Season 1

On October 19, 2020, HBO gave The White Lotus a limited series order that consisted of six episodes.^[4] The series was created, written and directed by Mike White. White also serves as executive producer alongside David Bernad and Nick Hall.^[34] In an interview with Ben Travers of IndieWire at the 2021 ATX Television Festival, White explained his creative inspiration for the first season. White wished to explore the question of "how money can pervert even our most intimate relationships," to examine the "ethics of vacationing in other people's realities," and to present the "flesh and blood" experience of being gripped by the power dynamics of "today's culture wars".^[35] Cristobal Tapia de Veer is the series' composer and Ben Kutchins is the cinematographer for the series.^[36]

Season 2

On August 10, 2021, HBO renewed the series for a second season,^[37] which consists of seven episodes and is titled The White Lotus: Sicily.^[38] White initially envisioned the second season taking place in a political setting, such as a Bilderberg conference, but scrapped this idea and chose Italy instead.^[39] White said regarding this choice, "The kind of mythology of Sicily, at least from the point of view of Americans, is the archetypal sexual politics and role play that you associate with, like, opera and the mafia and Italian romance. I felt like it should be more focused on men and women and relationships and adultery and have an operatic feel to it, so I pivoted."^[39] Asked to describe the second season, White likened it to "a bedroom farce with teeth".^[40] Kim Neundorf served as an additional composer for season two.^[41]

Season 3

On November 18, 2022, HBO renewed the series for a third season.^[9] Following the season two finale, creator Mike White hinted that the third season would be set in Asia and invoke a "satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality", similar to how the first season focused on money, and the second season on sex.^[42]

In March 2023, Variety reported season 3 is likely to take place in one of Four Seasons resorts chain in Thailand.^[7] The third season production has been disrupted by the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, resulting in a likely release during 2025.^[43][44] Honshu, Japan was scouted as a filming location by Mike White, but ultimately Thailand was chosen as the filming location for the third season due to the series receiving a $4.4 million tax incentive for filming in Thailand, while Japan does not have a film-incentive system.^[45] Filming was to begin by February 2024, with locations including Bangkok, Phuket, and Ko Samui.^[46][47]

Season 1

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 90% for the first season of The White Lotus based on 96 critic reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Though its true intentions can get a bit murky, gorgeous vistas, twisty drama, and a pitch perfect cast make The White Lotus a compelling—if uncomfortable—viewing destination."^[80] On Metacritic, the season has a score of 82 out of 100 based on 39 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[81]

Matthew Jacobs of TV Guide rated it 4.5 out of 5 and wrote that it is "some of the year's best television thus far."^[36] Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall graded it 3.5 out of 5 stars and called it "frequently uncomfortable, sometimes poetic, occasionally hilarious, and deeply idiosyncratic throughout."^[84] White's attention to character detail was praised, with Naomi Fry of The New Yorker lauding his "affection for his characters, who never feel like caricatures",^[2] and Judy Berman of Time commenting he is "uniquely attuned to characters' internal conflicts as well as their varying level of self-awareness."^[85]The New York Times's James Poniewozik commended White's signature balance of "sardonic and sincere" tones and his "ear for how people can weaponize idealism", though he also noted the writing "sometimes strains to be topical, with its culture-war Mad Libs references to triggering and cucking, canceling and doxxing."^[86] The performances of the ensemble cast were widely praised, with Roxana Hadadi of RogerEbert.com giving four stars out of four and writing it reveals a "combination of performances that are nearly universally enthralling."^[87] Of the character of Armond, Poniewozik wrote Bartlett shows "the invisible gymnastics that go into this job" and plays him like "a coiled spring".^[86] Hadadi lauded Rothwell's "nuanced, elastic work" with a "haunting" final onscreen moment.^[87] Berman said Coolidge is poised to be the series' breakout but also praised Zahn, Bartlett, Rothwell, Lacy, Sweeney, and Daddario.^[85]

Criticisms of the first season lamented that the nonwhite, native Hawaiian characters who work at the resort, such as Lani and Kai, received little screen time and were the least developed characters. In this way, critics argued the show did not sufficiently engage in the topics of imperialism and white privilege, issues the show seemed poised to critique in its satirization of the affluent, white upper class.^[86][88][89] Poniewozik felt the show "could use more attention to the downstairs half of its upstairs-downstairs story; it flicks at, but doesn't really explore, the lives of the native Hawaiian staff busing tables and performing dinnertime rituals" for the guests.^[86] Mitchell Kuga of Vox wrote, "scraping at imperialism, The White Lotus mimes a moral center but never engages the topic beyond mere gesture...how successful can a piece of satire be if it replicates the very power structures it purports to satirize?"^[89] White has said the intention of giving native characters less screen time was to show how "interchangeable" the workers appear to the more privileged.^[90]

Inkoo Kang of The Washington Post said the characters and performances "make for a twisty, queasy, sweatily claustrophobic drama", but opined that next to other popular TV shows that center on white, affluent people, such as Succession, Big Little Lies, The Undoing, and The Crown, The White Lotus does not have anything new "to observe about the trail of casual destruction the moneyed and connected can leave in their unhappy wake."^[91] In The Observer, Kyle Turner wrote, "as someone who is very fond of White's usually tender, deft hand at balancing tone", he hoped the show had "more precision in its aimed poisoned arrows."^[92] Turner added the show is "too broad to be a good satire, too pointedly critical to be a straight tragedy, too invested in its melodrama to be a broad comedy, until it becomes ouroborosian in its indecision on tone and ethos. It's not that these genres and tropes can't coexist. It's that here, they float adrift, devoid of alchemical balance."^[92]

Critics were divided about the season one finale, with Kang saying the "swerve late in the series disappointingly sails the story toward calmer waters. Once the turbulence is over, only froth remains."^[91][93] Other critics, such as Emily St. James of Vox, argued that what they considered the anticlimactic nature of the ending was precisely the point of the show and underscored White's commentary on the powerful and the privileged.^[94][95]

The first season appeared in the top ten on numerous publications' "Best of 2021" lists, including first for The A.V. Club, The Globe and Mail, The Ringer, Slant Magazine, and The Sunday Times; second for The Boston Globe, Decider, Exclaim!, The Guardian, The Independent, New York Daily News, San Antonio Express-News, Sioux City Journal, Time, and Vulture; and third for Good Morning America, NME, and Uproxx, among others.^[96]

Season 2

For the second season, Rotten Tomatoes reported a 93% approval rating with an average score of 8.2/10, based on 118 reviews. The website's critics consensus states, "Swapping its tropical trappings for Euro chic while focusing primarily on the corrosive influence of carnal desire, The White Lotus remains a cookie full of arsenic that goes down smooth."^[82] On Metacritic, the season has a score of 81 out of 100 based on 40 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[83]

Multiple critics voiced that White repeated the success of the first season with sharp writing, his ensemble cast, and more focused plot lines, with some saying it is an improvement on the first season.^{[97][98][99][100]} Lucy Mangan of The Guardian rated it 5 out of 5 and wrote, "The writing is as dense and layered as ever, the plotting is immaculate and the viewers' sympathies – or loathings – are never allowed to rest in one place for too long."^[101] Writing for The New Yorker, Inkoo Kang gave a positive review, writing "the airless sociological fatalism of Season 1, which was matched by a claustrophobic production due to COVID-19 restrictions, gives way to a more mature drama, as well as a deeper exploration of how the characters' class concerns converge with gendered angst."^[102] Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com wrote, "Mike White is a writer that is as thrilled with a fascinating dinner conversation as he is a murder mystery, and so even as the plotting sags more than it did the first time, the way that his characters bounce off each other, unpacking their social constructs, remains fascinating."^[103] Alison Herman of The Ringer praised the series' pivot to the theme of gender politics, writing "White knows that sex, like money, is a form of power, and that each is intimately bound up in the other."^[104] Melanie McFarland of Salon observed, "You may not want to be in the same room with the people you're watching, but the sights alone provided a level of escapism like nothing else on TV."^[105] For The Washington Post, Travis M. Andrews wrote "though these new episodes meander at times, Season 2 is more tightly plotted and there are enough new ideas, with even the most staid insights heightened by White's razor-sharp writing, for it to feel fresh."^[106] Some critics welcomed the characters Mia and Lucia, two Sicilian prostitutes whose plot lines intersect with many of the hotel guests', saying their presence felt like a response by White to criticisms of the previous season's focus on its well-off leads.^{[104][107][108]} Others noted how the second season "has invested in horror imagery in a way the previous outing didn't, and it's been one of this installment's best through lines."^[109]

Others thought the shift from the themes of class criticism to gender roles made for a less riveting watch.^[108] Writing for Vulture, Roxana Hadadi said season two "centers infidelity, to diminished effect", and that "there's also a new bluntness, and a noticeable tentativeness, that keeps this second season from hitting as hard and bruising as immediately as its predecessor."^[107] Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson wrote season two is a "vibrant set of plates to set spinning, which White does with his usual mix of acerbic bite and melancholy. Though, things do feel a little less pointed this season."^[110] Shirley Li of The Atlantic noted "Season 2 is as juicy as season 1, but it's not as caustic in its approach."^[111] Commenting on the more diminished role of the hotel staff, Linda Holmes of NPR wrote, "Thematically, without that tension between how the guests see themselves and how the staff sees them, The White Lotus seems adrift. With all the criticism of the first season and the fair questions about whether it was satirizing its rich and white characters' lack of interest in the people around them or just reproducing it, it was always clear what the show was trying to be about, or thought it was about. It was trying to be about the foibles of wealth and carelessness; it's much less clear where White is going with this story."^[112]

The second season appeared in the top ten on numerous publications' "Best of 2022" lists, including first for Good Morning America, The Independent, and San Antonio Express-News; second for the i; and third for Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Irish Independent, LA Weekly, Newsday, Radio Times, TV Insider, USA Today, and The Washington Post, among others.^[113]

Season 1