Heads up: This piece contains mild (and wild?) spoilers for Season 1 of The White Lotus.

Season 1 of the HBO Max TV show The White Lotus just ended Sunday night and I quietly enjoyed it week to week on the couch with my wife. It does a lot! It’s a conflicting and complicated look at entitlement, whiteness, money, colonialism, and mental health just to scratch the surface. There are certainly a lot of differing opinions about it, but for me, the show was 2 things: 

1: A showcase for very talented character actors, and 

2: One of the very few accurate representations of working in the service industry that I’ve seen on TV in a long time.

Point #1 is great, but I don’t really need to talk about it. Just watch the show and enjoy the scenes where Jennifer Coolidge charters a boat to scatter her mother’s ashes during another couple’s honeymoon date. Or the scene where Steve Zahn has multiple bizarre horny sex conversations with strangers and his son. Or the tense confrontation with Connie Britton and Alexandra Daddario. There are tons of memorable scenes, all showcasing these disparate personalities at flashpoint moments in their lives. Everyone is doing incredible work on this show, give them all Emmys.

OK, point #2. If you’re reading this you’ve probably seen the show so you know that our windows into the world of the hospitality industry on The White Lotus are primarily Armond (played by Murray Bartlett) and Belinda (played by Natasha Rothwell), two characters who handle the aggravations of soul crushing service work in two very different but relatable ways.

Nearly every single day job I’ve had to have since I was 14 until relatively recently has been customer-facing in some fashion. I’ve been a bagger at a grocery store, server at an Irish-Mexican fast casual restaurant, a customer support rep for countless companies big and small. That’s about 20 solid years of jobs where I’m the first line of defense for complaints and I don’t recall an example off the top of my head of watching TV and being genuinely transported to the primal place of needing to shit on some asshole’s luggage.

One might ask: Was it maybe a little overboard to see shit come out of an ass on TV? Absolutely not. No. Nope. No it wasn’t.

That’s the kind of perverse wish fulfillment The White Lotus provides. The kind of unhinged behavior that can only be appreciated by someone who’s had their livelihood threatened on a rich asshole’s whim. This was the service worker version of seeing justice enacted in fiction.

Sure we’ve seen shows about rich whites before. Good ones too! It’s hard to find new territory after we’ve been treated to Arrested Development, Succession and The Righteous Gemstones, but I think it was necessary to explore the lives of the ludicrously wealthy and entitled visitors at The White Lotus Hawaiian resort as a way for us to hate more deeply. And I do mean hate! The world would 100% be better if Shane had died and we all goddamn know it! The fact that the first episode teased us by letting us know he definitely survives should have keyed us in to how we’d feel by the end.

I’ve come across so many Shanes in my long list of jobs. One time while working customer support for a shoe company, a Shane in Florida sent me pictures of the hundreds of pairs of shoes in his closet to tell me he knew shoes and the shoes we sold him were bad shoes! I’ve had a Shane leave a used Bandaid in lieu of the customary cash tip for an Irish burrito in Lawrence, Kansas. I’ve been cursed out by probably 100 different Shanes for the smallest inconveniences they’ve had to experience that weren’t even my fault, at this point I couldn’t remember 99% of them. But they really mattered in the moment.

The thing is, Shanes don’t even have to be rich! As long as a Shane perceives you as lower than them, that’s all the magic they need to fuck up your day and send you spiraling into a ketamine-snorting, ass-eating relapse spree (this part is more about Armond than me).

The thing is, Shanes don’t even have to be rich! As long as a Shane perceives you as lower than them, that’s all the magic they need to fuck up your day and send you spiraling into a ketamine-snorting, ass-eating relapse spree (this part is more about Armond than me).

On the flip side of Armond’s id coin we have Belinda’s quiet acceptance of reality. Deep down I know I’m a Belinda. Easy to get along with, has big ideas, is midwestern polite and is likely to quietly lilt when my unstable benefactor played by Jennifer Coolidge flakes out. 

Belinda is the dreamer who wants to use her current position as a spa worker and make her own company. Which is a common narrative trope, but I don’t know if I’ve seen it done by an actor that felt as relatable. She just falls apart, tired and sad, playing everything with small body language and sensitive eyes. And the writing that goes along with it feeds the performance so well. There’s no “you can do it if you put your mind to it” affirmations, because it’s increasingly clear that’s bullshit. Futility is a big thread on this show, which is what makes it feel relevant and timely. It’s not without hope, but it definitely shows you a massive letdown on the horizon and then makes you drive all the way there.

Belinda represents so many people. I have been Belinda, I know a bunch of Belindas. They’re stuck in a shit job that they know they’re better than, and there’s some shred of hope they’ll be able to advance and leave it behind, but it’s just out of reach. Unlike Armond who is actually enjoying work on his last night, Belinda shuts down. She can’t possibly listen to another person’s problems, when she’s staring down her own.

So she gives up and throws her business plan in the trash. The hard to accept part is, she might be right to bail. Maybe it’s easier to settle than to have your hopes dashed. I love where the story left us but for my own sanity I have to think that if we got to pick up with her in a week, she’d be using her new money to capitalize on her business plan and start a company. In that moment when she tosses it in the trash, that’s our defeated yin to Armond’s rebellious yang. Both of those feelings are at odds in your mind when you’re in their position, and the truth for most people is that they won’t completely give up or go out in a blaze of glory. The status quo is way too comforting (a path that is also explored with Rachel going back to Shane).

Of course Armond is immediately killed after he gets his revenge. Shane walks away not only scott free but with his marriage intact. Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya gets to escape with her disposable island hookup to exotic locations for a couple months before he croaks. On paper they’re perhaps the biggest winner of the series. There’s not a lot that leaves you happy in the ending. The bad guys won, but for just a moment we got to be there, living through Armond, high on drugs shitting into a suitcase. The crest of the wave before it crashes into the sand and resets.

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