White Lotus' Mike White Has NSFW Clapback to Season 3 Finale Haters
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for the April 6 finale of The White Lotus.
You're meant to feel uncomfortable while watching The White Lotus, according to Mike White.
The showrunner addressed criticism over the HBO series' third season, calling out backlash claiming there was "no plot" leading up to its bloodbath finale.
"Part of me is just like, 'Bro, this is the vibe,'" White on the April 6 episode of The White Lotus Official Season 3 Podcast. "I'm world-building."
He continued, "If you don’t want to go to bed with me, get out of my bed. I’m edging you!"
In fact, the 54-year-old quipped that critics should "enjoy the edging" rather than complaining about the pace of the season, which ended with Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and Rick (Walton Goggins) dying in a hail of bullets at the fictitious White Lotus hotel in Thailand.
"If you don’t want to be edged, get out of my bed," White continued. "Don't be a bossy bottom."
But the producer knew that the season three finale would incite mixed reactions. As Charlotte Le Bon, who played Chloe, warned to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the episode, "People are going to hate Mike White."
And White agreed, saying that the best a writer can do is hope to "stick the landing."
"I am grateful that I keep getting to do it," he told the outlet. "But everything’s always going to be compared to something else. There’s a critic I won’t name, and every time I do something, they’re like, 'It’s not as good as the last one.' You didn’t even like that one!"
He added of the season three ending, "My hope is that it’ll feel like a cathartic sad or a satisfying sad and not a ‘What the f--k?’ sad."
To get to know all the players in season three, keep reading...
How you like that? The singer known mononymously as Lisa went from being a rockstar on world stages as part of K-pop group Blackpink—alongside Jisoo, Jennie and Rosé—to donning the White Lotus staff uniform for her big debut as Mook.
Looks like Lucius Malfoy missed the train to Hogwarts and instead landed at The White Lotus. That's right: He may look different without the luscious blond hair, but the Harry Potter star is returning to the screen as another uppity father figure, playing Timothy Ratliff, described as a "wealthy businessman vacationing with his wife and three children."
Isaacs has also made more recent appearances on TV shows like Robot Chicken, The Great and Sex Education (alongside his White Lotus costar Aimee Lou Wood.)
Don't scream when you see it, but Posey—who plays Timothy's wife Victoria Ratliff—may look familiar from her movies Superman Returns, Blade: Trinity, Scream 3 and Dazed and Confused. She's also had brief stints on such TV shows as Parks and Recreation, New Girl, Portlandia and Search Party.
But the real rom-com fans will know her from the 1998 classic You've Got Mail, in which she played Joe Fox's (Tom Hanks) girlfriend Patricia Eden.
While you may know him best from family photos as the son of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, he has already made a name for himself acting in Gen V, The Terminal List and The Staircase before playing Saxon Ratliff in season three.
Prior to taking on the part of the Ratliffs' daughter Piper, Hook got her feet wet in the horror and fantasy genres, portraying Debbie Glatzel in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Juliette Fairmont in First Kill and Elena Milak in Monsterland.
You may also know her from the 2024 Cruel Intentions remake as Caroline Merteuil or from the Ryan Murphy cinematic universe, in which she played Catherine Allday Davis in Impeachment: American Crime Story about the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Nivola—who is dating Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann's daughter Iris Apatow—rounds out the Ratliff family as young Lochlan. But before hitting the shores of Thailand, he was in another show about a rich family at the beach: The Perfect Couple, playing Will Winbury, the son of Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber's Greer and Tag Winbury. He even costarred on the Netflix drama with White Lotus alum Meghann Fahy, who appeared as Daphne Sullivan on season two of the HBO show before playing Merritt Monaco on The Perfect Couple.
Nivola has also acted in White Noise with Adam Driver, Maestro with Bradley Cooper and With/In with Anne Hathaway.
Of course, White Lotus fans will recognize Rothwell from season one, in which she played spa guru Belinda in Maui. Not only is she reprising the part for season three, but the actress has also graced the screen in Insecure, Wonka, A Year and Change and Love, Simon. Plus, she lent her comedy chops to Saturday Night Live as a writer from 2014 to 2015.
The Iron Man alum is assembling to play Kate in The White Lotus after portraying Christine Everhart in the Marvel franchise. More recently, she starred in Palm Royale as Dinah Donahue and Jupiter’s Legacy as Grace Kennedy-Sampson.
The Gilded Age star—who may also look familiar from The Sinner, Fargo and The Leftovers—steps into the role of Laurie, who joins pals Kate and Jaclyn for a girls' trip in Thailand this season.
While Monaghan plays TV star Jaclyn on The White Lotus, she’s also a TV star IRL, having been on True Detective, Bad Monkey, Messiah and The Path. On the big screen, she's starred as Julia in Mission: Impossible - Fallout and Angie Genaro in Gone Baby Gone.
You'll feel justified in knowing that it's not all in your head—Goggins really does look familiar. In addition to starring in two Quentin Tarantino movies (playing Billy Crash in Django Unchained and Sheriff Chris Mannix in The Hateful Eight), he is also known for being Boyd Crowder in Justified from 2010 to 2015.
The English actress joins the cast in season three as free-spirited Chelsea, who has an age-gap romance with Goggins' character Rick Hatchett. Yet, she is best known for her role as Aimee Gibbs on Netflix’s Sex Education and also appeared in Seize Them! and Daddy Issues.
Her acting credits may trace back 50 years—starting with Grounded God in 1975—but she most recently portrayed Prani Chiraanan on In Family We Trust in 2018.
The singer and former military man has acting credits that include Mechanic: Resurrection, Skin Trade and Paradox, as well as playing Pao on the TV series Farang.
If 13 minutes wasn't enough time to figure out where you recognize the German actor, allow us to refresh your memory. He played Rudolf Höss in The Zone of Interest, Reinhold Gräf in Babylon Berlin and Georg Elser in 13 Minutes.
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