Our favorite rich-people-being-shitty-in-paradise prestige scripted TV show, “The White Lotus” just wrapped up season 3, and we have to be honest: Much like Laurie (Carrie Coon), or Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs), we didn’t have our best vacation ever.

Season 3 of Mike White’s dark comedy finds us at a White Lotus resort in Thailand, where we reconnect with Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), the betrayed and downtrodden wellness director from season 1. Belinda is here for an extended training program, so that she can bring home all the wellness techniques the Thai location has become famous for offering. But soon, Belinda runs into one of the resort’s neighbors: Tanya’s widower, Greg (Jon Gries), who has fled here under an assumed identity to enjoy his inheritance and avoid being investigated by the Italian authorities for taking out a hit on his late wife.

We also meet new White Lotus guests. There’s Rick Hatchett (Walton Goggins), a tormented and vengeful man whose gorgeous and spiritual young girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) hopes to heal him with the power of her love. There’s Jaclyn Lemon (Michelle Monaghan), a TV star who has treated her two oldest girlfriends, Trump-voting mom Kate (Leslie Bibb) and New York attorney Laurie (Carrie Coon) to a luxurious getaway that is quickly spoiled with backbiting and tension. And, of course, there’s the Ratliff family: Timothy (Jason Isaacs), a successful businessman and scion of a wealthy North Carolina family, his lorazepam-addicted and materialistic wife Victoria (Parker Posey), and their three kids Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), and Lochlan (Sam Nivola).

The staff we see dancing attendance on this miserable rich people include Belinda’s teacher Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul), the sweet security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), his crush Mook (Lalisa Manobal, better known as Lisa from Blackpink) who pushes him to show more cutthroat ambition, obsequious manager Fabian (Christian Friedel), meditation coach Amrita (Shalini Peiris) and sexy wellness butler Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius).

“White Lotus” is famous for its sharp-edged social comedy, which helps ratchet up tensions that end up exploding into violence or catharsis in the final episode. But this season often just felt… aimless. Long shots of monkeys and crashing surf weren’t counterbalanced with enough freighted conversations and meaningful moments of characterization or even, God forbid, plot. Instead, it dragged on until a movie-length finale that tried to tie up too many disparate plot holes with resolutions that were both too heavily telegraphed and too abrupt.

Mike White defended himself on an episode of the official “White Lotus” podcast, saying, “There was complaining about how there’s no plot… part of me is just like bro, this is the vibe. I’m world-building. If you don’t want to go to bed with me then get out of my bed. I’m edging you! Enjoy the edging.” This seems like an apt description of earlier seasons. But, to be honest, this season often felt more like going to bed with someone can’t find your erogenous zones.

By the finale, the show was littered with Chekhov’s guns and obvious setups to obvious twists. We spent the almost 90-minute episode watching the guns go off, the characters spell out their motives and feelings, and the twists click into place.

And that’s not even getting into the gender politics of this season, which felt more heavy-handed than ever. But did we hate it all? Of course not! It’s “The White Lotus,” and Parker Posey was there! So we had a lot of conflicted thoughts to sort through alongside our critiques.

In this episode, we dug into the whole season — our frustrations with it, our favorite parts, our problems with how the show explores masculinity and its pitfalls, that Carrie Coon monologue on how time creates meaning — and what we hope season 4 might have in store for us.

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