The White Lotus Kill or Be Killed Report: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

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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, “Denials.”

It’s the rude awakening we’ve been waiting for: The Ratliff brothers have taken their relationship to the next level, and now, by the sober light of day, must find a way to move forward. Saxon retreats to habit (protein shakes, denial). Lochlan attempts a pivot (paying attention to Piper). Meanwhile, Chloe and Chelsea have, as the philosopher-poet Carly Rae Jepson would put it, boy problems; tension is rising among the victory-lap blondes; Victoria still can’t find her Lorazepam; and Gaitok still, somehow, has a job. Are we getting any closer to finding out who the killer will be or who will be killed? *Laurie voice* I totally don’t even care if we do, it’s not a big deal! I actually think it would be so funny if we don’t!!!

Timothy

Poor Timothy lives to see another day, much to his horror. He also keeps his secret another day, much to my horror. We are running out of episodes for this man to experience the consequences of his actions! I am tired of watching him run around and be sweaty. I really think we have hit our max on scenes where he is zoning out while everyone else is having a conversation in which he is clearly supposed to be a participant and then somebody’s like “Dad?!? Are you OKAY???” and when he’s obviously not okay nobody cares enough to do anything about it.

Are you getting the sense from his little one-on-one with the monk that he’s imagining a bold future for himself right here in Thailand, perhaps studying spirituality alongside (or instead of) his daughter? Does anyone know what the extradition rules are here? It’s certainly … a choice … for the monk to basically describe the afterlife as a dreamy reintroduction to the ocean, free from suffering.

Will he kill or be killed? He’s spent too much time with the gun — all these fakeouts — to be the killer or the killee.

Victoria

She’s doing a lot of heavy lifting in her relationship re: being the interesting one. I am amazed that, as her sons stumble back to the villa — both obviously hungover and, at least in Saxon’s case, traumatized — all Victoria can focus on is that Piper lied about her thesis.

That said, I think it’s actually a brilliant move for her to tell Piper to spend one night at the monastery and promise to shut up forever if Piper still wants to stay after what Victoria trusts will be a harrowing evening. She should’ve done this from the get-go: acted as if she supported Piper’s plans while trusting that the reality of this experience would be enough to dissuade her spoiled daughter. (It’s like Ramona Quimby’s mom putting the rainboots in the suitcase when Ramona wants to run away from home, no?) A+ parenting from Mama Lorazepam. “She needs to fear poverty, Tim, like everyone else we know. That way she’ll make good decisions.” Just in case you were wondering if she would take her husband’s demise well, she assures him she would not: At this age, she is not meant to “live an uncomfortable life. I don’t have the will.”

Will she kill or be killed? I think Mrs. Ratliff lives to face the unlivable conditions her husband’s choices have led their family to endure!

Kate

In her life as in her politics, Kate is hoping to be able to simply observe and point out the things that she finds “interesting” (bad) without having to experience any real consequences and/or take the action that attending to such “interesting” incidents may require. If she really didn’t want to cause problems with her trio, she would’ve kept her Valentin sighting to herself or quietly asked Jaclyn about it in a sidebar; having chosen the juicier path by immediately reporting it back to Laurie, Kate has created a mess — one she thought she would enjoy, but what do you know? Messes are messy.

She claims to not have anticipated that Laurie would be so upset by this information and, you know what? I actually believe her. She is totally the type to willfully ignore the barely subterranean competition simmering between her two old friends. Obviously she was hoping this would cause drama in a fun way, but instead she accidentally hit on some friendship third rails, and now everyone is angry in a miserable way. And yet again we are getting Olympic-grade facial expressions from Leslie Bibb. The wide-eyed downturned-mouth look as she watches Valentin slink away from Jaclyn’s room! Popular viewers vindicated!

Will she kill or be killed? While this week doesn’t give her much to do besides destroy the fragile performance of kinship that was keeping this girls’ trip on the level, I maintain that the “independent” who lives in Texas is the most likely of the three to shoot to kill.

Laurie

As expected, Laurie is outraged at Jaclyn for having sex with Valentin and expresses this rage in your classic, passive-aggressive way: By insisting that she’s “not even mad!!!!!!!!!! I’m laughing! I’m just CURIOUS!!! It’s FUNNY!!” Totally! We are reminded that the victory-lap blondes met in high school, where their emotions have remained stunted ever since. Laurie, correctly, says that Jaclyn “has not changed at all” and accuses her friend of being “an aging actress who literally lives off male attention.” Then she bullies Kate into having a margarita. God, imagine spending four years at her lunch table.

Will she kill or be killed? Wants to kill and acts like she could but I bet when it comes right down to it, she cannot pull the trigger.

Jaclyn

Shitty men have an unbelievable radar for knowing when their girlfriends, wives, or exes are actually experiencing a moment of bliss and/or have started to move on, and so it is no shock at all that Jaclyn’s fuckboy of a husband finally calls her the morning after she has sex with Valentin. Imagine being MARRIED to a guy who thinks it is acceptable to tell you, after having missed your calls for days on end, “Yeah, I’ve been on set and my phone died.” Your phone died? Jesus CHRIST.

I think Jaclyn makes a rookie mistake here by pretending to have done nothing with Valentin. Lying about it proves that she knows she did something wrong (to Laurie; as you might expect I’m not too stressed about her marriage vows), whereas owning it would have allowed her to continue the fiction, badly offered up by Laurie, that everything was totally above board and, like, so funny actually when you think about it! Instead she is trapped in an obvious lie that alienates her even from Kate, who is desperate for everyone to be nice again.

Will she kill or be killed? I just feel like she could die. Is that the energy you’re getting? Like she dies and then she doesn’t even make the Emmys “In Memoriam.”

Valentin

“I loved dancing with Laurie!” Buddy you need to read the room.

Will he kill or be killed? Wants to kill but is marked for death.

Lochlan

Lochlan makes the wise decision to claim to have forgotten everything about his evening of brotherly love. Just a normal night, losing his virginity to an LBH’s professional girlfriend and jerking off his big brother, followed by waking up naked beside said brother, who is also naked, without a woman in sight. Lochlan seems to take it all in stride, which is certainly one way of doing it!

After flaking on the previous night’s dinner, Lochlan does the (non-incestuous) sibling thing of supporting Piper’s interests against their mother’s horror by agreeing to have a little slumber party at the monastery, where he is told to “say hello” to the thoughts that emerge in his mind. Unfortunately they are thoughts of sexual relations with his brother.

Will he kill or be killed? Much like in his tryst, where his supposed inexperience and awkwardness melted away in the presence of a real sexual encounter, I wonder if our apparently soft, gentle boy will be the one who reaches for the gun (heyyyy) when the moment comes?

Saxon

I’ve been known to do a power ranking or two, and if this were one such list, Saxon would be at the very bottom. He faces the new day with horror. Despite his insistence that both he and Lochlan blacked out, their torrid night together returns to him in insistent, gut-twisting flashes. I will add that using that blender with that hangover pounding in your skull is a psychotic move.

With Lochlan, Saxon does what I assume is his standard move after any sexual encounter: ignoring him until he goes away. I’m not sure why Saxon thinks it is a wise move to attend this dinner at Greg-Gary’s place — presumably he thinks he’ll be safer with his parents in tow? — but I can’t imagine the evening going well for him. It’s also very funny that, the morning after orgasming into his baby brother’s hand, Saxon’s immediate reaction to the news of Piper’s plan to move to Thailand is to announce that he “cares too much” about her to want her to live far away. Is he trying to go two for two here… ?

Will he kill or be killed? He certainly wants to die today! Maybe, with a little help from Greg-Gary, he’ll get his wish.

Piper

I’m glad Piper can tell this monk that his work means so much to her. She seems to really want to become a better person. Is this compelling television? Unfortunately no, but I wish fair Piper best of luck on her future endeavors and congratulate her on being the sole Ratliff child to avoid committing incest on this family vacation. Then again, we still have two episodes to go.

Will she kill or be killed? Eh, neither.

Chelsea

I love that Chelsea chastises Rick for saying “Love you” instead of “I love you” because “it’s just different, isn’t it?” Again, I wish she would take Chloe’s advice and ditch her supposed soulmate. Not for a Ratliff boy — maybe just for the single life. She has so much exploring to do. By the pool, she wears a pair of absolutely fabulous white sunglasses while cheerfully explaining to Saxon that sex with him would be meaningless “because you’re soulless.” The way her eyes go wide when she finds out about how intimate things got between Lochlan and Saxon — perfection!

Will she kill or be killed? I know I’ve wanted her to kill for a while now, but I worry she is too sensitive for that and actually needs to just continue to lead a nonviolent life, leading with love and astrology.

Chloe

I do believe our fabulous Chloe — a Libra rising, for God’s sake! — has gotten in over her head, all because she thinks she has a good thing going (Greg-Gary’s home is impressive, if you’re into that Parasite sort of thing) and doesn’t want to have to get back out there and hook herself another LBH. If she knows Gary is capable of murder, why is she being so careless? She should save her manipulations for less dangerous men, like the brothers Ratliff. (Her hilariously breezy dismissal of Saxon and Lochlan’s intimate night: “It’s fine! Everyone’s got a thing.”)

Will she kill or be killed? I want her to kill! Anyone can push someone off a boat if you have the element of surprise :)

Greg-Gary

He’s obsessed with the idea of Chloe having sex with the Ratliff brothers, and it’s not clear if he’s into it, in a hot way, or if he is just baiting Chloe into giving him damning information with which he can then break up with/dispose of her and anyone else he chooses. I feel like his whole deal is less that he loves to kill people and more that he loves money and will do whatever homicides it takes to get the riches he desires. This is why I want Belinda to RUN for the HILLS.

Will he kill or be killed? As always, we root for his demise. And I still think him being a killer would feel like a rerun.

Rick

Rick meets Sritala in a restaurant in Bangkok, and I write in my notes, “Good Lord we are nearly half an hour into this episode and we are still at breakfast.” Honestly, this whole scam is taking forever to unfold, and all we get in this episode is that, as you surely expected, Frank will play the role of the director who wants to meet Sritala at her home so that Rick can gain entry to said home, where her husband — who killed his father, prepare to die — is convalescing. An entire episode of connective tissue and no action. WHY. He promises Frank he has no interest in killing this man even though last night he was asking Frank for a gun. Just in case you were worried about that, you can definitely relax now!

Will he kill or be killed? He’s too thirsty for both and so I say: neither.

Belinda

Belinda’s awakening is not nearly as rude as that of the Ratliff boys, but her son’s arrival does cut her snuggling session short. Very cool relationship she and Zion have. Everyone respects that everyone is an adult. What a functional family, brought together by Scarface quotes. Also, great non-committal response to Fabian’s invitation to hear him sing for the guests.

That she has not yet fled the property and called the police given her encounters with Greg-Gary is troubling. Is she really dumb enough to go to that dinner — with her son? Ugh, probably.

Will she kill or be killed? I want her to be a killer SO BAD.

Pornchai

After having sex with Belinda literally one (1) time, Pornchai pitches going in on Belinda’s dream of opening her own business — that this is something they could do together! Well, that’s one way to escalate things after a first date.

Will he kill or be killed? He would kill for Belinda’s honor! She’s really been through enough already so, for her sake, I hope he does not die.

Gaitok

Extremely bored by him as usual! Obviously he starts the episode without the gun and needs to end the episode with the gun because he isn’t going to get fired with two episodes left, so we are stuck watching him be anxious about a problem we know will be resolved within the hour. Was anyone riveted as this guy scrambled around the Ratliffes’s villa, searching for a gun whose location we already knew? Turns out his aim is good, so that’s at least one thing he isn’t terrible at.

Will he kill or be killed? Feels too obvious for our man with the gun and the not-bad-for-a-rookie aim to be the one who does any killing around here. At this point I also don’t care if he lives or dies.

Keeping an eye on:

Mook, who just keeps popping up to tell Gaitok she’s excited to see him but otherwise serves no purpose, so presumably she is part of some elaborate plan to keep him distracted and weaken the already-pathetic security team of the White Lotus; Fabian, who I guess will eventually sing at some point? Cool; Gaitok’s coworker, who actually knows how to use a gun; Vlad (to quote Kate: “GOLLY he’s been through a lot!”); Frank, who has allowed himself to get entangled in Rick’s nonsense despite his self-professed devotion to leading “a different kind of life”; the monk, who sure had a lot to say about how much Timothy would enjoy being dead; that poison fruit Pam talked about a while back, just because, like, why even mention the fruit that can kill you if the fruit doesn’t kill anyone?