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The White Lotus

 It has become increasingly clear that Mike White is using the new "White Lotus" season to explore the Alex Murdaugh case. (Look around online.)


To recap: Alex Murdaugh came from a powerful Southern family. He developed an Oxy addiction, and he stole from his clients to pay for the drugs. At the same time, his troubled son became implicated, or semi-implicated, in the death of a young gay man. Then the son drank too much, crashed a boat, killed a friend, and abandoned the friend's corpse without any (visible) regret. Finally, Alex Murdaugh murdered his son and his wife--this was an apparent effort to distract the country's attention from Alex's own fiscal misconduct.

There is speculation that the son was secretly gay. This seems to be on Mike White's mind. The Schwarzenegger character clearly has a disturbed relationship with his own sexuality--which shines through his unnerving reference to his brother's "young cum" and his boastful declaration that his brother "can go all night."

I haven't seen "Chuck & Buck"--I think, from various bits of buzz, that this may be the darkest Mike White script to date. Though White Lotus I and II both featured murder/manslaughter, these murders seemed somewhat cartoonish to me. Working with the Murddaugh case seems to be a new step for White--it's a real case of family annihilation, and it's a very recent chapter in actual American history. (It's interesting that Parker Posey--despite her druggy haze--is able to see the future. Her dreams of tsunamis, and her unsettling allusions to "all the wealthy murderers" surrounding the hotel, are really a way of indirectly showing her awareness that something is seriously wrong within her family.)

The other thing that intrigues me is this: Natasha Rothwell is repeatedly seen with a copy of "Somebody's Daughter," a memoir about a woman who grows up within a clan "fragmented by incarceration." This choice isn't random. I'm curious how it may relate to the rest of the season.

P.S. Yes, "Beatriz at Dinner" ends with a suicide. Still, that's purely fictional. Something about the true-crime vibe of this current TV season sets it apart.
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