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The White Lotus Kill-or-Be-Killed Report is a weekly check-in with the guests and employees at this cursed hotel chain to speculate who’s most likely to murder, and/or end up murdered, following this week’s episode, “Hide and Seek.”
Okay, before we get started, I just want to make sure y’all are decent people? Because there are only two kinds of people, according to Victoria Ratliff: Decent, and trash. Decent people are safe people with whom one can go on a boating excursion and then to a full moon party; trashy people are the reason she can’t leave her purse unattended on said boating excursion and why she needs the pills that are in the purse that she must guard with her life in the first place. Let us consider this dichotomy between decent and trash — and if ever the twain shall meet, like perhaps in the Ratliff household — as we ask our favorite question regarding this series: Who will kill and who will be killed?
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Victoria
Though I feel for Victoria — the pillars holding up her life are going wobbly and her husband has stolen her entire supply of benzodiazepine — I wonder if being forced to see things clearly, perhaps for the first time in her entire adult life, will be good for her. In fact, many of her comments could be read as the pointed digs of someone who already knows exactly what is going on, such as her remark on the boat that Timothy and Greg-Gary might “know some of the same people,” or her description of the boat experience as “a convention for con men and tax cheats,” or her extremely on-the-nose proclamation about how lucky Piper is to have a father who is “a boy scout.” A suspicious person might think she is all too aware of what’s going on and just wants to torture her husband for ruining her life. No? Like, when she asks that LBH and his hot, young paramour if they’re married — she knows they aren’t, doesn’t she? Felt like she was just having fun stirring the pot. Otherwise, what we have is a woman who spends most of this episode panicking about the “decency” of her fellow boat-riders, unaware that the thief she needs to watch out for the most is her husband. The call is coming from inside the villa!
Will she kill or be killed? She has more killer spirit than ever before!
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Timothy
Timothy is having a Valley of the Dolls experience with Victoria’s little helpers. It’s a little late to be having a brat summer, buddy! His cocktail of choice — hard liquor and a handful of Lorazepam — treats him really well: He gets absolutely blitzed on the boat and scares everyone away by saying totally regular-guy things like, “Thank God both my parents are dead.” He’s so out of it that he accidentally shows his penis to all of his children and doesn’t even seem especially embarrassed about it. Nothing like a little full-frontal nudity to remind us all that we’re watching the channel that used to be HBO. As Pam would say: How wonderful for you.
When Timothy is reunited with his one true love — his phone — he learns that Kenny is cooperating with the Feds, meaning, in all likelihood, Timothy’s assets are already frozen and he’s looking at a few months in federal prison. Timothy says he would rather die; I would like to point out, in the interest of being constructive, that that is totally an option! “What should I tell my family?” he wails and I’ll be honest: that doesn’t really sound like his lawyer’s problem.
Will he kill or be killed? Seems like he WANTS to be killed, but I do not know that this increases his odds.
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Saxon
Saxon’s shtick is wearing on me, as I know it is intended to do. He’s basically just Gaston at this point — he literally tells his brother to guzzle protein and stop reading. A full-on cartoon of a man. Again I am waiting for anything he does to be surprising or interesting. Maybe next week!
Will he kill or be killed? I am, as ever, praying on his downfall.
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Piper
Ah, so the Ratliffs are a family of con artists: Piper wants to live in Thailand for a year and this trip was just her way of testing the waters. Pretty shitty of Lochlan to tell her he’ll back her up during this big announcement and then bail to go to the party, but also, does Piper need her parents’ permission to do this? Won’t she be done with school? Am I supposed to be invested in this journey? Feels like she has been marooned on an island far from all the fun parts of the show. I did love the way she says, in an aww-shucks voice, “I’m sure y’all cheat on your taxes, Mom.”
Will she kill or be killed? So far it doesn’t seem like she’s going to do much of anything besides yoga and self-reflection.
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Lochlan
Lochlan makes boat friends by doing magic tricks. Are we to take this as a sign that he, too, is capable of trickery??? I don’t know, I’m really trying but these kids are so dull! I miss Sydney!
Will he kill or be killed? I sure wish he would do SOMEthing!!!
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Mook
When Mook showed up in that incredible headdress I wrote in my notes “FINALLY Mook is dancing, put Lisa to work!” (Of course we do not get the dance in this episode because the pacing of this show is … well, you know how I feel about it.) Also she seems to think Gaitok would get a promotion for his “bravery” (security failure that was 100 percent his fault) during the robbery, which is such a dopey conclusion to draw I can only assume that Mook was in on the robbery, too. Surely she realizes Gaitok is always leaving his security station to make that heart-eye-emoji face at her. She’s distracting him on purpose, yes?
Will she kill or be killed? I still don’t see her at the heart of the violence, but there is definitely something scammy going on here.
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Gaitok
Fabian explains to Gaitok that his job “is more than just waving to people as they come through the gate.” For this reason, it has been determined that Gaitok — who can barely manage operations as it is and does not appear to have any savvy nor experience around firearms — should have access to a gun. Literally the same day that Fabian, his boss, tells Gaitok that he needs to be better at his job because there’s been an uptick in crime on the island, Gaitok abandons both this new gun and his security post to walk Mook to her performance. And so as swiftly as Gaitok is put in charge of a weapon, he leaves it unattended and it “goes missing.” I want to care about this guy but he is quite possibly the dumbest person on this show. And it’s a competitive race!
Will he kill or be killed? He’s a dead man.
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Chelsea
Chelsea manipulates Rick into joining her on the boat by doing adorable little sniffles; then she corners him into telling her what’s really going on so they can be in an honest relationship. Interesting how quickly she sizes up the yacht as being “like an oligarch’s boat,” suggesting she has been on one before. Her ongoing devotion to Rick continues to baffle me — frankly, it’s a break-uppable offense to have never seen The Princess Bride — but Chelsea is standing by her man. Except that he is going to Bangkok without her.
Will she kill or be killed? This show is always dropping theoretically ominous lines like, “This could be some Final Destination shit. Like death is coming for me,” so I cannot put too much weight on that sort of thing. I would much rather see her kill.
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Rick
Rick gets one of the best lines of the episode, as he cuts off an impossibly boring business conversation among LBHs on the boat: “If I ever need help hiding money from the government or my ex-wives, I’ll call you!” And then he comes clean to Chelsea, who takes his whole deal — ”We’re HERE because the fucking dude who MURDERED my FATHER owns this hotel” — shockingly well. Of course the story about Rick’s dad is bullshit (a do-gooder who came to Thailand to help people? Oooookay …) and I am curious if Rick can tell this is a lie or if he is delusional about his father’s goodness because this memory is all he has.
Will he kill or be killed? Obviously he is aiming to kill, but at this point his death seems like a far more likely outcome.
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Greg-Gary
The episode ends with Greg-Gary sitting alone in his dark mansion, looking up Belinda online. It’s so cool how villains always do their Googling in the dark. Strain those eyes, baby. How else will we know you’re a bad guy? Greg-Gary also seems to know something is up with Timothy, but it’s hard to see why he would care, given his other priorities.
Will he kill or be killed? If he kills and gets away with it again we are just watching the same show we’ve already watched. It would be very satisfying to watch him die. Maybe Belinda will kill him!
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Belinda
Now that she has identified Greg-Gary and he has identified her, I fear for her safety. I do not, however, worry about her innate goodness, as it is made evident through incredibly subtle means: She does her Googling by the bright light of day, which is how Good People™ do their investigative work. Beyond that, her enthusiasm for her son is genuinely very sweet. Gosh I hope they both survive.
Will she kill or be killed? Greg-Gary certainly wants her dead but I hope she bests him! Especially if she finds out he’s been looking into her son … there’s nothing she wouldn’t do for her baby boy, right?
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Jaclyn, Laurie, and Kate
Our victory lap blondes are falling apart. They can’t even make it through breakfast without sniping at each other. Their superficial bond is cracking to the point where they can no longer withstand a casual, plotless hang. And so Jaclyn, hot off being rejected by her husband, decides they MUST do something FUN today!!! The way they talk to Valentin makes me want to die (complimentary). The way Jaclyn eggs on the Laurie/Valentin connection reminds me of being 13 and being told by the adults that the waiter “is flirting with you!!!!!” when they were just doing their job by being nice and I was obviously a child.
Valentin sends them on multiple doomed outings, which they do not take very well. It’s annoying to me that after being soaked by the children they dry off and look as if they were never attacked… like, what difference does it make, then? Shouldn’t they be worse for wear?
Will they kill or be killed? The murderous rage of their pack grows stronger by the minute. Kate still seems like the likeliest killer of the three.
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Valentin
After his already-suspicious behavior leading up to the robbery, we now see Valentin both ingratiating himself with and torturing the victory lap blondes. He seems pretty committed to ruining their day. What do we make of his strategy? Was sending them to the retirement beach a prank or what? (I was waiting to find out they’d just walked in the wrong direction.) Was he always planning to ditch them in the neighborhood where he surely knew they would be attacked by watergun-wielding children, or was that an extra twist to get Jaclyn back for calling him their “butler”?
Will he kill or be killed? I think he is scamming too close to the sun and could die before he gets the chance to scam another day.
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Chloe
Chloe manages to swindle Greg-Gary out of his boat for the evening. Maybe she will sail away and leave him forever? She is leading a cadre of hot girls and Ratliff boys to the Full Moon Party, which, while it has been teased for a full 60 minutes, will not be featured in this episode.
Will she kill or be killed? I remain team kill for this one.
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Keep an eye on:
Alexei and Vlad, Valentin’s friends who are here to wear sequins and show the victory lap blondes a good time (the snake tattoos feel… ominous); Pam, whose interactions with Timothy are escalating, naur matter how hard she tries to get him to see the light of a phone-free lifestyle. And we can safely rule OUT Amrita, the stress manager who claims that Rick has touched her heart (she will be very upset when she finds out he is NOT committed to escaping the karmic cycle and/or finding peace) because, as last week’s commenters wisely pointed out, we saw her with Belinda’s son during the shooting.
More From This Series
- The White Lotus Recap: Party, Part I
- At Thailand’s Real White Lotus Hotel, Where the Ultrarich Get Coddled
- The White Lotus Recap: Biblical Proportions