The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 6: “Denials” with Patrick Schwarzenegger and Leslie Bibb
Mon, 24 Mar 2025
Hosts Jia Tolentino and Josh Bearman break down the aftermath of the Full Moon Party and everything Episode 6. Then, Patrick Schwarzenegger reflects on his journey to playing Saxon Ratliff. Later, Leslie Bibb opens up about Kate’s perfectionism and how she and her real-life partner Sam Rockwell kept his cameo a secret. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the introduction to this episode's theme?
Hello and welcome to the White Lotus official podcast companion to season three. I'm Gia Tolentino.
And I'm Josh Behrman.
Chapter 2: Who is in the most trouble after the Full Moon Party?
And I have a question for you about episode six. Who's in the most trouble right now?
Hmm.
Who's in the worst place?
Right. Okay, good question. This episode is doing a good job of like everybody could want to kill somebody else or be in trouble or be desperate or be the mark of somebody who's desperate.
Yes. Well, it's like up till the full moon party, everyone was sewing. And now they have to reap.
Now they're reaping. Now they have to reap.
They're in the reaping phase. The show is in its reaping phase.
Right. I would have said at the beginning that Tim is in the most trouble.
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What are the dynamics between Saxon and his brother Lachlan?
So Timothy goes in and asks, what do you think happens after you die?
Yeah. So I found this whole scene to be... I mean, first of all, it hits him so hard. He's like... never heard basically anybody say anything like this to him. There's nobody in his world that could ever articulate anything outside of the expectations and judgment and the values and all the stuff that he's grown up with and the life of the patriarch of the Southern family that you know so well.
And so suddenly, a new set of words arrives, like a completely new idea, and he's shaken, basically, by this notion. And it's like the monk talks about how... People come from America and the West in general, presumably, and their sort of way of life is built around indulging the self and ego and self-preservation and so on.
And so they are unable, basically, to sort of see through the forest until they get to Thailand, and that's what brings so many people here.
Yeah, I feel especially conscious of the fact that, like, you know— This monk is not saying anything about and here they will find it. Right.
Right.
Like the point is just about what people believe that they're going to get here. It also kind of goes back to the way that Piper ostensibly what she wants is meaning, but she put it as happiness. And, you know, there's the way in which this entire framework has been imported as a 90 minute wellness seminars at AI companies in Silicon Valley. You know what I mean? Yeah. Right, yeah.
It's like you're either—unless you're off of it, you're still on it.
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Chapter 4: What philosophical questions are explored in this episode?
Right. I mean, what he's suggesting, the monk, to Timothy is that Piper's right. You can't just go for a week and go back and you're changed. You do have to stay there for a year. You do have to work at it. You do have to do what Lachlan suggests life is about, which is like a test to become a better person. That is the whole point.
And we have the sort of classic, this visual of a drop of water kicking up in the sea spray and then melding back into the great consciousness. Right. But it's really kind of beautiful the way that it's played here because what does this mean to Timothy at this exact point in time? Like this is making him both want to die more.
Right.
Right. Like it's making him want to die more. It's giving him some sort of access point, some sort of ladder has dropped out of the nothingness to like find some sense of forgiveness or something. Right. Like some sort of absolution. Like this this idea that you just go back, you just go back into the great universal and that's it. And all of life is just you come up and you go back down. Right.
And there's a profound relief to him in thinking of that, that what's happening to him right now is not like the Empire State Building crumbling in front of everyone's eyes, right? Like it's actually just one more drop of water going back into the ocean. But then it makes him want to die a little more. You know, it makes him want to live more and it also makes him want to die more.
And I find that – I mean I guess that's –
Right. I mean, I think he becomes less afraid to die. Right. So at the beginning, he's afraid. End of last episode, he's got the gun to his head and then he gets interrupted. Then in this episode, he's imagining it, but he can't imagine it. It seems too difficult and it's painful. And like what happens afterwards? And then the monk tells him that death is a happy return.
When we die, there's no more suffering. It's like coming home. And to Tim, like that feeling of like, oh, right, it's just that simple. Like, I don't need to be afraid. Death has a happy return. And that seems to be like how he leaves the monastery kind of in this new frame of mind.
Yeah, but the way he puts it to his family, you know, like Parker Posey's like, how was it or whatever? And he's like, he's legit. You know, like whatever he says.
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Chapter 5: How does Kate's relationship with her friends evolve?
The other thing that might happen is Rick could die.
Right.
Chelsea's been like, it comes in threes. I have a really bad feeling. I have bad feelings. Like Rick could also die. Right. And then thus be released from the prison of the identity that this man gave him, which was fatherless orphan.
I just want to also note that in our many, many iterations now of Chekhov's gun, Guy Talk has snuck back in the villa and retrieved the gun. It's like this gun has changed hands. It's appeared. It's reappeared. It's been hidden. And like all these different things have happened with the gun.
And so there is some kind of like incredible three card Monty going on with the plotting of like, well, where's this gun? How's it going to get used? How's it going to wind up? Who's after who? And that's sort of culminating in what is actually happening at the very end of the episode where Gary, who has told Chloe that he knows that she fucked one of the brothers.
He's kind of into it.
And he's maybe into it. Or he's just he's like so seems so sort of jaded and disconnected from life because he's not the guy that met Tanya. in season one at all anymore. And so like, what happened to him? And is he into it or is he just plotting to kill somebody? Is he trying to get, I mean, he invites Belinda to come so that he can maybe kill her. Right.
That pool.
And and so that's sort of the episode ends on this on this. The clock works, you know, chiming another, you know, another hour forward as they are some kind of they're going to something's going to happen when they all go to this dinner party. And now I'll be sitting down with Patrick Schwarzenegger to talk Saxon Ratliff.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of Piper's encounter with the monk?
Bye.
The White Lotus Podcast is a production of HBO and Campside Media. This episode was hosted by Gia Tolentino and Josh Behrman. Natalia Winkleman is the managing producer. Our associate producers are Allison Haney, Anthony Puccillo, and Aaliyah Papes. Sound design and mix by Ewen Lai-Trimuen. At Campside Media, our executive producer is Josh Dean.
For the HBO podcast team, our executive producer is Michael Gluckstadt, senior producer Allison Cohen-Zarokach, and producer Kenya Reyes. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.