Well, they did it. Kind of. Anybody thinking that Mike White wouldn’t have the courage to make the Ratliff family dynamics any weirder has been proved spectacularly wrong this episode.
Then again, this is the White Lotus we’re talking about – and if we know anything about this show, it’s that it takes joy in being transgressive. And so: we as viewers are treated to a brief snapshot of Saxon and Lochlan locking lips in the closing seconds of the episode, as part of a drinking game, while Chelsea and Chloe look on. It’s so brief, in fact, that you’d be forgiven for missing it entirely, which seems a rather disappointing way to end the weeks of speculation that have dogged the show since it started airing.
Whew! So...
what else happened? Well, plenty of drinking. This was a party episode: the American not-quite-friends are on a lairy night out with Valentin and his two Russian buddies, which gradually gets weirder and ever-more sexual (and includes weird chat from one of the blokes about having bottles smashed on his head as a child). In terms of satire, these insecure rich women feel the most delightfully stereotyped of the entire cast – watching their toxic dynamic never gets old.
In the meantime, Saxon, Lochlan, Chloe and Chelsea are living it up large on Greg’s yacht. Chloe has designs on Lochlan, and doesn’t seem to mind about the fact she’s cheating on her ageing boyfriend either. “Gary might kill me,” she tells Chelsea, in one of the episode’s mo.
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