you’re soulless,” she adds, which shuts him right up.
Elsewhere poolside, Laurie badgers Jaclyn about her night with Valentin, even though Jaclyn insists nothing happened. It’s funny, Laurie says passive aggressively; they're still the same people they were in the tenth grade. After ticking off Jaclyn, Laurie later offends Kate by implying she’s dishonest. Jaclyn also confronts Kate about her and Laurie’s gossiping; as an actress, she deals with enough of that already. Now all three friends have turned against each other.
While the Ratliffs are out and about, Gaitok tries to sneak into their villa to steal his gun back. Mook briefly interrupts to confirm their date, but he goes on rummaging through the Ratliffs’ things and finally finds his weapon stashed in a drawer. He slips out with it just before the family returns, even passing Timothy in the road, and gets back to his post just as his colleague Pee Lek is looking for the gun. Later, at the shooting range together, Pee Lek wonders if Gaitok has a “killer instinct” within him. Maybe Gaitok will surprise us in the end.
Back at their hotel, Timothy tries to justify his support for Piper’s move. He tells Victoria that their kids should learn to live without their creature comforts, but she disagrees. “She needs to fear poverty, Tim, like everyone else we know.” But what if something happens and they lose everything? (You know, like when their home is taken away due to Timothy’s financial scandal.) “I don’t know if I wanna live,” Victoria says. “I just don’t think at this age I’m meant to live an uncomfortable life. I don’t have the will.” Alas, she is no Moira Rose. But at least Victoria gave us another banger of a soundbite.
Chloe tells Saxon that Gary knows about him. In fact, he’s kind of turned on by it, she jokes. Saxon scoffs; he would never have a threesome with another guy. But wait, Chloe and Chelsea remind him, he just did last night—with his brother. Saxon panics and tries to deny what happened. He says it was a joke; “What part?” Chloe asks. He says they were forced; no they weren’t. He says he blacked out; well, Chloe remembers everything. Now it’s Chelsea’s turn to stare in shock as Saxon spirals.
That night at the monastery, as Luang leads the overnight guests through a meditation, Lochy starts to remember what actually happened last night, including sleeping with Chloe—and then doing hand stuff with his brother. He looks around in disbelief and tries to blink the memories away.
Back at the villa, his father is further realizing how much he’s screwed his family over. He imagines shooting Victoria and himself to put themselves out of their misery, but Saxon wakes him from his reverie and invites him and Victoria to Gary’s mysterious party. Belinda also gets an invite after unexpectedly running Gary (sorry, Greg) on the resort grounds. “I think we should talk,” he tells her eerily.
Over in Bangkok, Frank joins Rick’s stunt and poses as a director to visit Sritala at home. At her airy mansion, her husband, Jim, emerges but doesn’t appear onscreen just yet. Rick is so stunned at the sight of him he nearly forgets to step foot inside the house. Will he prove Chelsea right? Will something bad happen (again)? We are waiting for the third shoe to drop.
