Turns out, Lochlan and Saxon aren’t the biggest weirdos at the White Lotus hotel. No, that plaudit might have to go to Greg.
It’s about time we got some Greg action, to be honest. We’re only one episode out from the show’s finale, which means things are heating up considerably.
In a season that has been practically dripping with unorthodox sexual kinks, this nugget from episode seven might be the oddest. Far from being angry with Chloe for her transgressions with the Ratliff brothers, he gives her the most bonkers request I’ve ever heard on TV.
As she tells Saxon and Chelsea, Greg used to watch his parents having sex when he was a kid – and now wants to walk in on Chloe with Saxon. “He wouldn't even touch you, he just wants to creep up on us... it would be like he's winning his mother back from his father,” she tells an appalled Saxon.
He refuses – obviously. But roses to Patrick Schwarzenegger, because he plays Saxon to perfection here: shaken, uncertain and clearly knocked down a peg or five.
“Dad, I don't have anything else but this,” he tells Jason Isaacs’ Tim during a frantic Q&A session about the fate of their company. “I don't have any interests, I don't have any hobbies, if I'm not a success, I’m nothing.” Could Saxon snap when he finds out that Tim’s business is deader than a doornail?
Despite all of the above, less happened in this penultimate episode than you might expect – by this point in season two, there’d already been mass infidelity, that shocking reveal of the ‘uncle/ nephew’ relationship and Tanya’s sudden conviction that the gays were trying to kill her.
Here, by contrast, we open low-key. Rick (along with Sam Rockwell) drops in on the man who visited so much misery on him by supposedly killing his father. This ageing man is an unrepentant scumbag, telling Rick that living in Thailand was great because there wasn’t much red tape. And problems could easily be made to ‘go away’.
No wonder Rick pulls a gun on him, though ultimately decides not to use it. The end of the episode shows him setting there with a half-smile, as though he’s reached some sort of personal nirvana.
Will Rick make it back to the White Lotus in time for the season finale? Or will Chelsea be left to expand on the weirdly intimate connection she appears to be building with Saxon? She certainly doesn’t have great reasons for being with Rick. “He has this sadness, it really touches me. I want to heal him,” she tells Saxon. Mhm, said every girl ever.
And after weeks of titillation, we also finally get that Belinda/Greg showdown. Or at least, a mini-showdown, in which the pair face off on a pair of sofas in White Lotus hotel lobby and Greg attempts to spin his story for all he’s worth.
“I don’t want any more headaches,” he tells her – and tries to purchase her silence with £100k, playing on Belinda’s old desire to start a business of her own. "Tanya would have wanted that, and I know she'd also want me to spend the rest of my years in peace,” he says.
The cheek of the man! And Natasha Rothwell conveys Belinda’s response with a twitch of her eyebrow – she’s not buying it.
Clearly, all the guests are reaching breaking point here. Not least the three American women, whose relationship practically implodes in real time over the breakfast table. Jaclyn and Kate gang up on Laurie; she retaliates by insulting them both and storming off to a local Muay Thai boxing match, where she hooks up with Aleksei, one of the Russians.
And – plot twist! During pillowtalk (where he tries to talk her out of his life savings for the sake of his poor mother, abandoned in Vladivostok, tiny violins), Laurie ends up hiding in the walk-in wardrobe when Aleksei’s very angry girlfriend comes around.
What’s that she spots on top of a table? Why, only the jewellery that was so dramatically robbed back in episode two. Looks like the Russians have some explaining to do. All this, just as Tim finds the gun missing. Roll on the finale!
The White Lotus Season 3 is streaming now on Sky Atlantic and NOW
