Diksha Sundriyal
The third season of HBO’s ‘The White Lotus’ transports the audience to Thailand, and each episode reveals something new about the country, at least to the guests. Some see it as an enlightening experience, while others find the culture shock too much to process. In the fifth episode, however, almost all the guests partake in the celebration of Songkran. The events of the day are covered in the fourth episode, while the wildness of the night is captured in the fifth one, serving as the perfect half-point for the season. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like much has happened in this episode apart from the partying, but a deeper view dictates that all that has unfolded now will serve as a pivotal point in the story, turning it in a whole new direction. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Jaclyn, Laurie, and Kate’s Party With Valentin Gets Wilder
In the previous episode, Jaclyn, Kate, and Laurie forced Valentin to take them to a happening place in town, and in this episode, we find them in full party mode. His friends, Vlad and Alexie, spice things up, and while Jaclyn and Laurie seem to be enjoying themselves, Kate becomes increasingly uncomfortable with how the night progresses. Despite her desire to call it a night, her friends dance the night away. While dancing with the men, Jaclyn notices a group of three younger women looking at them, and she decides to make them jealous by adding more sexiness to her dance.
A few minutes later, the girls arrive at their table and start fighting with Alexie. This is when Jaclyn and her friends decide to leave, but the men don’t want the night to end, so they are invited to the hotel to keep the party going. At first, Kate doesn’t like the idea of having the trio at the resort, but later, she seems to be enjoying herself, even though she remains on the sidelines. Meanwhile, Jaclyn and Laurie go all in, removing their unspeakables while in the pool. In her drunken stupor, Laurie tells Alexie and Valentin about her personal problems with the palimony, while Vlad pours out his personal trauma on Kate, which is when she decides to finally end the party.
As the men leave, Laurie says something in Valentin’s ear, though neither the audience nor her friends are privy to this exchange. The three women go back to their rooms as the men leave. Later, however, Jaclyn calls Valentin, lets him into her room, and they have sex. It is not entirely surprising, but considering how much Laurie was being propped to flirt with Valentin and whatnot, it seems that this finally might be one of the things that lead to the confrontation between the women, which is a long time coming.
Rick Meets His Longtime Friend Frank
While many interning things happen in this episode, the one that takes the cake is Sam Rockwell’s role of Frank. The man was mentioned in a previous episode when Rick called him to tell him about his impending arrival in Bangkok. Now, the duo finally meets, and while Rick seems happy with the reunion, he is shocked to discover how much his friend has changed. Frank reveals that he came to Thailand a few years back because he was running from the law in America. With a boatload of money in his hand and a country of Asian girls around him (who he has a thing for), he drowned himself in sex. But after a while, it did not satisfy him.
There came a point when Frank had to ask himself what he was doing with his life. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that perhaps his fixation on Asian girls was because he wanted to be one himself. Then he tells Rick about how he wanted to be an Asian girl, seeing himself having sex with someone else. The entire description leaves Rick rattled, and he doesn’t know how to respond to his friend, who seems to be an entirely different person now. Anyway, the sex addiction finally came to an end when Frank took up Buddhism. Since then, he has been living the life of a monk. As his story comes to an end, Rick seems thankful for it.
The reason he had called Frank was to get a gun from him, which he does. As they part, he also tells his friend that he will need his services again, and soon, which means that Sam Rockwell is going to grace our screens again next week, hopefully! The entire night, Chelsea keeps calling Rick, but he doesn’t respond. It is only when he is back in his hotel room that he returns her call, but this time, she doesn’t pick up because she is done waiting for him. When he left, she joined Chloe on her boat to party, where Saxon and Lochy joined them.
Chelsea spends the entire evening worrying about Rick, but when he doesn’t return her calls, Chloe tells her to stop paying any mind to him and enjoy the time she has. The four of them attend a party by the beach where they pop some pills, get high, and watch the fireworks. Then they go back to the boat, where they get drunk some more and play a game where they have to kiss each other. First, Chloe and Chelsea kiss, then Chloe kisses Lochy, and then it is the turn for the boys to kiss. Saxon seems a bit uncomfortable with it, though he is too drunk to express it, but Lochy seems to be enjoying himself, and that opens the door for the incest that the show had been hiding at all this time.
Piper Comes Clean to Her Parents While Tim Spirals
While Saxon and Lochy go on a wild alcohol-and-drug-fuelled adventure, Piper is back at the resort with her parents. She had hoped that Lochy would be around for this conversation, but since he bailed on her, she decided to come clean to her parents by herself. She reveals that the reason she brought them to Thailand wasn’t for her thesis but to figure out if she wanted to do a one-year program here, and now that she has visited the place, she is sure this is what she wants.
Victoria immediately expresses her disapproval and hopes the same from her husband, but Tim seems too caught up in his own problems to say anything. Neither of the women knows that he has stolen a gun from Gaitok, who has been losing his mind over it. The security guard discovers from the security footage that the thief is Tim, but when he tries to confront him, Tim immediately dismisses him. This leaves Gaitok in a storm of trouble. He cannot report Tim because it would reveal his own incompetence. But he cannot leave it be because the loss of the gun would also point toward his incompetence, and this time, he would be fired for it.
While Gaitok tries to figure out what to do about it, Tim seems to have made up his mind. After dinner, when his wife and daughter go to bed, he writes a note apologizing for his actions. Then, he puts the gun to his temple and most likely would have shot himself if his wife hadn’t walked in, thanks to the lack of Lorazepam, which keeps her from sleeping. It’s as if Victoria’s presence knocks some sense into him, and Tim drops the idea of killing himself, though this still doesn’t solve his problem, and he can do nothing but pray to god to help him.
Greg’s Inquisition Rattles Belinda
While the guests are busy enjoying the celebration of Songkran, Belinda is disturbed when she discovers that Greg has been asking about her. Fabien tells her about the guest taking a particular interest in her. However, when she expresses the concerns about being in danger because of Greg’s(Gary to Fabien) shady past of disappearing following his wife’s murder and living in Thailand with a changed name, he cannot seem to grasp the situation. She tries to lay it out to him in the simplest terms, saying that Greg is a dangerous man; however, Fabien refuses to accept it. He tells Belinda to focus on her program and assures her (in the least words) that she will be safe at the resort.
Fabien’s dismissal of her concerns only makes her more worried, and she shares everything with Pornchai. He helps ease her mind by taking care of the weird noise that had been coming from her room for the past two nights. It turns out that there had been a lizard in her room. Pornchai sends the reptile out into the wild, but when he tries to say goodbye, Belinda pleads with him to stay with her that night because she is scared. He agrees to it, and the night ends with them acting on the feelings that both of them have clearly harbored for each other since the day they gave each other a massage.
Read More: Is The White Lotus a Real Luxury Resort in Thailand?
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