Oh, brother! Incest subplot smacks of a lack of ideas

HBO’s The White Lotus’ pioneered a particular strand of anti-wealth grotesque satire. But, writes Fiona Sturges, was this week’s moment of illicit brotherly love a step too far?

- Fiona Sturges

When The White Lotus first aired on TV in 2021, it arrived with little fanfare or expectation. Made during the pandemic, it was set in a high-end hotel resort in Hawaii all the better to keep the cast and crew ina secure bubble. Yet its portrait of emotionally stunted, odiously spoiled guests, as seen through the eyes of the desk clerks, waiters and beauticians who served them, was a massive word-of-mouth hit. Now, four years later, you can’t move for satires about the rich and dreadful. From Triangle of Sadness to Saltburn to Anora, the “eat the rich” narrative has become a trope, and an increasingly tired one at that.

All of which means the third series of The White Lotus, which launched last month, needed something spicy up its sleeve to stay ahead of the game and justify its continued existence. After all, outré set pieces and grotesquery have become the genre’s calling card (you may recall the mass vomiting in Triangle of Sadness, or the bathwater incident in Saltburn). Here (spoiler incoming) the extra spice turns out to be incest. Too much? Perhaps – or perhaps we’re simply inured to such shock tactics.