With another new location and a mostly new cast of characters, The White Lotus continues to be the same great series, according to the first reviews of its third season. This time, the show is set in Thailand, at a luxury resort focused on spiritual wellness and living in the present, as Carrie Coon, Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey, Walton Goggins, Michelle Monaghan, and Leslie Bibb star as just some of the wealthy guests clashing with one another. Most of the praise for The White Lotus Season 3 is directed at creator Mike White, whose writing is as brilliant as ever, even as he’s (purposefully) echoing much of what we saw in the first two seasons.
Here’s what critics are saying about The White Lotus Season 3:
The White Lotus is the best show on television!
— Joshua Ryan, FandomWire
[This] might be my favorite season yet of The White Lotus.
— Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
The White Lotus Season 3 continues the streak of great television.
— Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky
The White Lotus shows no signs of slowing down. If anything, it’s even more incisive and blisteringly funny than before, but also a whole heck of a lot darker.
— Joonatan Itkonen, Toisto.net
The third season of The White Lotus lives up to the show’s previous work, while perpetuating some of its established weaknesses.
— Garrett Martin, Paste Magazine
The fare may be slightly less mouth-watering than last time but, trust me, you will still want to gobble it all down.
— Carol Midgley, Times (UK)
Season 3 works best as a mood piece.
— Niv M. Sultan, Slant Magazine
What this new season excels at above all else is atmosphere… Rarely have scenes of unbridled fun and ecstasy felt so ominous.
— Garrett Martin, Paste Magazine
Some been-there-done-that has begun to set in. What remains fresh, though, is the interpretation.
— Daniel Fienberg, Hollywood Reporter
Just when it seems like this hotel-based franchise might be getting a little run down, Season 3 develops into an engrossing mystery about beautiful people who have everything they could ever want, but nothing they really need.
— Kristen Baldwin, Entertainment Weekly
In addition to being the best season so far in how White playfully teases out the tension, it’s also the darkest as it sees him taking some bigger, often rather boldly audacious leaps to cut deeper into his characters’ psyches.
— Chase Hutchinson, Seattle Times
Though the two previous payoffs…were fun when we got there, this is the first time the mystery itself feels engaging, in part because White has seeded many more possibilities for who might be the victim, and why.
— Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone
Season 3 is the least immediately gripping entry in this running vacation diary to date; White seems to understand he’s earned our patience.
— Alison Herman, Variety
Season 3 may be less exciting, but it’s easily the show’s darkest and most existential installment.
— Emma Kiely, Collider
The season ultimately feels like a blunter, less jolting riff on the show’s familiar formula.
— Niv M. Sultan, Slant Magazine
The soundtrack, full of Thai rock, pop, and dance music from the last several decades, is the best this show has ever sounded.
— Garrett Martin, Paste Magazine
It’s likely to face some criticism that its formula has become, well, formulaic…the archetypes and commentary have become, if not stale, very comfortably entrenched.
— Daniel Fienberg, Hollywood Reporter
This new batch of episodes feels even more like White is trying to mix and match ideas he used in the two previous settings. The end result is still extremely entertaining.
— Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone
In many ways, the formula provides familiar entertainment.
— Chase Hutchinson, Seattle Times
The notes are different but the tune starts to sound the same.
— Garrett Martin, Paste Magazine
The social satire of The White Lotus hasn’t lost any of its sting.
— Garrett Martin, Paste Magazine
White’s ear for dialogue and gift with character depth — everyone in this show feels like they have a back story, down to the smallest role — are sharper than ever.
— Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
White has his withering critique of privileged parasitism down to a science.
— Daniel Fienberg, Hollywood Reporter
White, who writes and directs each episode, has the unrivaled mastery of satire and dark humor.
— Joshua Ryan, FandomWire
When the story coalesces and kicks into gear somewhere around its halfway point, it’s as wild and unpredictable as any of the powder kegs White has combusted.
— Alison Herman, Variety
While it packs a bite, it still feels as if it’s prowling on familiar ground.
— Niv M. Sultan, Slant Magazine
It’s hilarious.
— Joshua Ryan, FandomWire
This is some of the funniest satire around if you can handle the discomfort.
— Joonatan Itkonen, Toisto.net
It’s often quite funny, but not as consistently so as its predecessors.
— Niv M. Sultan, Slant Magazine
The show is notably less funny than past seasons, focusing on darker storylines instead.
— Emma Kiely, Collider
White uses his third installment to tie this universe together… While viewers could follow along with Season 2 without having seen the first installment, Season 3 is very much connected to the past.
— Emma Kiely, Collider
Let’s just say this season isn’t exclusively interested in what happens in Thailand, and that there are more callbacks to earlier seasons than the trailers might lead you to expect.
— Garrett Martin, Paste Magazine
If you already love The White Lotus, you’re bound to love it even more. For everyone else, it’s finally time to see what you’re missing out on.
— Joonatan Itkonen, Toisto.net
The White Lotus looks as beautiful as ever.
— Kristen Baldwin, Entertainment Weekly
The new setting is gorgeous, of course… and every single shot of a monkey is absolutely amazing.
— Garrett Martin, Paste Magazine
[It has] one of the most gorgeous settings in the history of television, shot with a sharp visual language by White…this season of The White Lotus will likely be the most beautiful drama you watch this year.
— Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
It’s difficult to choose a standout with a cast this strong, but [Walton] Goggins, Patrick Swarzenegger, Michelle Monaghan, Aimee Lou Wood, and Jason Isaacs each deliver complex and engaging performance that help to elevate their respective plotlines.
— Joshua Ryan, FandomWire
Isaacs is exceptional as a man whose own fragility rises almost immediately to the surface (though you have to accept that his Southern accent ranges from Foghorn Leghorn to nonexistent, depending on the moment).
— Daniel Fienberg, Hollywood Reporter
Sex Education‘s Wood is once again a standout as Chelsea, who tempers her piercing wit with a New Agey equanimity.
— Kristen Baldwin, Entertainment Weekly
The cast is uniformly superb, though the highlights belong to Goggins as the scheming yet hapless Rick Hatchett and Lalisa Manobal as Mook, who carries the series with a difficult part that she pulls off effortlessly.
— Joonatan Itkonen, Toisto.net
The standouts [are] a delightful Carrie Coon of the spectacular series The Leftovers and Walton Goggins of the winning recent Fallout.
— Chase Hutchinson, Seattle Times
The real standouts for me were the younger cast members, namely Patrick Schwarzenegger as the alpha-bro Saxon Ratliff and Sam Nivola as his little bro Lochlan.
— BJ Colangelo, Slashfilm
But the monkeys steal the show. The look of contempt at the humans, their brethren, as we parade and demean ourselves, is matchless.
— Benji Wilson, Daily Telegraph
If I am being totally honest, Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya is missed.
— Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky
Nobody is giving a performance nearly as big, bold, and mesmerizingly weird as Coolidge’s.
— Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone
Posey is the perfect substitute for Coolidge’s presence while making her character entirely her own.
— Emma Kiely, Collider
[Posey’s character’s] laugh-out-loud absurdity helps to ease the absence of Jennifer Coolidge’s similarly oblivious Tanya McQuoid.
— Niv M. Sultan, Slant Magazine
Posey, in particular, goes bigger than anyone else, appearing to aim for Coolidge-esque camp with a Southern drawl and slackened face.
— Alison Herman, Variety
The failure to make the Thai characters more complicated shortchanges the actors, particularly Manobal, who has a surfeit of charisma but very little to do with it.
— Daniel Fienberg, Hollywood Reporter
The employees are still largely an afterthought. Despite Thapthimthong and Manobal’s legitimately sweet romance, its Thai characters are mostly nameless and interchangeable.
— Garrett Martin, Paste Magazine
[There are] narratives shaped by Seasons 1 and 2 that can sometimes feel like an anchor on the plot, an obligation that White is forced to return to instead of fleshing out the new ones, and the only weakness anywhere this season.
— Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
I’m not sure how many seasons the series can continue while maintaining this level of quality, but there’s been no dip thus far, and I’d love to see it keep going for as long as it can.
— Joshua Ryan, FandomWire
I’d like to see a fourth season with absolutely no ties to what’s come before other than thematically and the resort chain that gives it a name.
— Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
The White Lotus: Season 3 premieres on HBO on February 16, 2025.
