In another post I raved about HBO’s The White Lotus, Season 2.

As of this writing, 4 out of 8 episodes of Season 3 have now aired.

If you’re planning to watch it and don’t want to read anything about it before then, you might want to stop reading this now. 

Many opinions I’m seeing online about Season 3 is that despite the usual gorgeous setting and cinematography, great performances and acting, etc., something is lacking.

People are finding it slow and feeling that not much is happening.

Which of course is a writing question.

I’m a huge fan of Mike White, the creator/writer/director of every episode of this series, and so appreciate what he’s done thus far. But I have to find myself agreeing. And I want to spell out why, in a way that’s a useful lesson for writers.

Some viewers had a similar observation about Seasons 1 and 2 and never really got into the show because they either didn’t like the characters or felt there wasn’t enough going on. I definitely get that critique and agree that there could be something of a slow burn toward a big climax in prior seasons.

But I think this season takes that to a whole other level, in the first 4 episodes.

And I want to compare them to the first 4 episodes of Season 2 (see photo below) to make that point.

In both seasons, we’re following about 12 characters. Some of them have more “story” than others.

By “story,” I mean an active desire they pursue or problem they actively try to solve, over the course of multiple scenes focused on their emotional point-of-view.

In Season 2, by Episode 4 (out of 7 that year), I would say there were significantly more stories and more story development and evolution, with more emotional insight into more characters, and more stakes. With a focus on interpersonal conflicts leading to meaningful actions that affected things moving forward in irreversible ways.

For instance…

Tanya’s husband Greg leaves her alone in Sicily and might be cheating. She’s distraught and looking for answers. It’s true there’s not much she can do about that, and Quentin inviting her to hang out seems to temporarily help with that, but still, she’s miserable.

When in doubt, make them miserable and dramatize their pain. Even if at times they lack agency to pursue a strong goal and are just kind of stuck with managing a problem. There are things I’ve written about and believe in. And Season 2 does a lot of that.

Now Season 3 also has some miserable characters who can’t do much to solve their problems. The biggest in stakes by Episode 4 is for Tim, who learns from phone calls that the FBI is after him for some potential business crimes. He’s freaked out about this and we have many scenes showing that, but he can’t do much other than self-medicate.

Does this work as well as Tanya’s situation in Season 2?

We also get to know Albie from his perspective, and he has the (again highly interpersonal) problems of his dad trying to get him to vouch for him with his mother, who’s given him the boot for his cheating. And he has his attraction to Portia which goes sideways when she chooses Jack. Like Portia, he gets an Episode 4 “false victory” midway through the series, when Lucia shows interest in him. 

In Season 3 we don’t have any romantic relationships or potentials that really seem to be going anywhere by Episode 4. Gaitok keeps telling Mook he’s into her and her reaction is opaque and non-committal. It doesn’t develop much.

The three female friends find Valentin sexy and maybe one of them will try to hook up with him but not much has come of that by Episode 4 – she hasn’t really tried. Same with Belinda’s one-scene attraction to Pornchai. And Saxon’s occasional attempts to flirt with women which don’t get very far. Nobody’s dating and no relationships are crumbling.

Then you have Rick and Chelsea. Rick is miserable and distant but for reasons we know little about. He wants to find the owner’s husband but we don’t know why until Ep. 4, and even then, his plan once he sees him is unclear. Chelsea is understandably exasperated by his behavior but her complaining about it gets repetitive and not much comes of it.

Two dramatic things happen to her but they also quickly recede. Instead of complications creating more actions for characters tied to their overall story problem or goal, the moments of drama come somewhat out of the blue and then are gone, and we seem to return to a static status quo.

In season 2, Dominic wanted his wife’s forgiveness and his son’s help while grappling with a sex addiction and multiple on-screen hook-ups with sex workers – and then sees that his son is dating one of them, not knowing her full story, all by Episode 4.

Similarly, Harper and Ethan not only have a marriage in the doldrums, but Cameron also pushes Ethan into partying with those sex workers while their wives are away, and has also behaved inappropriately with his friend’s wife more than once by Episode 4.

By contrast, the three female friends in Season 3 seem to just be kind of… hanging out. There’s a whiff in Ep. 1 that one might not fit in with or enjoy the others, then later another one’s politics could be an issue. In Ep. 4 the third can’t get her man on the phone and wants to go party. But nothing really comes of that. 

The sex workers in Season 2 also get their own stories: Lucia is conflicted about her life situation, wants a way out, and sucks Mia into this life but feels guilty about it. Meanwhile Mia has sex with the hotel piano player to get help with her singing aspirations and he collapses and could be dead.

Their situations are arguably more compelling and relatable than the rest of Tim’s family, by contrast. Tim’s wife Victoria doesn’t seem to have much of a problem or goal for the first four episodes and neither do their 3 kids. Saxon wants to get laid and to remake brother Lochlan in his image. Lochlan is maybe not down for that but it’s hard to tell. Sister Piper has brought them there so she can interview a local monk. In Ep. 4 she reveals she wants to move there permanently and hasn’t told anyone yet. Arguably not a lot to latch onto there.

Perhaps the biggest potential source of story by Ep. 4 in Season 3 is Belinda recognizing Greg, then learning that Tanya is dead under mysterious circumstances. This definitely has potential for high stakes conflict moving forward and I trust a lot more will come of this. (And probably for the other characters as well.) I wonder if starting it in Ep. 1 might have been a stronger choice, though, given the lack of dramatic momentum elsewhere.

What lessons can we learn from this?

Number one for me is that it’s hard to do this really well and to keep doing it, repeating a certain formula multiple times, even for someone as greatly talented as Mike White.

Number two – and my main advice for writers to learn from this – is to make sure characters are pursing intentions and encountering obstacles that meaningfully evolve their situations – complicating them and leading to more that they have to do, and more pain. While making the life stakes of those situations palpable.

I’m sure some of you might have seen these episodes and have a different opinion! Feel free to share below…