'The White Lotus': 'resort' heat

The series about the rich on vacation is back, The White Lotus is back . Mike White's anthology has just premiered its third season, and I can only celebrate it for many and varied reasons. While the nostalgic ones miss Jennifer Coolidge and her unhinged Tanya , probably the campest character on television in the last decade, and the armchair detectives are already speculating on who will be this year's murderer, I abandon myself to the joy of watching a new batch of dysfunctional characters - forgive me Belinda, the most normal of all, and Greg, already present in the previous two - enter a microcosm of luxury to uncover all their miseries. Special mention to Carrie Coon, whom I have venerated since The Leftovers .

I like The White Lotus , apart from its plot, its characters and that very particular look that Mike White always has at everything he does, because of its weekly broadcast. Now that we have fewer long-running series with a ration every seven days - although Grey's Anatomy and Law & Order SVU , among others, are still stoically there - returning to a tone, to a familiar premise from 2021 gives me warmth of home, something that is a great achievement for a series that renews almost its entire cast in each batch and that takes place in a space as aseptic as a hotel. I see this landing on the Thai island of Koh Samui with the same attention paid by the monkeys that scrutinize the resort 's guests from the trees.

These same monkeys, who, unlike the members of The White Lotus , already resided on the island, are going to see hordes of tourists arrive, attracted by the series. A head of the Four Seasons hotel chain told The New York Times that in Maui and Sicily, locations of the previous seasons, the demand in its establishments has multiplied by 10 as a result of the series and that reservations at its resort in Koh Samui, where part of this new installment was filmed, have already increased by 40%. For me, who has traveled much more thanks to the screen than by plane and who the first thing I do when I arrive at a hotel abroad is to grab the remote control, it seems to me that the great invention is not tourism, but television.