‘The White Lotus’ Recap: Season 3 Starts With Another Dead Body and One Big Surprise

variety.com:

Ethan Shanfeld SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “The White Lotus” Season 3, Episode 1, now streaming on Max.

Check-in has begun at “The White Lotus” in Thailand. As is tradition, the third season of Mike White’s HBO dramedy opens with a mysterious dead body, shown in a flash forward that takes place one week after the vacationers arrive on the Thai island of Koh Samui.

A young man’s meditation session is interrupted by gunshots, some of which pierce the windows of the wellness center. He ducks for cover and then jumps into a pond, praying to a Buddha statue for the safety of his mother. (We piece together that his mom is Belinda, the Season 1 spa manager who traveled from Hawaii to learn the tricks of the trade in Thailand.) As hotel guests panic, he sees a dead body floating in the water, face down.

One week earlier, a boatful of American tourists heads toward the island. The parties are introduced one by one. There’s the young and bubbly Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) with her grumpy older boyfriend Rick (Walton Goggins), who is inexplicably miserable (and smoking).