‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 Murder Watch: A Ranking of the Most-Likely Killers and Victims, Episode 2

Zion is one of the very first people we meet and the person who both IDs those pops off in the distance as gunshots and discovers a dead body floating in the waters of the resort. He’s yet to even show up at The White Lotus, further confirming my original suspicion that Belinda’s son is not directly involved in the gunfire incident. Though I’m now very curious to learn what prompted him to seek out a Stress Management session with the venerated Dr. Amrita.

I’m glad the show has officially confirmed that Pornchai is incredibly sexy. I couldn’t care less about the romances of anyone else at this cursed resort, but deeply hope he and Belinda get their chance to trade even more signature moves, if you catch my drift.

My hope for Mook is that she develops a friendship with Chelsea and Chloe and gets some fun girl time chatting and hanging out, free from any and all drama. My fears for Mook are either that Saxon will suddenly see her as a conquest or that Gaitok will not take no for an answer in asking for a relationship. She was too nice in responding to Gaitok’s advances and I hope she can put her foot down later, for her own safety’s sake.

Now that we know that Chloe and Greg (aka Gary) met via a “match making service” in Dubai (sure, Jan), does that change anything? For me, not really. I still think she’s just a beautiful young woman enjoying life with sugar daddy Greg. If anything, right now I’m leaning toward my original assumption that Chloe is vulnerable to ending up a victim, but ultimately think she’ll stick to the sidelines of the major dramas.

We finally get to learn more about Piper in this episode and I’m glad to see she thus far seems the most normal member of the Ratliff family. The poor girl just wants to go to yoga without getting ogled, attend a family dinner without listening to sexist and racist jokes and focus on her studies without the weird pressure of being told “you’re the reason we’re even on this vacation” (as if she forced her family to spend god-knows-what to visit The White Lotus resort). I hope to see her continue as the grounding foil to her family’s insanity.

Kate is such an interesting character to me. Yes, she seems incredibly vapid and her immediate willingness to trash each of her friends in turn while they’re out of the room only confirms my sense that she’s a sheep willing to follow anyone giving her attention. But she’s not as shallow as I first assumed, and those insecurities bubbling under the surface may turn her into a more volatile person over time. For now, I think she’s probably still in the clear, but I’m interested to learn more about her.

I still feel pretty confident in Belinda’s innocence, but it’s only a matter of time before she realizes that “Gary” is actually Greg, aka the man who inherited the money that was once promised to her by Tanya. She doesn’t strike me as someone who would choose violence, but he is one of the only true enemies this character has ever really encountered.

Jesus, Greg, if you’re going to pick a new undercover identity why would you choose another four-letter name that starts with G? Belinda is moments away from figuring out that this is the same man who had questionable involvement in his wife’s death and who has been spending Tanya’s money with abandon. You’ve got a target on your back, Greg/Gary, and I for one hope someone gets a bull’s eye.

I should have guessed that Victoria would be one of those moms who thinks their eldest son can do no wrong. The fact that she laughs at Saxon’s deeply inappropriate jokes and defends him to his siblings, especially after revealing her own fraught childhood growing up with aggressive brothers, is, unfortunately, not surprising. And her interaction with Kate was incredibly rude. Still, as long as there are prescription drugs to keep her mellow, the worst I can see happening to Victoria is her leaving Thailand with a world of financial troubles, not murder charges.

Only two episodes in, I already have a pretty fleshed out prediction for Jaclyn’s storyline. She’s feeling conflicted about where her career is at given her age—Hollywood is rarely kind to women over 40—and invited her friends on this trip as a way to make herself feel better by comparison. She may be an aging actress with a hunky young husband she never sees, but at least she’s not stuck in Texas or dealing with a troubled teenager and a difficult divorce. Jaclyn is self-centered and likely to start a screaming match, but murder is not in her repertoire.

A sensory deprivation tank is by far the most depressing treatment Lochy could have put on his schedule. The poor boy just wants to melt away, detach from the world. He is breaking my heart already and I highly suspect things will only get worse for the youngest Ratliff. Everywhere he goes, tragedy is sure to follow. All I can say is god speed, Lochlan, I hope you survive this family vacation and come out the other side having found some peace.

If someone else on this show doesn’t punch Saxon straight in the face, then I will. He is the most loathsome character of season three, no questions asked. But he isn’t a likely killer, in my opinion. Instead, I think he’s much more likely to piss off the wrong person or people at the wrong time and find himself on the losing end of a fight.

Gaitok seems like such a sweet man, but is he a “nice guy” in disguise? It’s too soon to tell if or how he’ll accept rejection from Mook (she hasn’t been very clear with him thus far), but I’m hoping he’s truly one of the good ones. Though, as the only person to have a direct interaction with both the masked robber and their accomplice, I worry for his own safety should he figure out the identities of either assailant.

My new working theory is that Sritala and her husband are somehow involved in Rick’s father’s murder, which further gives credence to the idea much of that excessive gunfire was coming from her personal security team. She may not personally be at fault for any crimes, but she’s definitely directly involved in whatever Rick’s plan is, and therefore directly involved in one of the central dramas of this season.

Valentin was not in my original episode one roundup. But the timing of his stopping to chat with Gaitok and offering to get him a ticket to an upcoming fight—something Gaitok seems very surprised by—at the exact moment the robber’s car speeds through the security point is sounding alarm bells in my brain. Was this a coordinated effort? I say yes. Everyone’s favorite muscled resort employee is going to have direct involvement in whatever events lead up to the shooting that opened season three, mark my words.

Chelsea and Rick’s relationship is odd, for sure, but it seems genuine based on their hug after the hotel robbery. She’s not just a trophy girlfriend excitedly spending her rich, old boyfriend’s money with no real attachment to the man himself. I’m sticking with my original assumption that Chelsea is far more likely to be a killer than a victim, and as one of only three characters to directly interact with the masked robber (in addition to Gaitok and an unnnamed store clerk) you can bet she’s going to play a big role in how this all shakes out.

Laurie didn’t do very much to fuel my prediction that she’ll soon explode with violence of some kind in this episode, but we did learn a few important facts. Mostly, that her life back home sounds very stressful, which doesn’t exactly set her up to be the most cool, calm, collected person at the resort. My money is still on Laurie having a truly epic meltdown if only because I long to see Carrie Coon go ham.

After reading VP, News and Entertainment Phil Mutz’s devestating new theory that the numerous and random gun shots heard at the opening of episode one were not fired by a human, but by a monkey, I cannot help but agree it’s a real possibility. They’ve been an ongoing theme throughout all three seasons of this show, and Kate and Jaclyn even tell Laurie they thought she was a monkey when she scares the bejesus out of them by banging on the window at night. I very much hope Mutz is wrong, because if this proves to be true then anyone and everyone could find themselves a victim, but only time will tell.

Rick is a bad guy, but he’s also an incredibly sad guy. Repeatedly describing himself as an empty gas tank, as a person without an identity, as nothing, is almost too much for even Dr. Amrita to handle. Does he want revenge for his father’s murder? Is he just a scammer looking to steal the Hollingers’ fortune? I’m not sure. But his stress management session is also the only scene bookended by shots of monkeys in the trees, which, thanks to Mutz’s “monkey with a gun” theory, is now a huge red flag for me. Rick is looking for trouble and he is 100 percent going to find it.

So far Timothy has been making pretty rational decisions regarding his impending trip to prison for money laundering a measly 10 million dollars—he refused to talk to the press and immediately lawyered up after his business partner Kenny told him he is without a doubt implicated in the financial crimes. But that rationality simply cannot last. He’s still my top bet for season three’s murderer, even ahead of the monkeys.