Meet the cast of The White Lotus Season 3

Welcome to The White Lotus Thailand, another shining jewel in this exclusive chain of wellness retreats, with branches in Maui and Sicily. Each season the White Lotus welcomes a new group of guests from the United States. And a new group of hotel staff do their five-star-service utmost not to murder them in their beds (or baths, whoops) for being the most entitled, obnoxious, and repellently oblivious people ever to walk the Earth. 

This year a new batch of hyper-critical guests have arrived in batches, including a Real Housewives-style group of two-faced girlfriends, a family whose wealth is more precarious than it seems, and grumpy older men with younger girlfriends. It’s time to gird your loins, gather your patience, and to remind yourself that the meditation and spa treatments are reserved for the guests … even though it’s the staff who’ll actually need them.

Watch the trailer for The White Lotus

Binge The White Lotus Season 1-2 now. And Stream The White Lotus Season 3, with new episodes each Monday.

The Real Housewives

Woo! Girls trip! Kate, Laurie and Jaclyn are three old school friends who’ve reunited for this trip, with Jaclyn paying their way. There’s a riptide of undercurrents between them, with Laurie somehow the odd one out from the start. The perfume of toxic positivity is filling the air like Baccarat Rouge 540, so in true Real Housewives form it’ll be handbags at dawn before they’ve gone for their second wellness treatment. 

Jaclyn Lemon (Michelle Monaghan, True Detective Season 1)

The three ladies are getting the royal treatment from The White Lotus because the hotel’s glamorous owner, Sritala Hollinger (Lek Patravadi), recognises Jaclyn from one of her favourite TV shows and is utterly star-struck. Jaclyn’s Hollywood career must be a great one, because she’s been able to fly her pals to Thailand for time away at the astonishingly expensive White Lotus. When Jaclyn praises her girls for being her only true friends, it hints at a recent betrayal from her fake friends. So we have to wonder what her agenda is for bringing the gang back together. 

Kate (Leslie Bibb)

Kate is the first to compliment her girlie, Jaclyn, on looking great … and she’s also the first to undercut her, by insisting that Jaclyn has had plastic surgery. Don’t get it twisted, it’s a compliment, babe! She even praises Jaclyn’s cosmetic surgeon for being better than her own. Gotta keep that face and body tight and youthful for her man! Kate is a country club wife in Austin, Texas, so the blonde hair and toxic positivity are basic job requirements. From the get go, she tries to make the trip about her and Jaclyn, and to exclude Laurie. Is she just sucking up to the most powerful person in the room out of habit?

Laurie (Carrie Coon, The Leftovers)

We’ll give Laurie a pass for being the only one of the three who seems to appreciate her surroundings and feel a sense of wonder at the sight of the wildlife. The other two make sure to keep her in her place, though, passing her a pity “you too” while praising each other’s looks, and with Jaclyn giving her the room further away from her and Kate. Laurie works as a New York corporate lawyer in her big girl job, and has recently gotten divorced, so excuse her if she’s a bit vulnerable and weepy. 

The suspicious couple

A rich older man in Thailand accompanied by much, much, much younger party girl companion? If that’s not already making you ask why rich older guys go to Thailand, the fact that Rick Hatchett is looking to connect to an influential local businessman might raise a red flag. Or he could be a CIA spy with business to conduct. Either way, he needs to be on a watchlist.

Rick Hatchett (Walton Goggins, The Righteous Gemstones)

Rude, inconsiderate and unhappy, Rick makes an immediate impression as someone to watch warily and preferably from a distance. And the fact that he’s played by The Righteous Gemstones’ Baby Billy has us even more ready to have a gleefully good time doing so! Rick is quick to show the staff that he has zero interest in wellness, meditation, mindfulness or any of the treatments the hotel has made its name for. He also treats his companion – we’d say girlfriend, but he shows no signs of enjoying her company at all – as if she’s a fly buzzing around his giant forehead. According to Chelsea, Rick “barely works”, and we find out that he has come to Thailand strictly to chase down Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn, The Leftovers), the Western-born husband of the White Lotus’s owner. They do not have an appointment to see one another. It’s all very suspicious. 

Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood, Alice & Jack)

From her rock ’n roll clothes to her enjoyment of party drugs, Chelsea gives Coachella babe, groupie and “free spirit” vibes. But look closer and you’ll see that this former yoga teacher is not only not intimidated by Rick’s snarls and contempt, she’s at ease physically controlling him and is able to back him down from confrontations in a way that suggests exasperation rather than attempts to appease him. She seems far more aware of how humans behave around one another, what good manners are, and how to use them. And she’s able to make him toe the line, and to smoothe over the offences he causes. She also brings a book with her to read while she’s sitting around the pool. Chelsea tells Rick at one point that she’s going to help him to get his joy back. Imagine him being a little ray of sunshine!

The dirty Rats

This obnoxiously privileged workaholic American Ratliff family from North Carolina is out of step with the mindfulness and meditation vibe of The White Lotus Thailand. We get an early hint that something is not right with the Ratliffs aboard the boat on the way to the resort. The three children are seated together in the pose of the three wise monkeys: Saxon, with his dark glasses on sees nothing; Piper, with her headphones on, hears nothing; and Lochlan, with his mouth closed, says nothing – but he’s the only one who isn’t covering up, so we suspect he might say something he shouldn’t.

Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs, Operation Mincemeat)

Between Harry Potter’s Lucious Malfoy and Captain Hook, Jason Isaacs is a classic British screen villain, so while dad Timothy, who works in finance, seems the most grounded and self assured of the Ratliffs, we suspect there’s trouble under the surface. There’s more to Timothy (and Saxon) refusing to surrender their phones and laptops as per hotel policy, than the normal demands of business, especially as Timothy’s getting urgent calls from a high-level journalist. His choice of the White Lotus also seems at odds with the family’s vibe until you realise that Timothy chose it because of its “exclusivity” (ie it was expensive). Both this and the caricature-level preppyness of their clothes hint at the Ratliffs being new money to the point that they’re cosplaying rich people. 

Victoria Ratliff (Parker Posey, Bored to Death)

Maybe it’s the jetlag speaking, maybe it’s the fact that her mouth never stops moving, but Victoria is here to tell you about every single rich-person thing she’s done, and her children have done, in the past 20 years. Were you trying to say something? Sorry, you’ll have to wait. Victoria is still talking. More than any other member of the family, Victoria gives the impression of being someone who has been indulged her whole life and treated like a princess. She also has a practised sneer, which she has already used on the other guests. 

Saxon Ratliff (Patrick Schwarzenegger)

Oh look, it’s Draco “wait till my father hears about this” Malfoy! From the ironed and leather belted shorts to the tucked-in polo shirt and sunglasses, the vibe is young, rich, arrogant bully boy. He enjoys tormenting his siblings by making them play favourites, undermining them, making inappropriately sexual comments about incest, and showing his little brother pornography. His idea of amusing himself when he’s not presumably making things hell for everyone at his dad’s company by working there, is to target women for seduction simply for the ego boost. He’s probably grinding his teeth to powder at night because he wasn’t invited to join Elon Musk’s DOGE team. PS: Saxon is not the sort of young man you tell that the seeds of a local fruit are poisonous … at least not without expecting him to use that information for “fun”.

(Patrick, son of Arnold Schwazenegger and Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, grew up around preppy, rich young Americans, graduated from business school and was a member of a fraternity. So he’s had every scrap of opportunity to study American Psycho-wannabes like up Saxon.)

Piper Ratliff (Sarah Catherine Hook)

Dad Timothy claims he’s taken the family to The White Lotus to help his daughter and middle child Piper, a college student studying religion, to write a paper on Thailand’s monks. Piper is shy and withdrawn, possibly naturally, possibly because Saxon consistently bullies and torments her. She’s also packed a dress for visiting temples which, while it does show appropriate respect to the local culture, also makes her look like she’d be at home in a conservative religious cult. What in the Flowers in the Attic is going on here?

Lochlan Ratliff (Sam Nivola, Eileen)

The youngest of the three Ratliff children seems shy and easygoing, and far more inclined to be kind to his sister than Saxon is. He’d also rather share a room with her than with Saxon, but wouldn’t we all? This people pleaser is still in high school, and Saxon seems to be going all out to draw him into his world of “alpha male” status seeking, privilege, and misogyny. 

Belinda Lindsey (Natasha Rothwell, The White Lotus Season 1)

A White Lotus OG from Season 1, Belinda is at The White Lotus Thailand in a kind of work exchange programme. And by the sound of it, she now has a possible business interest in The White Lotus Maui, where she is the spa manager. Later in the season, her son Zion (Nicholas Duveray, Bel Air) will be joining her, as we see him in the opening sequence when gunfire breaks out in the resort.

Belinda seems fascinated by the similarities and differences between Hawaii and Thailand. Her kind and open nature make her quick to connect with the local staff, who will be her guides. But she does not enjoy the presence of the resort’s monitor lizards. White Lotus fans will be hoping for her to make her dreams come true, after Tanya’s obliviousness in Season 1 crushed her. 

Greg Hunt (Jon Gries, White Lotus Season 1-2)

Well, well, look what the cat dragged in. It’s the gold-digging would-be black widower and ex-Mr Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) who seduced, then plotted with two other men to kill Tanya so he could inherit her millions. Shortly before she died, Tayna heard Greg making a call to someone, claiming that Tanya was “clueless as usual” and that he’d be home soon, ending the call with “I love you, too”. 

Now, another woman, Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), a model, is dragging Greg around like a glowering boyfriend-shaped tumour, as he ruins her appreciation for the beauty of the resort, which is in their neighbourhood. Chloe and Greg have been living in Thailand together for a year and according to Chloe, the locals refer to Greg as a classic LBH – loser back home. 

The big question: What will happen when Belinda runs into and recognises Greg? Because she will certainly bring up Tanya’s name. 

Binge The White Lotus Season 1-2 now. And Stream The White Lotus Season 3, with new episodes each Monday.