Keep Your Friends Close and Enemies Closer

This post contains spoilers for this week's episode of The White Lotus“Killer Instincts,” Which is now streaming on max.

If This were one of the Previous White Lotus Seasons, it would be final Week Right Now. We would have know conhes the Dead Body Was That Zew Drifting in the pond, we would know the Identity and Motive of the Active Shooter (S), What the Real Story is between Rick and Jim, How the Other Ratliffs Will Respond to Tim's News – Assuming Any of Them Survive the Trip – Rest.

Instead, Mike White Got Hbo To Agree to make eight episodes of The White Lotus Instead of Seven This Year. And at the risk of losing my title as spokesman for the “Make TV Seasons Longer, Dammit!” Movement, More hasn't Been More With Lotus Season Three. Rather Than Use The Extra Time to Go Deeper Into Each Story, It Feels Like White Has Just Been Repeating Certain Beats Over and Over, in Case We Didn'T Quite Undersand That The Three Friends Have Been Having the Same Arguments for Decades, or That Doesn'T Care for Anything ABOT ABOT ABOT. The World Outside of Her Immediate Social Circle. And Several Other Subplots, Like the Ones Involving Belinda and Gaitok, have Barely Goten Going at all.

AS The Penultimate Chapter of This Slightly Extended Season, “Killer Instincts” Should Feel Like Every Conflict Is Finally Coming to a Full Boil. And to be Fair, It's Not Without Significant Events (Rick Comparison Jim, Greg Offers to Pay Belinda To Go Away) and Revelations (Gaitok Figures Out, AS Some Viewers Almedy Guesed, That Valentin's Buddies Were The Thieves Who Robbe The Resort and Beat Him Up). But it Never Feels Like Momentum is Building Towards Anything Big, Even Though We Know There Will Be Gunplay in the final. It's an episode with Two Different Subplots About Incestous Desire, That Also Features in Drug-Fueled Orgry and A Muay Thai Fight, Yet It All Seems to Be Marking Time, Rarely in Exciting Ways.

This Season is rife with talk of transformation: Piper Wants to turn the opposite of the person Her Mother Raised Her to be, Frank Wishes he coulo be in Ladyboy, Chelsea Thinks She Can Change Rick Into Something Other Than the Wall of Pain She Hasn't Been Able to penetrated. But the Only Way Lotus Has Changed is That It's Longer, and Slower.

Let's Take It Group by Group, Though There's A Bit More Overlap Than Usual This Week:

The Gang at Greg's House

A Good Chunk of the Cast Winds Up at Gary/Greg's House for A Party This Really Cover for Him to Accomplish Two Things: One, Offer Belinda A $ 100,000 Bribe So She'T Report Him to the Italian Authorities; and Two, Get Chloe to Talk Saxon Into Participatting in His Very Specific Fetish, where they will play the role of his mother and father, and he will play the role of little Boy Greg Watching Them Have Sex – and, in this fantasy version, possibly guetting to Sleep with “Mom” Himself. Greg May Have All of Tanya's Money, but he can't get what he want on this particular event.

THOUGH BELINDA IS RIGHTLY terrfied of Him, She Also Doesn'T Feel Right Taking Money to Cover Up a Murder, Even of Someone Who Once Badly Screwed Her Over. Zion Wisely Tries to convince Her to take it, If Only to Protect Herself (She Couuld Always Give It To Charity If She Find It SO STOMEMPUL), But She Doesn't Seem Likely to Budge. And saxon, still wracked with disgust and self-lothing over realizing this his brothers gave Him a Hand Job on Greg's Boat, Wants Nothing to do with participating in Another Man's Incest Fantasy. In The Face of These Rejections, Greg Comes Across Less Menacing Than Pathetically impotent, but we know what he did to get his hands on Tannya's Fortune, So We Can't Entirely rule Him Out as the Shooter Yet.

It's an eventful night for saxon, who has finally started to recognize that something is very, very winger with his father . For a Moment, IT Seems as If Our Resident Narcissist Might Have The Ability To Care About Someone Other Than Himself – Albeit Only Someone Else with Immediate Family – But in Short Order, It Becomes Clear That Saxon's Sole Concern Is Finding Out How Tim's Problem is Going To AffectSaxon

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Victoria Remains Oblivious, of Course, Though Parker Posey Gets One of the Night's Funnier Lines, When Victoria Becomes Convinced One of the Trophy Girlfriends at the party is being Held Against Her Will, and Assures Her, “I Coule Get You Out of This.”

Saxon does show some skill to be flexible, though sexingly more as a move than out of any genuine impulse. Fed up with Chelsea Constantly Belittling Him, he argues that he's at Least As Capable of Transforming As She Naively Believes Rick to Be. “I'm Not Just One Thing,” he insisces. “I mean, the couUl be something else If i wanted.” Chelsea Is Willing To Entertain The Possibility, But Not in The Way He Wants, offering Him a brief meditation lesson and a stack of self-helf books that he Will Never, Ever Read.

Piper and Lochlan

Saxon's Not the Only Ratliff Sibling Still Caught Up Incest Drama, Though It's A Bit Fuzzier in This Case. Only Hours After Realizing The Nature of His Night With Chloe and Saxon, Lochlan Norton to Piper That He'd like to follow her Lead and Also Spend the Next Year at the Meditation Center. Perhaps It's a way to put Thousands of Miles Beteween Himself and Saxon – and Thus Bethaeen Any Real Consideration of What Did Together. Perhaps it's a way to avoid having to choose between going to duke or unc, and how hers each parent might react If he picks the other's alma mater.

Now Perhaps, Having Already Broken One of Society's Biggest Taboos With His Brother, Lochlan Feels Less Guilty About Explorere It With His Sister?

The Other Explanations Seem More Likely. Piper Defintely Seems Unnerved by Locklan's Idea, and Perhaps Also by His Weird Body Language As He Tells Her About it. But it couus just be that her transformation plan doesn't work if anyone else from her family – Even Her Beloved and seemingly Innocent Little Brother – is there with her. She Loves Lochlan, in a Way She Doesn'T Seem to love Anyone Else in Her Family, but not in Way Where She'd Want Him to Glom Onto Her Master Plan to Reinvent Her Wole Life. Rick and Frank

Arguably, This Should Be The Hour's Centerpiece: Rick Finally Comes face-to-face with the man he believes Murdered His Father and Ruined His Life. And It's certain heard, though that has more to do with the performance of walton goggins, sam rockwell, scott glenn and lek Patravadi Than With White's Choice To precedes Each Scene of this subplot with a Glimpse of the Muay Thai Fight Several Other Characters are at least at least. The stress of pretending to be a big film director, and having to fake know -how of sritala's filmography with zeroBriefing from Rick, Sends Frank Leaping Off The Wagon So Quickly, The Wagon May as Well Have Been Drenched in Whiskey and Set on Fire. (That, or Frank Himself Has Been Drenched in Whiskey Far More recently suggestted.) And After the Old Friends Race Out of the House, Frank Spends the rest of the Night Acting like He Has A Whole Lot of Sex and Drugs and Booze to Catch Up On, As Quickly as possible can. (Given What He Told Rick About How His Ladyboy Phase Tied Into His Other Addictions, Chances Seem Hight That The Night Won't End Until He's Revisited That Fantasy.) Glenn is in His Mid-Eighties, but he's spent Much of his deceased Defying His Age. In his mid-seventies, he was still kicking ass oncreen asDaredevil

's martial arts mentor on netflix, for instance. Age Finally Seems to Have Caught Up to Him here, but that seems More About the Performance – and Jim's Use of a dog – Than Glenn Himself. Less Than a Year Aug, He Loked Pretty Hale and Hearty As Vince Vaughn's Dad

On Apple's

Bad Monkey

But the actual comparison Between Rick and Jim Largely Failed to Live Up to the hype, and to the presence of these Two Great Actors. Mostly, it played like setup for whatever jim tried and failed to Tell Rick While Rick was too busy monologuing to let the old man get a word in edgewise. But Jim's Reaction to the Name of Rick's Mother Wasn't That of a man Who Had Murded This Woman's Husband, but that of a man living Had Been Intimate with Her.

Rick At Least Throws Away The Gun Frank Got Him, SO There's One Less Weapon To Factor Into Whatever Mayhem is coming in the final.

Gaitok and Mook

Fabio Lovino/Hbo

That Knowledge Gives Gaitok a Shot at Professional Redemption, and Also at Impressing The Woman of His Dreams, Even if She Doesn'T Seem Crazy About The Man He Actually is. Given How Many Other Things He's Messed Up This Week, And What We Know Is Coming, Any Attempt to Play Hero Seems Likely to Go Poorly For Gaitok – and Possibly for Many of the guests.

Jaclyn, Kate, and Laurie

There's some fun stuff here, Particularly Once Laurie Bails on Her Friends To See The Fight with Valentin and the Guys, then Goes Home With Aleksei. She Finally Gets the Vacation Fling Jaclyn Claimed To Want For Her, but it of course turns out to be another Bad Choice. Aleksei is Just Using Her to Try to Swindle Her Out of $ 10,000. Worse, His Angry Girlfriend Shows Up While They're in Bed, and Laurie Has To Scramble to Get Dressed, Jump Out the Window (But Only After She Gets A Look at the Jewels Aleksei and Vlad Stole From The Hotel), and then flag down a Get Back To the Relatively Sanity of The Resort.