The first thing I notice at the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui, the main filming site of The White Lotus season three, is… the heads.
They’re everywhere.
Above the pool outside my room, there’s a fountain depicting a gawking fish revealing yet more fish heads inside its mouth. Each has a spout of water, and each has spiral eyes suggesting something not quite right is afoot. On grooved switchback roads heading down to the beach, bronze visages stand serenely in the lush foliage. At the entry to the hotel’s signature restaurant, Koh Thai Kitchen & Bar, statues of monkeys standing one on top of the other welcome diners to the space. At night, there are orchids tucked behind their ears. Early in the morning, the blooms are mysteriously… gone.
Photo: Courtesy of Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui
Fans of The White Lotus know well that faces and their morphology—whether real or imagined—are important to the show’s creator, Mike White. In the trailer for season three, there is a closeup of a grimacing monkey figurine (which you can find on property behind a pool lounger), as well as of three young adults (I think these are new castmembers Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey’s screen kids, one of whom is played by Patrick Schwarzenegger) in a subtle see no evil (sunglasses), hear no evil (headphones), speak no evil (beer bottle to the lips) vignette. In season 2, Testa di Moro statues spotted around the San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel in Sicily act as foreshadowing devices from Italian folklore; they’re heads severed by a hurt lover. (As I stare at the strange fish fountain in Koh Samui, I can genuinely hear Meghann Fahy’s Daphne saying: “It’s a warning to husbands, babe. Screw around and you’ll end up buried in the garden.”) Later, I’ll find out that White picked the Four Seasons Koh Samui in part because he could feel “the eyes of the jungle” constantly watching from between the fronds.
It is an open secret that The White Lotus—the uber-popular HBO and Max show imagined by White and aggrandized in pop culture by stars including Jennifer Coolidge and Aubrey Plaza—films exclusively with Four Seasons hotels as its bases. Only now, with season three, is the partnership becoming more formal (more on this later).
