57: The White Lotus Finale Takeaways
as well as the recommendations
In this week’s edition, I write about wrestling with some of the monologues from this season of The White Lotus as well as some recommendations, BUT FIRST…
🏠 House Business 🏠
Last week, I mentioned that some changes were on the horizon for this space. Change that outlook and status to IMMINENT as we look to do a branding shift this week.
We’re also in the middle of a podcast hosting transfer so you may see some old episodes pop up in your podcatcher, but just disregard them (unless, of course, you want to relisten).
🎧 Listen Up 🎧
Speaking of the podcast, in our most recent episode, Jason and I discuss the Fountain of Youth trailer, we discuss Jason’s upcoming trip to The Masters, talk a little College Hoops and then our thoughts on the latest episode of Survivor 48.
💡Group Chat💡
The overwhelming favorite of the group thus far this year has been The Pitt, but there are many more recs to surf through.
ALSO, don’t miss this week’s Group Chat as the topic I’ve got teed up will be a very SPICY one.
🎉 The Recommendations 🎉
📚 Bear Tooth
WHERE: Amazon / Audible
This very quick-read is set in the rugged landscapes of Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth mountains, adjacent to Yellowstone National Park. The story centers on two brothers, Thad and Hazen, who are dealing with money problems following their father’s death.
To make ends meet, the brothers have to consider some illegal activities, some of which include an ominous figure known as “the Scot,” where, as always, hijinx ensue.
The writing about the natural world is poetic and sublime as are the sections of internal reflection.
📺 The Studio
“The Studio” is a Veep-ish comedy series on Apple TV+ that dives into the inner workings of Hollywood’s film industry. Each episode follows Matt Remick (played by Seth Rogen), a passionate cinephile who unexpectedly becomes the head of the struggling Continental Studios.
You’ve got celebrities playing themselves, an episode centered around a director trying to get a “oner” tracking shot where the episode itself is a owner tracking shot, Ron Howard talking trash, and Kathryn Hahn throwing 105 mph as the studio marketing head.
It’s a very thoughtful and well-made show that isn’t bashful about it’s love for movies, while at the same time not taking itself too seriously.
🚜: Electric Pole Saw
I cleared an entire section of brush from our side yard this weekend with this BAD BOY. Have you ever wanted to use a machete but wished it was electric and that your arms were like 7 feet longer? WELL THEN DO I HAVE THE TOOL FOR YOU.
I used an electric generator to keep me mobile and not at the mercy of gas power or a long string of connected extension cords, but this thing made short work of multiple tree limbs, sticker bushes, and wild privets.
✍️Essay: Big Ideas from Small Monologues ✍️
When I think about The White Lotus Season 3, when I’m not thinking about the Ratliff brother incest plotline, I’m thinking about all the LUSH monologues.
Overall, your mileage may vary (as mine did) on how well the particulars of the narrative were executed, but in terms of deeper ideas and the larger themes of the season, I find myself still chewing on some of the relevance and resonance of specifically a pair of monologues from Episode 5 and another pair from Episode 8.
This is a partial transcript of the already-famous Sam Rockwell monologue:
“I picked Thailand because I always had a thing for Asian girls. And when I got here, oh I was like a kid in a candy store. You got money, no attachments, nothing to do. I started partying. It got wild.
I was picking up girls every night. Always different ones, petite ones, chubby ones, older ones, sometimes multiple ladies a night. I was out of control. I became insatiable. And you know, after a thousand nights like that, you start to lose it. I started wondering, where am I going with this? Why do I feel the need to be with all these women? What is desire?
The form of this cute Asian girl, why does it have such a grip on me? Because she’s the opposite of me? Is she gonna complete me in some way? I realized that I could be with a million women and I’d still never be satisfied. Maybe…maybe what I really want is to BE one of these Asian girls.”
It obviously goes on, but the point is sufficient enough in this section; what is the meaning of pleasure and desire? Pleasure is generally a good thing, but without purpose (and presumably, without calibration or moderation) it becomes a destructive prison. So how do we mitigate our relationship to it?
Similarly, while we understand desire to be a simple expression of wanting, can it also be a complex indication of insecurity? Or perhaps even a mask for a longing towards transformation?
GOOD STUFF, SAM ROCKWELL, even if the visuals in the latter part of this monologue were a little jarring.
The other monologue from E5, more of a mini-one actually, is from the Buddhist Monk to a lorazapamed-out Tim Ratliff, who is just doing his paternal diligence on if it’s okay and safe for Piper to audit this whole, to quote Victoria Ratliff, “booooooodism” thing.
MONK: You have questions for me?
TIM: Well, my daughter wants to join your, whatever this is, and uh…
MONK: And you want to understand why?
TIM: Yeah.
MONK: Many young people come here from your country, I think because, maybe, spiritual malaise. Lost connection with nature, with the family. Lost connection with the spirit. What is left? The self. Identity. Chasing money, pleasure. Yeah? Everyone runs from pain toward the pleasure, but when they get there only to find more pain.
You cannot outrun pain.
When we lose connection to the larger fabric of both our internal and external worlds, we narrow in on ourselves, which leads to the pursuit of pleasure. But how do we invert this compulsion? How do we avoid the loss of connection and the instinct to flee from pain?
The finale episode kicks off with another mini-monologue from the monk:
Sometimes we wake with anxiety. An edgy energy. What will happen today? What is in store for me? So many questions. We want resolution, solid earth under our feet. So we take life into our own hands. We take action, yeah? Our solutions are temporary. They are a quick fix. They create more anxiety, more suffering. There is no resolution to life’s questions. It is easier to be patient once we finally accept there is no resolution.
I’ll admit, this is the most complex and confusing one for me to understand as I don’t know what the line is between passivity and activity. I understand resolution to be a mirage, but how do you square this idea with the reality of obligations and responsibilities that come with living in this world? And doubly so if you have people who rely on you?
The last one is from Carrie Coon’s Laurie as she attempts to summarize her experience of vacationing with her three oldest friends.
I just feel like, as you get older, you have to justify your life, you know? And your choices and… when I’m with you guys, it’s just so, like transparent what my choices were and my mistakes.
I have no belief system and I, well I mean I’ve had a lot of them, but…I mean work was my religion for forever, but I definitely lost my belief there. And then I tried love, and that was a painful religion, it just made everything worse. And then, even for me, just, like, being a mother, that didn’t save me either.
But I had this epiphany today; I don’t need religion or God to give my life meaning. Because time gives it meaning. We started this life together, I mean we’re going through it apart, but we’re still together and I look at you guys and it feels meaningful and I can’t explain it but even when we’re just sitting around the pool talking about whatever inane shit it still feels very deep.
I’m glad you have a beautiful face. And I’m glad you have a beautiful life. And I’m just happy to be at the table.
The first line about getting older and feeling like you have to justify your life HIT HARD. There’s this tendency to want to reverse engineer an overarching plan when so much of it was random or luck or circumstance or just trying to keep your head above water. But Laurie’s epiphany at the simplicity of finding meaning in connection and presence felt PROFOUND.
Overall, there’s a lot of richness in all these ideas and monologues, but there are two that will stick with me the most:
Trying to outrun the self
Our desperation for meaning
Particularly in the West, we’re drowning in distraction while starving for answers.
What passes for “wisdom” is often just life hacks wrapped in Instagram fonts—little productivity spells designed to help us become optimized, monetized, and terrifyingly self-aware. We’re handed tips, tricks, and tools—not for becoming more human, but for becoming better products.
The trouble is, most of us have a hard time untangling who we actually are from who we’ve been trained to be. That’s how we end up trying to fix our inner selves through outer solutions—pleasure, work, travel, achievement, ice baths, or yoga with goats. We chase transformation, but what we often get is amplification: more of our habits, more of our neuroses, more of the self we were trying to transcend in the first place.
Eventually, our obsession with becoming turns into a kind of identity quicksand. The more we struggle to define ourselves, the more we sink into the space between who we are and who we think we should be.
We lose touch with anything beyond ourselves—each of us the main character of an increasingly-confusing plot, which leads to us trying to explain our lives to an increasingly-confused friend looking at us like like Walton Goggins’ Rick looked at Sam Rockwell’s Frank.
I don’t know that The White Lotus really gives us an answer or antidote, but then again, why would it? The closest this season gets to an answer or instruction for us is probably found at the end of Laurie’s monologue, where she assembles the three ideas each character was faced with in some way throughout the season: Acceptance, gratitude, and finding meaning through each moment-by-moment presence in time.
For the comments, what are YOU recommending this week?
Your takeaways on The White Lotus are perfection...this is the stuff I cannot get enough of!