If last week’s mention of Trump and Chelsea getting bit by a cobra wasn’t enough of a sign that things are getting really dark really fast on The White Lotus, the focus on the girls’ trip gone wild should do the trick.
These three middle-aged frenemies might be giving us the show’s scariest dynamic yet: There’s Michelle Monaghan’s character Jaclyn, the famous actress newly married to a much younger actor; Carrie Coon’s Laurie, the divorced New York lawyer; and Leslie Bibb’s Kate, the self-proclaimed independent voter who lives with her family in Austin. While the dynamics between this group have shifted each week (nothing unusual for a group of three friends, I may add), Jaclyn seems to be spiraling, and her $52 Erewhon tote bag will not protect her.
In each episode, two of these women have ganged up on the third friend: The premiere hinted that Laurie might be going through some sort of mid-life crisis, episode two centered around Jaclyn’s competitive side, and episode three suggested that Kate might be a Trump supporter. Where do we go from here? Things are tense, and Jaclyn’s new boo isn’t answering his phone when she calls him. At breakfast, she decides the trio need to break up the yoga and poolside monotony and do something spontaneous. “It’s a beautiful pool but we should at least, one day, sit by a different pool,” she says.
After a mishap at a retirement pool, Jaclyn demands that their guide for the week, the hunky Valentin (Arnas Fedaravičius), take them somewhere fun, but she doesn’t change her outfit. He brings them into the city for some shopping and a beach club before calling his friends and leaving the women on their own for a bit. It’s Songkran, so the streets are filled with children having water-gun fights, and the women are quickly “targeted” by the locals. All sense of fun is gone; as the women scramble away, Jaclyn throws a fit and screams “I’m wearing white” at the children. They end up at the club, finally happy, with Jaclyn’s expensive canvas tote slung over her arm. “What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand,” Jaclyn says. “We’re not dead yet.”
This is a woman who was wearing a Valentino dress from the 2023 Escape collection just two episodes ago! Of course, everybody has that one grimy tote they bring on vacation just in case they have to carry some books and sunglasses down to the pool. However, since we’ve already seen Jaclyn walking around the resort with not one but two other designer bags, I would expect nothing else from a celebrity begging the resort staff to show her a good time. The fact that she’s repping Los Angeles’s supreme bougie grocery store as a fashion statement is what makes this whole situation ironic to me. For someone who seems so competitive, it feels a little odd that she wouldn’t go to the club in the most attention-grabbing ensemble she could find, accessories included. Her day was a bust, and in place of an $18 comfort smoothie, we’ll just have to see what else she does to make up for it.
