Hosts Jia Tolentino and Josh Bearman sit with creator Mike White to reflect on the finale, what ended up on the cutting room floor, and the themes of identity and Buddhism throughout the season. Mike also shares how his experiences in Thailand inspired many of his ideas and gives a glimpse into what’s to come for Season 4. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guest of this podcast episode?
Hello, this is Josh Behrman, the co-host with Gia Tolentino of the official White Lotus companion podcast for season three. And we are here with a bonus episode with Mike White. Mike is of course the creator of the show, but it's also worth noting that he is the writer and director and executive producer, which is not really common in television.
So what's emerged is a TV show that's sort of like auteur film. I've known Mike for a long time. We've worked together and I think it's not a secret he doesn't really like to talk about his work that much, but we're gonna get a chance to do so and dive in. And so next we have Mike White.
Mike, thank you so much for talking to us today.
Well, thank you for doing this. Yeah, this is going to be fun. We're deep in it, and so we're obviously super excited to talk to you about it.
Dave Burnad told the story about you being on a nebulizer when you were in Thailand early on, and the season materializing in your mind, almost fully formed from that nebulizer.
Yeah, it was a really weird thing and I'm like thinking now, I guess I'm like, now that this is over and like fourth season, I'm like, should I get bronchitis again?
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Chapter 2: How did Thailand influence Mike White's creative process?
What was in it?
Can I have some? Yeah, it is a true story. We were scouting in Thailand and Thailand was kind of just a stalking horse because I really wanted to shoot in Japan because I'd had more fun in Japan the times I'd visited. But I was having a really good time in Thailand, and then I got sick, and then they put me on this nebulizer, and I did not sleep for two days.
And I had had some of these... There were some vague concepts that I was starting to, like, you know, kept churning over. But then I had, like, 12 hours in a bed going crazy, and by the time the weekend was over, I was like, oh my... Yeah, like, I was like, oh... Oh, yeah, Belinda's son could be... By then I was like, I think I have the season.
And so I was... I mean, I'm sure things continued to... Yeah, and when I write, things change stuff. But it definitely felt like I was like, I can plant my flag and it was taking place in Thailand. So I was like, I have a feeling we're going to end up in Thailand.
I might have mentioned a little bit when I was in Thailand, but I had the whole thesis before really knowing anything about season three, that season one was this kind of Buddhist allegory. All the characters, they're all in some form of pain. And so then now we're in season three where this now is about sort of Buddhism and spirituality and people examining their own suffering and death.
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Chapter 3: What are the themes of identity and Buddhism in Season 3?
Well, the first season was definitely like a class, upstairs, downstairs, comedy of manners kind of thing. And I mean, I don't know. I do read a lot of Buddhism, so I have thoughts about that. This one, at least from how I was composing it, there is a using Buddhist sort of ideas as a organizing... principle. It was about trying to think about identity as a cause of suffering.
I think identity as this way of thinking about yourself in these concrete literal terms that like then end up becoming a source of pain for you. You know, it's a source of, can be a source of pride, but it also becomes a source of pain. And basically the whole thing is really like a kind of dramatic investigation. And this is why the writing is a little different than like the other ones. It's
Obviously, there's satirical elements, but there is a kind of Buddhist parable kind of... It has a little bit of a parable sort of feel, like the Wollongongan story. It's a little more hard-boiled or something than something that I usually write. The main original idea was having two guys that were seemingly very different, but having a parallel experience during the week.
And one guy who has had so much expectation, he has some kind of familial backstory of somebody who always was expected great things. He's kind of like a pillar of the community. He still has the respect and love intact of his family and then has done this shady thing. And then he realizes it's not only are they going to be poor, but just 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 that we're almost like, why live if you can't be that person? And maybe everything should, let's burn down the entire world instead of having to face this life post this identity.
And then the Walton character is kind of the inverted as a guy who never had anyone want anything for him. Nobody ever really put the spirit of desire of something, you know what I mean?
Like what parents often do, which is give kids something to at least just get the approval of a parent and having him feel 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 in the last episode, you know, he has this person who really loves him, right? And he just, it's like he can't experience the love in the present because he's just so fixated on the lack in himself and the lack of love he had in his past. And then the three women were sort of...
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Chapter 4: How does Mike White approach character development?
You know, it's like those two male stories are very like 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, which is a little more like having these kind of more micro issues with each other and thinking about them in terms of like kind of a one self that's been like cut into three parts where they come in, they're like having the same kind of like affirming, upbeat,
female energy of like, you know, you're great and who's your doctor and whatever. And it wasn't really 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 it just, you always sort of feel like you're defending your choices just by being in presence of someone who you came up with. And that ultimately I like the idea of Carrie Coon's final speech about how time, like those relationships are at least for me, where I find a deep meaning in my life. You know what I mean? Just like that, the time that,
To check in with those people and see how life has turned out for them. And then I'm living my life, and it feels deep. You know what I mean? 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 an interesting or something meaningful to me to want to express. And then it's like you realize that the show's pleasures... come a little bit from these very sort of relatable or identifiable types, you know, like people who go on vacation, you know what I mean?
A family that goes on a vacation or a honeymoon or three friends, you know, so like, it was like, I was trying to like, what is a new version that isn't the same, like a slightly different family. But yeah, part of me also feels like, and it's the reason why the first episode is called Same Spirits, New Forms, that like, in a way, it's
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. And I actually feel like the discourse or whatever, all the buzz around it has brought more...
people to the show and then they come to the show they're like what the hell is this or like like whatever the pacing and the vibe and like what it's doing it's it's it it definitely gets under their skin in some way and like there was complaining about how there's no plot and that part i find weird because the it never had a like like it's never been it's like part of me is just like bro this is the vibe like i'm world building you know i mean it's just like you know like the
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Chapter 5: What inspired the plot lines and character dynamics in Season 3?
And you could just tell he was just like, I could not give a shit. And she was just living in her reality. And I was like, it'd be fun to start off and you have this kind of relationship where it feels like... He's probably in it for the sex, but at this point it's almost not worth it.
But then that ends up being the romance of the show, and 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 actually suddenly find yourself really rooting for this couple and you love them, and have her be this kind of
woo-woo into astrology, but that, like, because of that, there's this idea that maybe in their tragic ending, there's something that feels a little like some kind of hint to a life beyond that love transcends this life. Like, even as they're... wheeled out to the plane together in their symmetrical coffins. Their love transcends this in some bittersweet... I mean, I don't know.
Nobody's going to be like, oh, sweet. But like, yeah, there's some kind of sentiment there. Yeah.
I think we talked about how she calls it earlier on. She's like, I'll follow you. If it doesn't work now, I'll follow you.
I'll follow you the next life and the next life. And so I like the idea of giving her a lot of kind of prattle that seems like nonsense, but that ultimately you're like, oh, maybe, you know. And at the end, she talks about the groups working to this 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 and amor fati and like things happen for a reason that 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, I don't know, higher power to what happens next.
Yeah, it's like everyone gets scrambled. Like there are some people get their fortunes reversed completely. Some people like Belinda just ascend at the very last minute. Did you have a sense when you thought about putting Belinda back in, you were like, OK, like she's going to she's going to get hers at this season?
Yeah, you know, the ending was kind of the first thing I really thought of was, like, Belinda leaving with money and, like, leaving somebody in the same way she got left.
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Chapter 6: What changes were made from script to screen in Season 3?
And I was like, oh, that's kind of an interesting idea, which is like one kid is sort of like this carnal, not only just exists that way, but actually has a philosophy around it, which is like you want to get pussy. Like the pleasures of life are very basic and like, you know, and that like life is about wanting things and getting them. And if you can get them, then you're going to be happy.
You know what I mean? And a lot of times people who... retreat from life are just afraid that they're not going to be able to get the things they want, or they say they don't actually want the things they want. And like Buddhism is like, you know, to me is a whole religion about that, which is renounce things because wanting things is suffering. And so it's just two different arguments.
You know, somebody who's like, I want to retreat to the monastery, not have any desires, and that's going to be the better way to live this life. And then another one who's calling them on and saying, you're just afraid to have sex. You're afraid to do this. You're And that they both brother and sister are kind of like two different voices in his ear. And he wants to give them both what they want.
So he wants to go to the monastery with his sister and he's going to run away from the world with his sister. And then with his brother, he's going to go to the parties and have sex. The idea was it's a Frankenstein's monster, which is like, all you care about is sex and getting off. And so the brother is like, okay, I'll get you off. And then you're like, what? Wait a minute.
And the sister who's like, come to the monitor. He's like, I'm going to move to your two. And she's like, wait a minute. And I just liked that there was this symmetry there and that they start off in one way and in the end, he's reading the self-help book. The part that was cut too, which is very disappointing, is that she decides to lose her virginity in the script in the last episode.
And she actually has sex with Zion, which is Belinda's son. So she's like, you know, there's a, there's a whole scene where she's like, that rocks. She's like, it's true. Saxon's right about this one thing. I need to get this over with. And, you know, like after she leaves the monastery, she's just like, I need to, you know, I need to like have sex.
And like, she's scoping the restaurant, you know, in the end, but like, It was just like one of these things where it was like, it just felt just again in that in that in that, you know, it's an hour and a half already. And it would have added like 10 minutes to the thing.
And it had a little bit of a romantic rom-com vibe in the middle of like, you know, trying to kill the family with the with the pong pong fruits and stuff. It was just like, it just felt like I was trying to do too much, you know, narratively.
Death smoothie and rom-com, like, in the same 15 minutes. You can tell, though, like, after she comes back, she stops dressing like Wendy from Peter Pan and, like, puts on, like, a... Exactly.
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