Part of the fun of a show that resets itself with each season, like HBO’s The White Lotus, a drama set in a new luxury resort with a new cast of characters each time – is the speculation of where it will go next and who will land there. At least on the surface, Variety has now put us out of our misery (or, alternatively, ruined our fun): it reports that creator Mike White settled in Thailand as the location for his next tragicomic roundelay of wretched rich people.
This track with the theme that White has said he wants to explore next. “The first season emphasized money, and the second season is sex,” White said in an HBO featurette after the finale of The White Lotussecond season. “I think maybe the third season would be a satirical and funny take on death and eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at White Lotus.
According to Variety sources, White has spent time in Thailand exploring possible locations. Last week head of HBO Casey Bloys said he heard White’s pitch for the plot of the next series of episodes of the show already. “He just pitched us the idea for the third season, and it’s great, a very nice idea,” said Bloys, speaking at a French TV festival.
However, there’s no word yet on casting said Blooms that White was “casting familiar people”, but in a way that “allows you to rediscover them or see them in a new light”. Only one character returned between the show’s first and second seasons: Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya, whose complex, absurd, and surprising arc of the second season is one of the show’s highlights. White has given no indication of whether previous characters will appear in the third season.
Every season of so far The White Lotus was shot on location in a real Four Seasons hotel. The first season took place on the Hawaiian island of Maui and the second on the Italian island of Sicily. The Four Seasons has four resorts in Thailand: in the city of Bangkok, surrounded by rice fields in Chiang Mai, by sandy beaches on the island of Koh Samui, and the Golden Triangle, a tented camp in the jungle. Koh Samui might best suit the White Lotus formula, though, who doesn’t want a few existentially confused one percents to lose it on a journey into the heart of darkness in the jungle, like some sort of five star Apocalypse now?