The White Lotus opened the doors to its lavish Thai hotel resort on February 16, 2025, introducing a new cast of decadent tourists for Season 3. While plenty of polite first impressions gave way to passive-aggressive behavior and potential motives for murder, several characters have already shown themselves as potentially the worst of the bunch.
Of course, one appeal of The White Lotus is witnessing the humiliating fall of the narcissistic, ultra-wealthy elites who, despite vacationing in paradise, never feel satisfied or fulfilled. With a mysterious murder setting the table each season, the fun becomes playing detective, figuring out who will die and who the killer is. While there’s still plenty to solve with the remaining episodes in Season 3, one White Lotus character is more suspicious than the others.

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‘The White Lotus’s Season 3 Guests

Following her White Lotus employment in Hawaii in Season 1, massage therapist Belinda Lindsey (Natasha Rothwell) marks the second returning character in Season 3 behind Greg (or Gary) Hunt (Jon Gries). Waiting for her son Zion (Nicholas Duvernay), Belinda is joined by several new (mostly) American guests on the popular Mike White TV show.
The new guests include the supremely grumpy Rick Hatchett (Walton Goggins), his bubbly girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), a trio of childhood friends reuniting for a vacation, including TV actor Jaclyn Lemon (Michelle Monaghan), corporate careerist Laurie (Carie Coon), and socialite Kate (Leslie Bibb).
Then there’s the Ratliff family of five. The North Carolina unit includes the wealthy business entrepreneur Tim (Jason Isaacs), his loopy wife Victoria (Parker Posey), and their three children: aspiring Buddhist Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), kind high school graduate Lochlan (Sam Nivola), and the eldest sibling, the prototypical frat-bro Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger).
Rick Is Back at the Top of Our List

‘The White Lotus’ Episode 6: “Denials”

Following a week of extremes, The White Lotus’ sixth episode in Thailand saw slightly more subdued behavior. In “Denials,” Saxon gets physically ill over the realization he had a quasi-threesome with Chloe and Lochlan while the two siblings were blacked out the night before. Horrifying memory fragments flood Saxon’s mind about the encounter, which Chloe eventually confirms in front of the shocked Chelsea. Later, while praying with Piper in a monastery, Lochlan ruefully recalls the night.
After drunkenly bedding Valentin the night before, Jaclyn receives a call from her boyfriend, Harrison, and also begins to regret her indiscretions. Laurie boldly confronts Jaclyn for sleeping with Valentin despite trying to set her up with him the entire trip, asking if she and Harrison have an open relationship. Kate tries to tone down Laurie’s bluntness but to little avail.
Elsewhere, Timothy continues contemplating suicide with vivid daydreams that include shooting Victoria in her sleep. Fortunately, Gaitok finds his gun in the hotel while Tim and Victoria attend the monastery Piper wants to live in for a year. At the monastery, Tim talks to the instructing monk and listens to an interpretation of death and reincarnation that appears to encourage him, or at least be at peace with, to go through with killing himself.

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Continuing her crass insolence from the previous episode, Victoria is just behind Rick for being the worst person in a mild week of bad behavior. She continues to judge the Buddhist religion and insult the monastery, forcing Piper to stay overnight to prove her dedication before giving her blessing. She doesn’t even have the decency to speak with the famous monk Piper idolizes, leaving Tim to go alone. While Lochlan is nice enough to stay with Piper overnight, Victoria only worsens once she and Tim return to the resort.
After listening to the monk and gaining a new perspective, Tim intimates that Piper may benefit from a year in a monastery. Although Victoria has no clue he’s inferring the possibility of the family losing everything from his crimes, Victoria confesses she’s too shallow and weak-willed not to live in luxury for the rest of her life. In a roundabout way, she’s indirectly telling Tim she doesn’t love him for him but for the immense life of wealth and privilege that he’s provided her. Victoria has been rude, dismissive, and stuck-up the entire season.
While arguments can be made that Chloe is pretty awful for cheating on Greg/Gary and enabling the two siblings to cross the sexual line, her bond with Gary is just for show, and she didn’t force the brothers into doing anything non-consensual. Another argument can be made that Piper is the worst for tricking the entire family into coming to Thailand to write her school thesis only because she wanted to tour a monastery for herself instead. Her behavior is deceitful and entitled.

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Saving the worst for last, prickly Rick continues to angle his way into the heart of Bangkok. He baldly lies to Sritala’s face, introducing Frank (Sam Rockwell) as a big-shot Hollywood producer interested in casting her in his next A-list movie. The lie is a ploy to access Sritala’s house, where Rick can find and presumably kill her husband, Jim (Scott Glenn), the man who killed Rick’s father.
Rick gets Frank involved despite Frank being sober for 10 months and making positive changes in his life, endangering his friend with little regard for what happens to him when bullets begin to fly. Even when Chelsea, easily the most likable and moral character in Season 3, calls to check on him, the joyless and insufferable Rick insults her and calls her “annoying.”
The episode ends as Rick enters Sritala’s home, leaving fans wondering if he will use the gun that Frank gave him to kill Jim. The intent to murder has been there all along, and if he pulls the trigger, Rick will become the vilest and most irredeemable character thus far. Although Rick earns the badge of dishonor once more, it’s worth noting how Greg invited Belinda to talk with him at his house, advancing the Tanya McQuoid storyline from Seasons 1 and 2. The White Lotus is streaming on Max.

The White Lotus Cast Member

What We Know From the First Six Episodes

Laurie

Laurie isn’t happy after Jaclyn slept with Valentin, and she makes

that very clear in Episode 6. The tension between Kate, Jaclyn, and

Laurie is at an all-time high.

Jaclyn Lemon

A celebrity back at home, Jaclyn received plenty

of attention at the White Lotus resort upon her arrival with Kate and

Laurie. However, after cheating on her boyfriend and stabbing

Laurie in the back, Jaclyn moved way up our power

rankings.

Greg/Gary Hunt

Of course, we know Greg is arguably the most evil person in

Thailand in Season 3, but he hasn’t done enough in this

third season to be the worst of the bunch. However, we should

expect something big from Greg next week with his upcoming

“dinner party.”

Saxon Ratliff

The stereotypical rich kid in the worst way, Saxon is overly

confident and came into Thailand as the worst character. However,

after the Full Moon party, Saxon is confused and disgusted, acting

completely out of character.

Timothy Ratliff

Times have been tough for Timothy, who now sees no way out of

his money laundering scandal and has resorted to taking his wife’s

pills to calm him down. Now at his lowest point in the season, he

attempted to take his own life and is now having visions of killing

himself and taking Victoria with him.

Victoria Ratliff

Since learning of Piper’s plan to live in Thailand, Victoria has quickly

become insufferable and ruder than before. Her talk with her

husband, Tim, did her no favors, as she essentially said she would

rather die than lose their family’s wealth.

Rick Hatchett

Arriving with Chelsea, Rick showed no interest in the resort

and clearly had ulterior motives for being there. Now that he has

finally arrived in Bangkok and set up a meeting with Sritala, it seems

he is ready to carry out his plan and potentially murder Sritala’s

husband.