The White Lotus

Our Review

Mike White’s anthology of the awful rich — each season at a different luxury resort (Hawaii, Sicily, Thailand), following guests and staff through a week that ends with a body — is the sharpest class satire on TV. Season 1 is a masterwork: Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya (an unstable heiress adrift, the role of her lifetime), the honeymooner whose petty grievance over a room upgrade escalates into a death, and Murray Bartlett’s hotel manager Armond — whose drug-fueled revenge arc is one of TV’s great comic descents.

Season 2 (Sicily) goes darker: sexual politics, men who take and the women who invoice them, and a finale that’s pure opera. Season 3 (Thailand) expands to spirituality and the hollowness of wellness money can buy. Mike White writes privilege with a scalpel and hires casts that win Emmys. The theme music alone is iconic.

Verdict: Watch it. One of the best shows of the decade, and the funniest show about death you’ll ever see.