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Mike White: "The White Lotus"

 Three cheers for Mike White, who is just around fifty years old, and who has, under his belt, "Enlightened," "Brad's Status," "Year of the Dog," "Beatriz at Dinner," and several other major achievements.

White was tapped by HBO to create "pandemic content," and he decided to ask several TV stars to quarantine with him on a Hawaiian island. It's a tribute to White's brains and charisma that stars tend to follow him from one project to another: Molly Shannon ("Enlightened," "Dog," "Lotus"), Connie Britton ("Beatriz," "Lotus"), Laura Dern ("Dog, Enlightened"), Luke Wilson ("Enlightened," "Brad's Status").

White essentially tells one story over and over: A needy, affluent, white person embarrasses herself in varied settings. Amy Jellicoe ruins a bridal shower when she feels a need to give an improvised speech about immigration. Brad, of "Brad's Status," can't allow his son's college process to unfold in a calm, healthy way. A guest at a party wants to derail cocktail-hour chatter to look at a celebrity sex tape on her iPhone ("Beatriz at Dinner").

Sometimes, a White character has access to New Age teachings--but often these teachings are weaponized, so that the character can just become more selfish than she had been two hours ago. ("I need to take a three-hour lunch break....sorry.....there's a protest I really can't miss....")

People have observed that "White Lotus," unlike Mike White's earlier works, is an *ensemble* comedy. No character has a name in the title. That said, you can trace the characters to earlier Mike White archetypes. Jake Lacy seems to be borrowing explicitly from Ben Stiller, who did "Brad's Status." Jennifer Coolidge seems to be a new version of Amy Jellicoe, struggling with memories of her not-good-enough mother, entranced by "New Age" lingo. And Natasha Rothwell, the massage guru, reminds me of Beatriz, who sometimes offered too much in a "polite" setting. (Rothwell begins crying during a massage, and talking about her own dead mother--and though White doesn't dwell on this, the tears seem to signal that things may go very wrong with Rothwell's character....down the road....)

Great first episode!
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