Which 'White Lotus' should HBO check into next?
Everybody's favorite cringey-sexy vacation romp just got renewed and we’re playing travel agent
‘The White Lotus’ may be heading into the homestretch of its Sicilian outing but, guys, there’s more toxic masculinity and marital misunderstanding where that came from: HBO just renewed the show for a third season.
You could make the case, as some critics have, that Sicily feels overall less scathing in its criticism than Maui did, backing off thornier topics like white privilege and colonialism this season to play with arguably less challenging themes, i.e. “men be horny.” But whatever! ‘Lotus’ is a fun show with dynamic characters and a theme song that simply does not quit.
It also just feels, like ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ and ‘High Maintenance’ before it, endlessly replicable. (Mostly white) Americans behaving badly on vacation, forced to confront their own hypocrisies, maybe winding up dead in the process? HBO should give Mike White the Larry David “whenever you’re ready” deal, because you could run that play a hundred times. And the crack team at Lifting Fog has some ideas for which White Lotus resorts to hit next:
The White Lotus: Qatar
No one is more eager to paper over human rights violations welcome the international tourism community than the little nation that could, Qatar! The central metaphor of this season, set against the backdrop of the 2022 World Cup (it would need to shoot and premiere soon), is SPORT: how we play games, why we play games, and who wins those games. “Maybe no one??” is of course the answer built to over seven light-but-incisive episodes.
Guests would include literal US men’s national team soccer players as well as a cadre of e-sports pros trying to prove that, athletic dexterity aside, they’re just as skilled as someone “chasing a ball up and down a patch of dirt.” Bubbling underneath all this competitive posturing is, you guessed it, gay yearning waiting to absolutely erupt. That’s gonna be a problem in Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal!
Jennifer Coolidge subplot: Sitting in one of the ultra-expensive boxes at the World Cup, Coolidge draws the attention of multiple sheikhs, prime ministers, and princes. (“I’m like, who was that lady? Helen of Troy. A coatcheck girl’s name, but she made it work.”) She tries dating all of them in secret, but before you know it the jig is up, and our gal has accidentally ignited war in the Middle East. Oopsie!
The White Lotus: Greece
I know, I know, this one might be too obvious. A warm Mediterranean setting and thousands of years of literal drama? But there are ways to mix it up, starting with the hotel itself. Let’s say the owner, an American woman, has a pre-existing relationship with some of the guests. She may have even canoodled with a few of them in her younger, wilder days. She may have even… gotten pregnant by one of them? And never told any of them about it?
Her daughter, now eighteen, wants to know who her dad is and invites these guys (who she’s read about in her mom’s diary) to the resort. Without telling anyone! So here this owner is, just trying to keep her hotel — newly part of the White Lotus family — afloat when these three guys barge in and throw her whole life into disarray. It’s a whole season about secrets and parenting, Greek comedy and tragedy mixed together. Maybe the characters could even sing?
Jennifer Coolidge subplot: Trying to make female friends for the first time ever, Coolidge joins the hotel owner and her two besties in their singing trio, “Donna and the Dominoes” (just a pitch). But she can’t stay on-key to save her life, and right before they’re supposed to perform, the owner kicks her out… and replaces her with a donkey. Coolidge, “I mean I already… felt like ass, you didn’t need to rub it in.”
The White Lotus: Mar-a-Lago
Given the 18+ investigations he’s currently under and the unlikelihood of him being elected president (let alone winning the Republican primary) in 2024, Donald Trump may soon be financially underwater. Why not sell off Mar-a-Lago to White Lotus, Inc.?
Welcome to the all-MAGA season! Conspiracy theories abound as seven Deplorables (and a few Trump reply guys who simply have to “see for themselves”) across the socioeconomic spectrum get to live out their wildest fantasies at Palm Beach’s premiere social club/tax haven. Who’s a cuck? Who’s a groomer? Who’s secretly voting for Ron DeSantis? A slew of ‘Entourage’-style cameos from Matt Gaetz, Kari Lake, Sean Hannity, and Omarosa only lend their stay — and this season — that perfect insurrectionist jolt.
Three episodes in, a nice suburban mom/QANON acolyte discovers Trump’s stolen White House documents spread out on a treadmill in the exercise room and grapples with whether to bring the story to NewsMax or Fox News. Episode six is just the most disgusting orgy you’ve ever seen.
Jennifer Coolidge subplot: This season’s hotel manager character, Donald Trump, takes a shine to Coolidge — who, as a buxom blonde with worms for brains, is exactly his type — and tries to woo her with McDonald’s and the cachet that comes from being a former President. Coolidge, who has not read a book or paper in over forty years, has absolutely no idea who he is.
The White Lotus: Wakanda
It’s true that Wakanda is a fictional place and, maybe more pertinent, does not seem so far to have opened its borders to tourism. But if they DID, hoo boy, this vibranium-rich African nation could make an absolute killing with socially liberal but fiscally conservative Americans on vacation.
The obvious theme for ‘The White Lotus: Wakanda’ to tackle would be, you know, racism, but let’s punt on that for a second and suggest that Mike White and Co.1 make this season about POWER. Specifically SUPERPOWERS. On a tour of the city, Shuri asks guests to please refrain from eating the heart-shaped herb. But telling colonizers to not do something only makes them want to colonize more, and before you can say “Wakanda Forever,” everyone on the tour has attained Black Panther-strength. Worse than the geopolitical ramifications of seven newly super-powered guests, hotel staff has to deal with seven white Black Panthers hell-bent on proving who the best ally is.
Jennifer Coolidge subplot: She tries Jollof rice. Too salty! “Maybe I could get, like, a side of barbecue sauce or something to balance it out? I’m not trying to be difficult.”
The White Lotus: Outer Space
Where do you go when you’re bored of every five-star resort on Earth? The far reaches of space! This season is all about HUBRIS, as seven billionaires board a hotel-sized rocket-ship bound for Uranus. The crew can’t stand their technocratic bosses, which include an obvious Elon Musk stand-in (played by Kathy Bates) and a Bezos-esque CEO who has gotten himself into Dwayne Johnson-shape after divorce, and won’t shut up about “effective altruism.”2 On Earth, these are world-breaking titans of industry able to solve all their problems with money; up here, they’re a bunch of needy losers who don’t actually know what any of the buttons do.
Jennifer Coolidge subplot: She falls in love with a Gigolo Joe-style attendant robot, programmed to meet every one of her emotional needs. Our unlucky-in-love heroine has never been happier in her life. The robot kills itself.
read: Mike White
This is roughly the plot of my friend Nick Roth’s ‘Space Off’, a TV pilot that’s ‘Community’ if it were about a bunch of annoying billionaires in space. In the event ‘The White Lotus: Outer Space’ goes, I hope he is at least asked to be a consultant!