[This story contains spoilers from The White Lotus season three, episode six, “Denials.”]
You gotta hand it to Mike White. Whatever else you want to say about the Emmy winning writer’s work on The White Lotus, when it comes to delivering on shock value, he does a heck of a job.
Case in point: season three, episode six. If last week’s kiss between brothers Saxon and Lochlan Ratliff wasn’t unnerving enough, in comes the latest twist in their storyline, as it’s revealed they also participated in a threesome with Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon). Throughout this week’s episode, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) recalls snippets from the drug-fueled bender the morning after, and just how… well, handsy it got between him and younger brother Loch (Sam Nivola). He hopes he can will it away from existence, especially since Lochlan doesn’t seem to remember a thing. Unfortunately for Saxon, Chloe remembers everything, forcing the shake-guzzling alpha bro to replay the events over and over in his head.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter about the latest development, Schwarzenegger reiterates his core belief about working on The White Lotus: nothing here is purely for shock value (no matter how shocked viewers may be by the storyline).
“There’s some sensationalism, but then there’s also the stuff behind the wall of the character and what he’s dealing with in the conflict of what just happened. What is that going to do to who he thinks he is?” says Schwarzenegger. “His thoughts on, what is it like to be a man? What is a man? What makes all these different things that he thought he stood for in the episode and the days before?”
He continues, “Mike [White, creator] does a great job with my character with that scene, but also in past seasons of always bringing something that is really fun and outrageous and sparks a conversation that gets people talking, but also has to do a lot with the pilgrimage of the characters’ story and where he’s going. And here, especially with the relationship Saxon has with his little brother. There’s always more than what just meets the eye of the shock value on the screen.”
In terms of actually filming the threesome, Nivola says there was no way for the production to not feel at least a little bit unsettling: “It’s kind of impossible for it to not be charged when you’re literally naked with all these cameras in front of you.”
“We really trusted Mike,” adds Nivola, “because there’s always a very shocking, crazy, intense moment in every season. It’s never just for the sake of being shocking, it always serves the story. And that [incest] scene id really the inciting incident for where our relationship goes next. It’s a great storytelling tactic. Going into this, we really trusted Mike because he’s a fucking badass and a genius.”
While the Ratliff brothers are dealing with the ramifications of their night out on the boat, sister Piper is focusing on her next steps: enrolling at the local monastery and furthering her Buddhist faith. In the episode, parents Victoria (Parker Posey) and Timothy (Jason Isaacs) empower Piper to stay overnight and if she succeeds, they plan to let her stay at the monastery for a year. Of course, easier said than done, in terms of them actually accepting their daughter’s wishes — and, in Timothy’s case, accepting pretty much anything right now, given his own deep free fall.
“God bless her, being in that family,” Sarah Catherine Hook tells THR about Piper. She remembers her first conversations with White ahead of the season: “Mike kept telling me, ‘She’s the most normal, the grounded one.’ He really didn’t want her to be a brat. We had already gone down that road in season one. So we wanted to keep her vulnerable. And she’s also harboring this secret about why she’s really in Thailand. So there were a lot of different instructions for Piper, and a lot for me to juggle.”
Indeed, there’s still a lot left for season three to juggle: Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) versus Greg (Jon Gries), Rick (Walton Goggins) versus the man who killed his father and the three best friends against each other, among other storylines. There are only a pair of episodes left to wrap it all up. If only it were a trio.
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The White Lotus releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max. Head here for THR‘s season coverage and interviews.
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