The White Lotus: Big Secrets Spill Overboard On A Chaotic Boat Ride
As any fan of The White Lotus can tell you, nothing good happens when people get on a boat on this show. Yet they tried it again this week, as the hotel guests started to bounce off each other in dangerous ways.
As Sunday's episode opens, Jaclyn is having trouble getting her hot young husband Harrison on the phone, while Belinda tells her son Zion she can't wait for him to join her in Thailand. (Ah, so that confirms the guy we saw in the shootout to start the season is Belinda's son.) Timothy takes another depressed shower — and pops another one of Victoria's pills. Gaitok thinks he might be getting a promotion... but instead, Fabian warns him that "your job is more than waving to people as they come through the gate." Gaitok's security supervisor provides him with a gun and tells him to learn how to use it. Why do we have just the worst feeling about this?
While Saxon and Piper bicker back and forth, Victoria demands to know who's been taking her pills. She needs them to go on this boat ride Saxon got them invited on — and then a woozy Timothy lets his robe slip open and exposes his, um, undercarriage to his family. Chelsea is still reeling from her latest brush with death with the cobra ("This could be some Final Destination s–t"), and Rick doesn't want to go on the boat ride at all. But his plane to Bangkok doesn't leave until after the ride, and with a few tears, Chelsea convinces him to come along. In the lobby, they run into Amrita, who tells Rick "you have touched my heart" and encourages him to "find peace in this life. I have hope for you." (Well, that makes one of us.)
With Harrison ignoring her calls, Jaclyn decides she wants to have some fun, so she asks Valentin to send them someplace cool. But when they get there, they find it's a resort filled with elderly retirees — and she's insulted! Meanwhile, Saxon and his family arrive at the yacht, where he gets a warm welcome from Chloe. Victoria hides her purse behind a pillow on a couch (she doesn't trust these people, they're not decent), but when Timothy sees Rick is on the boat too, he grimaces and makes a beeline for his wife's purse, first fetching a pill for himself and then just deciding to grab the whole bottle. What could go wrong?
Piper pulls Lochlan aside and confesses that she's planning to spend a year in Thailand after she graduates. (Lochlan's immediate response is "What about me?" but she reminds him he'll be in college by then.) She wants to break the news to their parents at dinner, and she asks Lochlan to back her up. Saxon pulls him away, though, and prods him to flirt with some girls on the boat. Aren't they married, Lochlan asks? "Whatever," Saxon sniffs. "Who cares?" Their husbands are all old and flabby, and they're young and virile, Saxon points out as he leads Lochlan over to a group of women and lays on the charm.
The boat is filled with old bald guys and young Thai women, and a zonked-out Timothy drones on about how he's "a pillar of the community" back home and how accomplished his father was: "Thank God he's dead. Both my parents, thank God they're dead." When Victoria notices her pill bottle is missing, she flips out, saying she's trapped "on a boat I don't want to be on, with people I don't want to talk to." Saxon and Lochlan are having a good time, though: While Lochlan impresses girls with magic tricks, Saxon puts his arm around Chloe — and Greg takes notice.
Rick is still being a grump, and Chelsea is fed up: "Are you ever going to let me in?" He finally admits that he's going to Bangkok because "the f–king dude who murdered my father owns this hotel." Rick's father was in Thailand trying to help people: "One day, he disappeared, and they never found him." Rick's mother told him the name of the guy who killed his father, and it's Sritala's husband — and Rick's not sure if he wants to kill him or not. Back at the hotel, Jaclyn confronts Valentin about sending them to that dud of a resort and demands something better, so he takes them to a vibrant Thai market, promising to bring some friends to meet them at a beach club later. The ladies walk among locals who are all carrying squirt guns... and of course, they end up soaked. Plus, Belinda does a little digging and finds out that Tanya drowned under mysterious circumstances and her husband is still wanted for questioning — and yes, it's Greg! Get him, Belinda!
Chloe wants to take the yacht to a full moon party that night, but Greg has some business to take care of, so she'll drop him off at home. Greg crosses paths with Timothy, too, who says he heard that everyone in Thailand is "either looking for something, or hiding from something." Greg says he just "got sick of the rat race," though, and Timothy says he's just on vacation. Nope, no hiding going on here! When the boat docks, Saxon and Lochlan stay behind to join Chloe for the full moon party, which annoys Piper, since she was counting on Lochlan's support. Chelsea joins the party, too, after trying and failing to get Rick to skip his Bangkok trip. And it's also party time for Jaclyn, Kate and Laurie as Valentin joins them at a Thai beach club with his two Russian pals Alexi and Vlad, with the towering Vlad promising: "We know how to make fun."
At dinner, Victoria scoffs at the "con men and tax cheats" they had to endure on the boat, calling Timothy "an actual Boy Scout." That's enough to spur Timothy to go to Pam and demand his phone back, and it explodes with dings and messages as soon as he turns it on. He calls his lawyer, who tells him Kenny struck a deal with the feds. Timothy needs to plead guilty, too, he advises, but Timothy thinks that'll end his career. (Can they take his house, he asks? "They can take whatever they want.") The lawyer thinks he'd only serve a few months, but "I'd rather f–king die," Timothy declares. "What am I supposed to tell my family? That we're poor now? And I'm going to prison?"
As he hangs up, he hyperventilates... and then he peers inside the empty security booth. See, Gaitok left the booth to escort Mook to her dance performance, and he left his new gun out on the table. By the time Gaitok gets back... the gun is gone! Back at his palatial home, we see the work Greg had to do: He's doing a little digging himself, scrolling through Belinda's Instagram photos with her son Zion. (Yikes.) And as Saxon and Lochlan toast with the ladies on the yacht, Saxon crows: "S–t's about to get crazy!"
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