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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
114
Mixed:
8
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
The Mercury NewsFeb 13, 2025
Season 3 Review:
I gobbled down six of the eight episodes available for review, and will say – without even the slightest reservations – that “Lotus” regulars should check in for this third season. You won’t be disappointed. Just be prepared to get your jaw dropped and your raised eyebrows torched right off.
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RogerEbert.comFeb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
White takes full advantage of his setting in a manner that brings it to life in ways that even the last two gorgeous settings didn’t produce. The way he constructs his episodes, not just narratively but visually, is arguably without peer on TV right now. He somehow finds a way to capture the opulence and beauty of Thailand while never losing the realism of the stories he’s telling there.
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Feb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
“The White Lotus” is one of those series that requires a deep breath, or perhaps a shudder, after each dose. That it also manages to be laugh-out-loud funny is a testament to White’s mastery of tone. There’s an element of schadenfreude that comes with watching the show. But that wanes once you look in the mirror and think about how human the characters are. It’s hard to spotlight individual performances in such a mighty ensemble.
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The TimesAug 18, 2021
Season 1 Review:
If you watched episode one of The White Lotus and thought, "Yes, quite good, but I'm not feeling the five-star ravings I've heard about it," then I say this: keep the faith and rest assured that it gets stonkingly good very soon. I have watched all six and, trust me, you're in for a treat.
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Jul 26, 2021
Season 1 Review:
Welcome to “Upstairs, Downstairs,” Aloha State edition. The series, called “The White Lotus,” named for the fictional resort where the action takes place, is a near-note-perfect tragicomedy. ... The actors are excellent across the board, but Bartlett, whose practiced amiability turns progressively feral throughout the series, is a revelation.
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The GuardianJul 9, 2021
Season 1 Review:
The White Lotus isn’t insisting itself as a state of the nation satire but White’s deft and unforgiving writing manages what so many others have tried and failed to do in the last five years. He’s created a deeply funny and bracingly topical piece of art that prods and provokes without preaching. His show says more about class, sex and race because it’s not directly about those issues, remembering, vitally, that to send a message, one has to package it well.
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IndieWireJul 8, 2021
Season 1 Review:
White’s latest work is also an ensemble showcase with a handful of unforgettable performances — Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge top among them — as well as a paradox unto itself, in that it’s extremely addictive and consistently uncomfortable. Conceived and shot during the pandemic, “The White Lotus” is many things, but it’s nothing short of a marvel.
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The PlaylistFeb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
White pulls off a masterclass with these women as they forge alliances behind each other’s backs, only to increasingly betray each other over the silliest of social interactions. You know these women. You and your friends may be these women. It’s a spot-on microscope of adult friendships that this season may end up being remembered for the most.
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Oct 27, 2022ColliderJul 13, 2021
TV Guide MagazineFeb 27, 2025
Season 3 Review:
The resort welcomes another memorably stellar ensemble. [3 - 23 Mar 2025, p.4]
Feb 14, 2025
Season 3 Review:
Although she [Jennifer Coolidge] lit up two seasons of the quirky Mike White drama, she has a kindred spirit in Parker Posey, who takes the third season to her own offbeat heights. .... “The White Lotus,” season three, is a bit more lush than the previous two and stuffed with phrases you’ll be hearing for months to come.
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Oct 28, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Prepare to be wowed. Mike White returns for a second season of his Emmy-winning series and tops himself by digging deeper into this stinging satire of white privilege., this time in Sicily. A top cast (hello again Jennifer Coolidge!) delivers TV at its seductive, sneakily unnerving best.
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Oct 27, 2022
Season 2 Review:
As easily digested as gelato, this season has action that hinges on those two young women (Beatrice Granno and Simona Tabasco) making visitors feel welcome. That means the stakes are high and the room service bills even higher. Coolidge continues her winning ways (Emmy No. 2? It’s possible) and DiMarco has just enough innocence to make you wonder what his future will be. “The White Lotus” still ranks among television’s best.
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Oct 24, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Between the acting, Alex Bovaird’s costuming and White’s usual written standards — as seen on this series, “Enlightened” and beyond — each “White Lotus” character is immediately distinct from the next. Spending time with them is never boring, which is maybe why the season takes its time setting up the players, indulging White’s gift for dialogue to the point that the first few episodes (each a solid hour long) lose some of their urgency. ... “The White Lotus” remains one of TV’s most purely visceral, evocative shows as it digs each of its guests up by their roots.
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Jul 9, 2021
Season 1 Review:
It’s to the credit of White and the wonderfully well-chosen cast that we keep watching, even knowing that these guests are probably not going to find much self-awareness. ... The splendid cast is led by Bartlett, who makes Armond’s growing resentment a volatile partner to his put-a-smile-on-everything professional demeanor. Rothwell emerges as the heart and soul of the series. ... Coolidge is outstanding, as she makes Tanya’s stunted emotional life kind of sympathetic. Britton and Zahn are pitch-perfect as a couple with their own challenges.
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Jul 9, 2021
Season 1 Review:
This series is a sharply etched satire of classism and white privilege, as well as a deft exploration of the power dynamics that define every relationship between and among the guests and staff in this upscale paradise. ... Armond’s behavior, like that of almost every character in The White Lotus, could and may launch a thousand think pieces, which is a testament to the serrated edges in White’s writing and the fantastic actors that make up the cast.
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Jul 9, 2021
Season 1 Review:
If you're itching for a tropical vacation, The White Lotus might cool those jets. The latest product from the dark and twisty mind of Mike White ("Enlightened") deals with class in a way few recent TV productions have, in an edgy, engrossing six-part HBO limited series that follows multiple stories in a kind of modern "Upstairs, Downstairs" fashion.
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Jul 1, 2021Jul 1, 2021
Season 1 Review:
As its characters circle the collective emotional drain, however, the show builds an undeniably hypnotizing whodunit with no ready conclusions. ... The entire cast pulls its weight, but “The White Lotus” leaps into a whole other gear when centering its two smartest performances. ... Bartlett and Coolidge are exceptional as they embrace every twisted knot of conflict inherent in their roles. As Armand’s and Tanya’s behavior reaches manic heights, the performances grounding them become ever more mesmerizing.
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Jun 30, 2021
Season 1 Review:
Some of the year's best television thus far. ... 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.
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Feb 14, 2025
Season 3 Review:
OK, the Thailand-set season 3 takes longer to ignite, but brilliant series creator Mike White and a new cast of entitled one-percenters, led by Parker Posey, Carrie Coon and an Oscar-winning mystery guest, deliver a ferociously funny social satire that defines TV at its peak.
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Oct 24, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Last year's six episodes were near flawless television, and returning ran the risk of losing the expectations game. But the new seven-episode season is comparable, and most importantly keeps the tone alive. If more sophomore seasons could learn from the "Lotus" example, television would be better for it.
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Jul 9, 2021
Season 1 Review:
For fans of White's deathly sharp comedy, "Lotus" is a triumphant, deliriously funny satire of the privileged classes against a gorgeous backdrop. For those who don't know White well, it's an exuberant comedy that might introduce them to his other work, such as Laura Dern's HBO vehicle "Enlightened."
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Jul 1, 2021
Season 1 Review:
The series is less a situational comedy about the stress of vacation than a satire on white American privilege. But it’s one in which the laughs are often supplanted by intimations of a barely obscured and gathering darkness, and in which the plot often appears subordinate to the seductive atmosphere of Disneyfied decadence gradually sliding into degradation.
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Oct 28, 2022
Season 2 Review:
The White Lotus hasn’t lost any of its intoxicating allure, shifting its mix of rich-people problems and staff struggles to a new island (Sicily), with Jennifer Coolidge as the one holdover from the Emmy-winning original. It’s an impressive exercise in reloading by writer-director Mike White, who based on this encore should have plenty of frequent-flyer miles in his future if he chooses.
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Oct 24, 2022
Season 2 Review:
The guests are a lot more palatable as characters this season, with White having a very effective understanding of how to withhold their backstories in order to draw in the viewer’s interest. ... Half the fun of the early episodes is coming to understand who these people are and why they’ve come to this place together, and once those relationships are established, the season moves like lightning towards whatever trainwreck the finale promises.
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Jul 7, 2021
Season 1 Review:
In this self-dissection of wealthy Caucasian self-awareness, some subplots are just navel-gazing. ... Still, I got wrapped up in the dreamy dramedy. Looking's Bartlett stuns as a tightly wound perfectionist falling way off the wagon. Rothwell, hysterical on Insecure, goes 180 degrees as a wellness worker bee carrying the weight of moneyed sorrow. Coming off The Handmaid's Tale, Sharp Objects, and Euphoria, Sweeney confirms herself as the generational representative for soulful perversity.
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Feb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
White is simply too gifted a dramatist, and too acute an observer of human foibles, for these concerns to feel forced. They do, however, take a long time to set up, especially as the ensemble expands in size. Season 3 is the least immediately gripping entry. .... But when the story coalesces and kicks into gear somewhere around its halfway point, it’s as wild and unpredictable as any of the powder kegs White has combusted.
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Feb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
The beats of the season are rote, the characters verge on cringe-worthy cliche, and The White Lotus seems to be lazily conforming to a formula that’s already inspired countless pale imitations since its 2021 series launch. .... The biggest thing the The White Lotus Season 3 has going for it, though, is its phenomenal cast. The actors that Mike White has assembled give each character a pathos that maybe wasn’t originally there on the page. .... Ultimately, The White Lotus Season 3 is still the best at what the show sets out to do.
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Feb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
I can reassure viewers who find the start of the season slow that things pick up dramatically, especially in the fifth or sixth episodes, which have events perched precariously on the verge of disaster. Will that inevitable disaster take a form that doesn’t feel, at least somewhat, like a reboot of previous White Lotus installments? I can’t say for sure, but if you accept that the joy is in the interpretation, it’s enough to watch the new group revel in the toxic treats that Mike White so readily supplies.
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Feb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
Campy, naughty, a little shocking, and a little old hat, The White Lotus’s third season has its flaws and its hang-ups, without question. They hint at depth, at complicated things to say about wealth and cultural experience as a consumer product, and how to find meaning. If season three ends at all like the previous seasons did, the show may not figure out how to do more than hint. But as with its first two seasons, The White Lotus succeeds at being fun TV first and foremost.
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The GuardianFeb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
On the evidence of the first few episodes, it seems that the third series may have moved even further from the original’s MO. But the precision of the storytelling and the realisation of every character, from the most central to the most peripheral, remains masterly. Exquisitely shot, scripted, paced and performed, it’s a sumptuous feast for all the senses.
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The IndependentFeb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
What it shows is that The White Lotus is a franchise now so totally in command of its own appeal that it can be transferred anywhere. Compared to other contemporary anthology shows (like True Detective or Fargo), it feels more in control of its tone, more consistent in its approach.
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Nov 9, 2022
Season 2 Review:
The second season initially feels like a mere echo of the first. ... But the first five episodes suggest that White has undergone his own unclenching. The airless sociological fatalism of Season 1, which was matched by a claustrophobic production due to covid-19 restrictions, gives way to a more mature drama, as well as a deeper exploration of how the characters’ class concerns converge with gendered angst.
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The TimesNov 2, 2022
Season 2 Review:
In a nutshell this series is funny, but not as funny as the last one. But series one took its time to take off too. And, having watched ahead only five episodes; I don't know the denouement be assured that Mike White builds the tension exquisitely and there is much toxicity to gorge upon. ... I love Tanya. She embodies the show's essence: that being filthy rich doesn't make you happy. Indeed, it can make you wretchedly miserable. Enjoy the schadenfreude.
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Oct 28, 2022
Season 2 Review:
For some viewers, this all might feel like a slight rehash, idiosyncratic as it might be. But though these new episodes (of which five were made available to critics) meander at times, Season 2 is more tightly plotted and there are enough new ideas, with even the most staid insights heightened by White’s razor-sharp writing, for it to feel fresh.
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Oct 26, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Like most things in season two, Coolidge is not as revelatory here as she was in the show’s first season, even while she is excellent. Once it changed from a one-off into an anthology series, “The White Lotus” became a formula — this season also opens with a mystery, as a number of bodies are found — and as such it is a tad more predictable. But that didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment, watching this collection of high-end guests, played by an able cast, squirm and skirmish while sitting in the lap of luxury.
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Oct 25, 2022
Season 2 Review:
The Sicily season is a bit thinner, focused mostly on sex and the grittier aspects of romance, with only some slight, and occasionally perfunctory, nods toward the grander sociopolitical storm of the present day. At least, that’s true of the first two episodes. As it moves past those beginnings, the season adds layers of tension and meaning, potentially setting us up for a wallop of a finale that says some pretty grave things about the haves and the have nots, about men and women, about money and its influence. One just has to be patient, I suppose.
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The TelegraphOct 24, 2022
Season 2 Review:
The White Lotus isn’t quite as insightful as it thinks it is and suffers from all the characters being different flavours of unlikeable (see also: House of the Dragon). But there is the implicit promise throughout that this ghastly gallery of vacationers will receive their comeuppance. Paired with the dramatic Sicilian landscape, that cocktail of sunshine and delayed schadenfreude goes down irresistibly.
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Jul 9, 2021
Season 1 Review:
It’s a lot of people to keep track of, yet White’s writing and direction intertwine their stories in an ambitious, novelistic manner. There’s the morbid fun of trying to guess who dies and how, as well as the subtler work of understanding these characters, none of whose behaviors are easy to predict.
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Jul 8, 2021
Season 1 Review:
“The White Lotus” could use more attention to the downstairs half of its upstairs-downstairs story; it flicks at, but doesn’t really explore, the lives of the native Hawaiian staff busing tables and performing dinnertime rituals. And it sometimes strains to be topical, with its culture-war Mad Libs references to triggering and cucking, canceling and doxxing. But this is a sharp, soulful series that knows its characters in full and gets richer as it goes on.
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Jun 30, 2021
Season 1 Review:
White Lotus is delightfully mean-spirited and unexpectedly big-hearted in ways that will probably polarize some audiences. I found it vibrantly messy and deceptively emotional, a show that I wasn’t convinced was working after one episode and that I didn’t want to end after six.
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Feb 18, 2025
Season 3 Review:
A first episode of The White Lotus is clearly all table-setting. And that’s very much the case here, with every scene slowly unfolding as a way to tell us more about these varied guests—and those hotel employees who’ll be there to serve them. .... But it’s clear that Goggins’ Rick may be the one to watch. He’s clearly on a mission, even if Chelsea has no idea why they are in Thailand at all.
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Feb 11, 2025
Season 3 Review:
There are plenty of solid characters, thanks to standout performances from Wood, Coon, and especially Rothwell, who brings a lovely empathetic grace to the screen. And critics have yet to see the final two episodes of the season, which might do a lot to wrap things up cohesively. As it stands, Season 3 isn’t quite the success of seasons past. But there are worse vacations out there.
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Oct 28, 2022
Season 2 Review:
While much transpires, we still have little clue as to which character(s) will be killed, and who will be doing the killing. It’s a tribute to the depth of the writing and the excellent work by the ensemble that whoever winds up floating in the sea, I’m gonna feel bad for them but I’ll also probably understand why someone wanted them gone.
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Oct 27, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Even if the plotting is less urgent and the comedy, when it flares up (not often enough), is less biting, “White Lotus” remains consistently watchable for White’s finely-drawn characters, whether it’s Daphne’s sunny disposition that masks uncomfortable truths or Dominic’s justification/excuse for his cheating ways.
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Oct 24, 2022
Season 2 Review:
There are so many elements about this season that make it better than the majority of shows on TV right now — not limited to the writing and the acting, but the sweeping cinematography and pitch-perfect soundtrack as well (the new theme song might actually be better than the original) — but when you know how good The White Lotus can be, why would you want to accept anything less?
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IndieWireOct 24, 2022
Jul 8, 2021
Season 1 Review:
“White Lotus” loses something in the last episode when, in an effort to bring elements together, it goes in search of a message and finds one, just in time for the finish. The experience ends up feeling sad and pedestrian, when it could have finished wild and senseless. Still, for five of six hours, it’s hard to argue with the experience.
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The PlaylistJun 30, 2021
Season 1 Review:
It asks people to spend a great deal of time with a group of relatively unlikable people (one of whom may be the most toxically abrasive person on TV this year). Still, White’s overall love for the outsider and even his empathy for some of the insiders carry the project to a satisfying conclusion. It’s a little minor for White, who wrote and directed every episode, but it’s very well-acted and ambitious enough to make it a memorable trip.
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Jul 8, 2021
Season 1 Review:
Despite a strong start and some excellent performances, The White Lotus does wane towards the end of the series’ six stylish episodes. The attempted class commentary is only slightly developed, and the obvious disillusionment experienced by the staff is set aside for a focus on the guests.
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Oct 24, 2022
Season 2 Review:
While The White Lotus Season 2 is certainly gorgeous to look at, it falls a bit short once again as any sort of legitimate social commentary. It’s obvious that these people are generally awful: spoiled, self-involved, and lacking the sort of basic self-awareness we often see in so many (generally American) travelers abroad. But beyond that, is there anything worth really saying about them, or the journey they’re on?
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Feb 14, 2025
Season 3 Review:
There is less — really no — explicit comedy this time out, no replacement for Jennifer Coolidge’s needy heiress from Seasons 1 and 2. (As if you could replace Jennifer Coolidge.) Yet something in the direction, something like affection for these bumbling adults and young adults, lightens the tone.
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Feb 14, 2025
Season 3 Review:
I don’t know that I wanted a healthier, kinder, more virtuous “White Lotus.” The new season is slow. It’s not nearly as sharp at picking apart contrarian impulses among wealthy tourists — or at articulating the malaise of the present moment. But it has moments of leisurely, contemplative beauty that remind me a great deal of “Enlightenment,” White’s earlier series for HBO.
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