Excerpted Season 3 Finale Podcast Q&A With Mike White

The below are excerpts from Mike White's interview on The White Lotus Official Podcast, and have been edited and condensed for clarity. Listen to the full podcast interview, for more insight into the season. If referencing his quotes, please attribute to The White Lotus Official Podcast, hosted by Jia Tolentino and Josh Bearman.

ON SEASON 3'S THEMES

Mike White: This season, at least from how I was composing it, is using Buddhist ideas as the organizing principle, trying to think about identity as a cause of suffering. I think of identity as this way of thinking about yourself in these concrete, literal terms that then end up becoming a source of pain for you. It can be a source of pride, but it also becomes a source of pain. Basically, the whole thing is really a kind of dramatic investigation. And that is why the writing is a little different than the other ones. Obviously, there are satirical elements, but there is a kind of Buddhist parable. Like the Rick (Walton Goggins) story. It's a little more hard-boiled than something that I usually write.

ON TIMOTHY AND RICK

Mike White: The original idea was having two guys that were seemingly very different but are having a parallel experience during the week. One guy [Timothy] who has some kind of familial backstory of somebody who always was expected to do great things. He's kind of like a pillar of the community, he still has the respect and love of his family intact. And then he has done this shady thing and realizes not only are they going to be poor, but that this idea of this self that he's created, he's going to have to rip off the mask and see that he's not that person. It's an annihilation of his identity in some deep way where it's almost like, why live if you can't be that person? And let's burn down the entire world instead of having to face this life post this identity.

And then Walton character's kind of the inverted, as a guy who has never had anyone want anything for him, nobody ever really put the spirit of desire of something. What parents often do is give kids something to, at least just get the approval of a parent. He feels like he's nothing inside, and how that is this identity as a victim, a perpetual victim that you can tell yourself. And he has good reason, but how that can also be a trap.

And how you don't see the love, you know? Now the last episode, he has this person who really loves him, and he just can't experience the love in the present because he is just so fixated on the lack in himself and the lack of love he had in his past.

ON THE THREE WOMEN (JACLYN, KATE AND LAURIE)

Mike White: Those two male stories [Timothy and Rick] are very epic and I was like, it'd be fun to do something that's a little bit more in the spirit of what we've done in the show before, having these kind of more micro issues with each other and thinking about them in terms of a one self that's been cut into three parts where they come in having the same kind of affirming, upbeat female energy of like, 'you're great' and 'who's your doctor' or whatever.

And it wasn't even so much for me about some kind of scathing critique of female friendships. It was really just more how we have these touchstones in our lives and how those people can create suffering for you just by existing, because they went a different way and you went one way and you always sort of feel like you're defending your choices just by being in the presence of someone who you came up with.

I like the idea of Carrie Coon's final speech about time and how those relationships are, at least for me, where I find a deep meaning in my life. Just like that, it's time to check in with those people and see how life has turned out for them. And then I'm living my life. And it just feels deep. It's like, they're not always the deepest friendships, but there's something deep about reconnecting with those people and how everybody has their own religion, but there's something inarguable about how time creates meaning. In a show that's exploring religion and God or whatever, I felt like that was interesting or meaningful to me to want to express.

And then, you realize that the show's pleasures come a little bit from these relatable or identifiable types of people who go on vacation. A family that goes on a vacation, or a honeymoon, or three friends. I was trying to think, what is a new version that isn't the same - like a slightly different family. But part of me also feels like (and it's the reason why the first episode is called "Same Spirits, New Forms") there's an attempt, whether I'm successful or not, to deepen what's come before, or continue to use certain tropes where the show feels like it's a conversation with itself in some way.

ON CHELSEA AND RICK

Mike White: When I was in Thailand, I met a lot of these guys who have younger girlfriends. A lot of 'em were Thai, but some weren't. I got on an elevator and there was this older guy, and the young girl was very hot, and you know, boobs all pushed up. She was showing him some runway photos or something, and you could just tell he could not give a shit. She was just living in her reality. I was like, it'd be fun to have this kind of relationship where it feels like he's probably in it for the sex, but it's just not, at this point, it's almost not worth it. But then that ends up being the romance of the show.

I haven't written a lot of that kind of relationship in the show at all, so I was just like, it'd be interesting to do kind of a stealth move where ultimately you suddenly find yourself really rooting for this couple and you love them and have her be this kind of woo-woo and into astrology - but because of that, there's this idea that maybe in their tragic ending, there's something that feels a little like a hint to a life beyond, that love transcends this life. Even as they're wheeled out to the plane together in their symmetrical coffins, their love transcends this in some bittersweet way.

Mike White [in reference to Chelsea saying that she'll follow Rick into the next life, and the next]: I like the idea of giving her a lot of prattle that seems like nonsense, but that ultimately, you're like, 'oh, maybe,' and at the end, she talks about the groups working divine goal, so, whether I believe all that, it's nice to have a voice of that because she has this deep sense of belief - amor fati - and that things happen for a reason. Maybe somehow that takes off the edge of the sadness of her death in some way because it feels like she has some kind of higher power to what happens next.

ON BELINDA

Mike White: The ending was kinda the first thing I really thought of - Belinda leaving with money and leaving somebody in the same way she got left [in the first season].

Just because there was some criticism: she was the Black character; she was the dutiful put-upon worker; and then she got this very sad ending where she's consigned to work there forever, while everybody's riding off into the sunset. And some people thought that was accurate. Some people thought that was too depressing or whatever.

There was a lot of conversation about that part of it.

I loved working with Natasha, and obviously it was sad to kill Tanya, so I was like, what could be something happy that comes out of it? But it's easy to be virtuous and have certain kinds of ideals when you have no money and don't have to really put your money where your mouth is. It's one thing to be, 'oh yeah, I'm gonna do this spa for women,' whatever her sort of fantasy was - but she needs someone to bankroll it.

And then you've got the money, and it's like, 'can I just be rich for like five minutes?' I just feel like that's very honest. 'You know what, just let me enjoy this for a second.'

So, maybe she will go and do something meaningful. And I think people do. I'm not that cynical. That kind of was actually an anchoring idea, that she would go and have this kind of Stella-gets-her-groove-back kind of thing with somebody there and is maybe fantasizing about maybe starting a business with this person. And then this windfall comes and it's like, 'I'm outta here. Sorry.'

And we love her because we are with her, you know, we get it. But at the same time, it feels very human and doesn't make it the end of some 80s comedy where you see them put up the sign of their spa for less fortunate people and giving massages to housekeepers or something.

ON THE RATLIFFS

Mike White: The idea of Victoria as the mother, when Leslie Bibb comes up to her and she's trying to talk to her, she's like 'I don't want to encourage her. I'm with my family, like, get out.' She's always telling the kids, 'you gotta be careful, you're beautiful, attractive.' She has a superiority complex and it has extended to her kids and it's turned it into a little bit of a cult where they're all kind of incestuous, that nobody's good enough and so they're all kind of looking inward.

As far as Saxon and Piper, I was trying to think about the last family [the Mossbachers in season one] and how it began with Sydney Sweeney's character being like, 'we don't want you in here' and the kid [Quinn] has to go sleep on the beach 'cause he's this kind of reject. And I was like, what could be something that feels like it's a play on that, which is they all want him in their room.

One kid [Saxon] is sort of like this carnal - not only just exists that way, but actually has a philosophy around it that the pleasures of life are very basic and life is about wanting things and getting them. If you can get them, then you're gonna be happy. And a lot of times people who retreat from life are just afraid that they're not gonna be able to get the things they want, or they say they don't actually want the things they want.

And Buddhism is, to me, a whole religion about that: renounce things because wanting things is suffering. And so, it's just two different arguments: somebody who's like, 'I wanna retreat to the monastery, not have any desires, and that's gonna be the better way to live this life.' Then another one who's calling them on it and saying, 'you're just afraid to have sex. You're afraid to do this. Don't run away from life.' And that they both, brother and sister, are two different voices in his [Lochlan's] ear and he [Lochlan] wants to give them both what they want. He wants to go to the monastery with his sister, he's gonna run away from the world with his sister. And then, with his brother, he's gonna go to the parties and have sex.

ON MOOK AND GAITOK AND WHETHER THEY ARE HAPPY IN THE END

Mike White: I think they are happy. I like the idea that it's about a guy who really believes and has a real deep, philosophical agreement with the Buddhist doctrine of non-violence, and yet he's this guard. I met a couple guards at the Four Seasons and talked to them and it's not a job where there's a lot of like ruffians who come in where they have to take them down. It's more just being helpful. So I was just thinking that it would be interesting to have a guy who is a true Buddhist and he's nonviolent, but he likes this girl, and that ultimately for him to get the girl and get the job, he's got to like, be a killer. And the happy ending is on the backs of, we know he killed a guy that we love, and that he went against his morals. It's something that feels very human. In order to get ahead - this is obviously an extreme version of it - but you have to suck up your idealism, step up and like push yourself to the front of the line or push someone, you know, down the stairs or whatever it is. I think at the end, for him, it was worth it. He wanted that job. He looks cool. He got the girl. Something was lost, but the way it plays out, he's definitely happy with her. This is what he wanted. He did want that job, but now he has the job and we just know that he sacrificed something - his moralism - and in some way that he can't go back.

ON STORYTELLING

Josh Bearman: People come with this kind of spiritual seeking, or a lot of the characters are there explicitly for that. And, if they're not, then they wind up kind of realizing that they need to understand something about themselves. And they're in this context of Buddhism, where a lot of the narrative is about anti-narrative. So it's this whole story, of which the message is, there is no story. Even at the very end, the monk is saying, stories don't have to resolve. That's not really the point. It's like a grandmaster kind of storytelling in order to tell people that maybe it's the way you are thinking about story is self-defeating.

Mike White: Honestly, if I have a religion that's really my religion. I mean, as somebody who tells stories, and this is what I love about being able to keep doing this show and, what I hope by the end of it, when it's all said and done, we'll see that the project of it is really trying to give voice to so many different characters and telling this multiplicity of stories. Buddhism is very minimalist. It's about clearing your mind, and dropping the story in the sense of a negation of a story. Like no story or no self. I believe that it's a fascinating belief system, and it's really helped me in different times of my life. But I'm kind of more of a maximalist. Tell every story and then it's like you beat every person and you stop taking yourself so literally, and you can get inside every head and like you can explore each point of view and you can live all these different lives. And if I think it, I actually get kind of moved just because I feel like that's my life. This is what I am. This is the little project that, for whatever reason, I've set out for myself. I realized over time that that's what I've always done as a kid and what I still do as an adult. It's how I engage people. I guess it's my own little religion - you wanna drop the story but not stop telling stories. When you're young, it's like, oh, this is my story, I'm writing this thing. And only once you've written that thing and you've gone past that, then you're really engaging people in the world.

It's like maybe I get in the head of somebody else, or I'm thinking, I don't want to be just me. I just remember when I was a kid and I was in second grade or whatever, and they had this box with all the costumes in the room. And you put on different costumes and I always I wanted to be the old lady. I wanted to be all these different things, and try those things on. And it doesn't mean that you really are the thing, but you're not really yourself either. So it's like this idea of being free of taking yourself literally. I just think that that's one of the main tragedies of this world - that people are so tribal and literal.

This kind of concretization of identity, I'm against it. It started rearing up, I was like, wait a minute, this runs counter to everything that I've always felt. We should be leaning toward where we find each other, as opposed to finding all these differences.