The White Lotus Premiere Recap: Season 3’s Arrivals Include a Surprise Guest

Get your passports ready: We’re kicking off a new luxury vacation with HBO’s The White Lotus — and you might be shocked when you see who’s tagging along.

Sunday’s Season 3 premiere opens with a college guy named Zion learning to meditate from a hotel staffer: “Let us calm our chattering monkey minds.” But he’s distracted by a strange sound — which he identifies as gunshots. He sees people running and ducking for cover, and as more shots rings out, Zion wades through a knee-deep pool looking for his mother. He takes a moment to ask a Buddhist statue to “please let my mom be OK.” But when more shots are fired, he gets angry: “I said don’t let anything happen to my mother, motherf–ker!” And as sirens blare, we see a dead body float by. (It wouldn’t be The White Lotus without one.)  

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We flash back to a week earlier, with a boat full of guests arriving at the White Lotus resort in Thailand. Timothy (Jason Isaacs) and Rick (Walton Goggins) get off on the wrong foot immediately, with Timothy objecting to Rick’s cigarette smoke. Timothy is there with his wife Victoria (Parker Posey) and their three kids, and Rick is there with his much younger girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood). Also on board: Season 1’s Belinda (Natasha Rothwell); and Laurie, Jaclyn and Kate, a trio of gal pals played by Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb. We’re excited already!

At the resort, we meet security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), who gives hotel staffer Mook (Lalisa Manobal) a ride to work so she can greet the guests as they arrive. Chelsea gushes about how pretty Mook is, but Rick just grumbles: “Please stop talking.” Victoria brags that her daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) came here to write her thesis on Buddhism, and the three ladies reveal they’ve been friends since they were nine… but don’t call them “old friends.” Longtime friends! They perk up, too, when they see the resort’s muscle-bound “health mentor” Valentin. Plus, Belinda is here to soak up knowledge and bring it back to Maui with her, she tells spa manager Pornchai.

Victoria sniffs, “We usually stay in the Caribbean” as she and her family get settled in their suite. They’re stunned, though, when a hotel staffer tells them there’s no wi-fi in the rooms. In fact, she asks to collect their phones and devices for the week, but the family quickly rejects that. (“I get a way better pump if I’m listening to music,” eldest son Saxon, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, explains.) In their room, Chelsea tells Mook that she used to be a yoga teacher and “Rick barely works.” Rick wants to know more about the resort owner Sritala and her husband, and he’s disappointed to learn the husband is ill and back in Bangkok. (Hmmm.) Once they’re alone, Chelsea encourages him to get a facial (“That lady at the airport thought you were my dad”), but he shrugs her off. “You’ve got to sort your s–t out,” she tells him. “You’ve got issues.”

In the ladies’ suite, Jaclyn makes sure everyone likes their rooms — she’s a TV actress, and she set up this trip — and she and Kate rave to each other about how great they look. Oh, and Laurie looks good, too, they add! They toast to “a week of new memories.” The guests start to mingle: Saxon lays out by the pool and, when he sees Chelsea arrive, makes sure to parade in front of her shirtless. Piper visits a Buddhist temple, but her brother Lochlan (Sam Nivola) would rather join Saxon at the pool, and Victoria just wants to take a nap. Timothy, though, gets an urgent call from someone at the Wall Street Journal. Uh-oh.

With Lochlan by his side, Saxon tries to flirt with the three ladies and then Chelsea at the pool, but they ignore him. He’s not daunted, though. “It’s a numbers game,” he tells Lochlan. At dinner that night, Timothy and Victoria both pressure Lochlan about what college he’s going to — he wants Duke, she wants North Carolina — and Rick scoffs at the local cuisine. (He keeps eyeing the female resort owner Sritala, though.) Belinda smiles when she sees an older Black couple dining at another table, and Timothy finally answers the call from the Wall Street Journal, where a reporter is working on a story about his former co-worker’s ties to Brunei. Timothy claims not to know anything about it, but he definitely looks flustered. Oh, and later, Rick scrolls through old photos of Sritala with her husband. What’s the connection there, we wonder?

Chelsea is alone at the hotel bar when she’s joined by another young woman: a model who also has an annoying boyfriend. They live in a house right near the resort, and she points him out — and it’s Greg, Tanya’s ex from the first two seasons! He’s living it up on Tanya’s money! The girl and Chelsea decide to get drunk together… and we already have a bad feeling about this. The three ladies are drunk when they get back to their room, and Jaclyn and Kate are still gushing over each other. And then they turn to Laurie: “And Laurie, everything you do is just so hard!” Laurie turns in for the night, but she can see Kate and Jaclyn giggling without her from her room — and she sobs a bit to herself.

In bed that night, Saxon complains to Lochlan about their sister Piper: “She’s pretty hot. But I don’t think she’s ever been laid before.” He’s much more a materialist than a Buddhist: “It’s good to want things. As long as you can get them.” Speaking of wanting things, he’s not sure how to, um, pleasure himself with his brother in the room, so he takes his tablet to the bathroom, baring all as he shuts the door — with his brother watching. Timothy is still fuming as he goes to bed, and Victoria tries to soothe him, telling him how great his life is… but he doesn’t look very comforted.

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