The White Lotus Review: Our Summer TV Addiction Has Arrived

Within three minutes, The White Lotus teases impending bloodshed. "Our guide told us someone was killed there," a stranger in a sepia-toned airport tells an annoyed rich boy (Jake Lacy) who is highly aware that something fatal went down at the titular Hawaiian resort. HBO's slick new limited series then rewinds a week, using this tease as the loose framework that unites an assemblage of upscale vacationers unaccustomed to luxury's darker potential. 

Prestige TV, as we know, is obsessed with murder, especially on HBO. True Detective, Big Little Lies, Sharp Objects, The Undoing, The Flight Attendant, and Mare of Easttown spent their pilot episodes establishing whodunnits that would unfold over the course of one season. The White Lotus, on the other hand, works toward its death instead of backward from it, never trapping its labyrinth of juicy characters (or the audience) in a puzzle box. This is a Mike White show, and anyone who has seen the corporate-comeuppance masterpiece Enlightened will know that its creator is more interested in people than in plot.

That's what makes The White Lotus, premiering July 11, some of the year's best television thus far. Across six enthralling episodes, White's tapestry unfolds as a tug of war between the hotel's guests and the employees on hand to serve their every fussy desire. There's Lacy's real-estate brat, newly married to a working-class journalist (Alexandra Daddario) who wishes he'd quit complaining about their luxe accommodations. Down the hall are a tech CEO (Connie Britton), her existentially paranoid husband (Steve Zahn), and their moody teenagers (Fred Hechinger and Sydney Sweeney). For simultaneous farce and melancholy, Jennifer Coolidge shows up as an oddball loner intending to scatter her mother's ashes in the ocean, a reservoir of emotion welling inside her. She is a Mike White signature: the undisciplined, well-meaning woman who constantly goes too far, as brilliantly portrayed by Laura Dern in Enlightened, Salma Hayak in Beatriz at Dinner, and Molly Shannon in Year of the Dog. 

On the other side of the reception desk stands the resort's manager, Armond (Looking standout Murray Bartlett, a guaranteed fan favorite). He has a knack for plastering a grin across his face and adopting what he calls "tropical Kabuki," placating clients as they request room upgrades and immediate massages. His staff includes a genial spa coordinator (Natasha Rothwell) frustrated with her career limitations, a frazzled trainee (Jolene Purdy), and a slightly clueless gofer (Lukas Gage) who becomes Armond's own fussy desire. In many ways, Armond is the show's manic heartbeat. The action tends to coalesce around him, and so do the class dynamics. "You have to treat these people like sensitive children," he says, Bartlett scrunching his face with an amusing look of pity. "They always say it's about the money, but it's not. It's not even about the room. They just need to feel seen." When he later gets his hands on a guest's drug stash, Armond's decorum soars out the window.

Through all of this, the killing we heard about in the series' opening moments goes unmentioned. No one at the White Lotus expects to execute or be executed. You might sometimes forget that's where the show is headed, and I mean that as a compliment. Instead of dressing his character study in the attire of a murder mystery, White, who wrote and directed every episode, lulls us into a sense of hopeful intrigue. Many of the resort dwellers are on a path toward self-discovery; isn't that the whole point? One of the moody teens, for example, finally puts down his gadgets and finds refuge in the tide, while Coolidge's space case seeks physical, spiritual, and romantic peace. But as one mishap cascades into the next, the show cleverly hints at the pressure cooker mounting beneath the Hawaiian bliss, ratcheting up both the wit and the tension. The finale is an absolute doozy. 

The Best TV Shows and Movies on HBO and HBO Max in July

Because The White Lotus is such an ensemble piece, a few threads get shortchanged along the way. Purdy's trainee has a major arc in the pilot, after which she is never seen again — a disappointing fate for a character of color who initially seems essential to the proceedings. Still, White has a deft way of interweaving storylines so they never feel contrived, and he gives everyone who appears multiple moments of first-rate comedy. The roving camerawork (by Ozark cinematographer Ben Kutchins) and tribal score (by Hunters composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer) contribute to the show's polish. 

Ultimately, The White Lotus is a saga about expectations: wealthy people with too many of them, not-so-wealthy people sick of catering to them, TV audiences conditioned to anticipate them. Alongside M. Night Shyamalan's Old and Hulu's adaptation of the Liane Moriarty book Nine Perfect Strangers, it is one of at least three Hollywood projects premiering this summer that turn New Age-influenced resorts into combustible hotbeds, implying that picturesque backdrops can conceal the seediest deeds. 

TV Guide rating: 4.5/5

The White Lotus premieres Sunday, July 11 at 9/8c on HBO and HBO Max.