The White Lotus season 3 will be hitting screens in February 2025, with newly released footage showing the show’s usual mix of glamorous rich tourists behaving badly in beautiful locations around the world. This time around, the hotel – White Lotus is the fictional chain, standing in for Six Senses – is in Thailand, and for all the brilliant unpredictability of the show, you can be sure it’ll continue to contrast the spoilt, mostly American, tourists with the ‘unspoilt’ paradises they’re visiting. And as much as we revel in the grotesque behaviour of these characters, and the unravelling of the crimes they become caught up in, part of the appeal of the show is drooling over the very lifestyles it seeks to satirise.
Series creator Mike White, fully knows this too. It’s reflected in everything from the lingering over body beautifuls like Alexandra Daddario in season one and Theo Jame s in season two. In locations like the ancient ruins and spectacular villas of Sicily, we are given access to the privileged world of hedonism where sex and drugs are all part of the holiday experience for those with the money and power to grab it without a care in the world.
On some level, we all want this. Certainly those of us in Western societies built around aspiration and the religion of money. It may be a particularly American obsession but in the UK we are hardly resistant.
A taste of luxury is the goal. And holidays can often give you a taste of that, at least for a week or.