section_path: Reception/Critical response
section_name: Critical response
paragraph_text: Critical response
  
  On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 181 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads, "Darker and more patient with its storytelling than previous seasons while brandishing a superb new ensemble full of acidic performances, The White Lotus ' third season offers a spiritual respite that shivs the soul." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 77 out of 100, based on 44 critic reviews.
  
  In RogerEbert.com, Brian Tallerico said season three "will likely be the most visually striking drama you watch this year. White takes full advantage of his setting in a manner that brings it to life in ways that even the last two gorgeous settings didn't produce. The way he constructs his episodes, not just narratively but visually, is arguably without peer on TV right now. He somehow finds a way to capture the opulence and beauty of Thailand while never losing the realism of the stories he's telling there. It's a balancing act between the beauty and the humanity. Of course, the show really comes to life where they intersect." In IndieWire, Ben Travers gave the season a grade of "A-", saying it "smashes each character's flimsy values in ways both hilarious and harrowing. They cannot outrun their pain, but in White's transfixing, exacting new season, their pain can still become our pleasure". With its spiritual themes, some critics likened the season to White's previous series, Enlightened.
  
  The cast received widespread acclaim. In The Washington Post, Lili Loofbourow said, "It's fascinating to watch Goggins in particular — who's usually such a scamp — in this subdued mode". She added, "Coon is of course extraordinary, Monaghan is messy and bold and Bibb excels at projecting a rigid, pleasant diplomacy that gets increasingly brittle as the season unfolds. That old 'White Lotus' magic comes back full force in every scene these three share…Each conversation nudges the obvious tensions forward just a tad. It's propulsive. It's believable. It's very, very funny."
  
  Some critics noted the season gets off to a slower start. However, Alison Herman of Variety said "when the story coalesces and kicks into gear somewhere around its halfway point, it's as wild and unpredictable as any of the powder kegs White has combusted". In Entertainment Weekly, Kristen Baldwin gave the season a grade of "B" and said " The White Lotus still works. Even when the storytelling lags, it's still impossible to check out early."
  
  Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote that White "makes effective use of ominous dreams and portents, letting the spiritual murmur in the air of this lavish jungle compound eerily inform the story. The season is about a sickness of the soul—or, perhaps, the sickness of not having a soul at all." He added this "round of episodes is gloomier than seasons one and two, though still sharp and intriguing where it counts". Of the new characters, Lawson said he found the trio of girlfriends to be the "dishiest and most fun", with "shiveringly credible dialogue delivered with natural flair by the actors".
  
  More critical reviews opined that the show was returning to familiar territory and themes of previous seasons instead of covering new narrative ground. Lawson noted, "It's all interesting, but the sense of tight control and inventiveness that made the previous two seasons such wonders is not quite there," and commented that the season relies "on perhaps a few too many clichés as struggles to come up with new things for curdled rich people to do". Kathryn VanArendonk of Vulture said, "It's fun when The White Lotus reconsiders itself in structural ways, but at other points there's something anxious about how the series wants to wrestle with its previous obsessions, or continue to ignore its repeated blindspots, like pressing on a bruise to make sure it's still there." In The New Yorker, Inkoo Kang said, "The season as a whole feels trapped between tones: not quite dark enough to confront what happens in a country where foreigners can buy nearly anything they want for the right price, nor frothy enough to simply showcase the baroque weirdness of the wealthy."
  
  Multiple critics expressed that the native characters of color are not given as much depth as the white lead characters. VanArendonk wrote, "As various season-three characters seek enlightenment or escape, they recreate the season-one dynamic where white characters are full of fascinating, absorbing peculiarities, while the non-white hotel staff are one-note ciphers, destined to keep the plot moving but not have interiority or complex emotional lives." Mel Wang of Rolling Stone Philippines praised Thai actors Manobal, Thapthimthong, and Hetrakul's performances, but said that "good acting isn't enough to save half-baked character arcs." They further criticized the Thai characters' story arcs for "merely act as vehicles to drive the storylines of the show's American protagonists", lamenting Gaitok (Thapthimthong)'s "wasted" storyline in particular.
  
  On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 181 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads, "Darker and more patient with its storytelling than previous seasons while brandishing a superb new ensemble full of acidic performances, The White Lotus ' third season offers a spiritual respite that shivs the soul." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 77 out of 100, based on 44 critic reviews.
  
  In RogerEbert.com, Brian Tallerico said season three "will likely be the most visually striking drama you watch this year. White takes full advantage of his setting in a manner that brings it to life in ways that even the last two gorgeous settings didn't produce. The way he constructs his episodes, not just narratively but visually, is arguably without peer on TV right now. He somehow finds a way to capture the opulence and beauty of Thailand while never losing the realism of the stories he's telling there. It's a balancing act between the beauty and the humanity. Of course, the show really comes to life where they intersect." In IndieWire, Ben Travers gave the season a grade of "A-", saying it "smashes each character's flimsy values in ways both hilarious and harrowing. They cannot outrun their pain, but in White's transfixing, exacting new season, their pain can still become our pleasure". With its spiritual themes, some critics likened the season to White's previous series, Enlightened.
  
  The cast received widespread acclaim. In The Washington Post, Lili Loofbourow said, "It's fascinating to watch Goggins in particular — who's usually such a scamp — in this subdued mode". She added, "Coon is of course extraordinary, Monaghan is messy and bold and Bibb excels at projecting a rigid, pleasant diplomacy that gets increasingly brittle as the season unfolds. That old 'White Lotus' magic comes back full force in every scene these three share…Each conversation nudges the obvious tensions forward just a tad. It's propulsive. It's believable. It's very, very funny."
  
  Some critics noted the season gets off to a slower start. However, Alison Herman of Variety said "when the story coalesces and kicks into gear somewhere around its halfway point, it's as wild and unpredictable as any of the powder kegs White has combusted". In Entertainment Weekly, Kristen Baldwin gave the season a grade of "B" and said " The White Lotus still works. Even when the storytelling lags, it's still impossible to check out early."
  
  Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote that White "makes effective use of ominous dreams and portents, letting the spiritual murmur in the air of this lavish jungle compound eerily inform the story. The season is about a sickness of the soul—or, perhaps, the sickness of not having a soul at all." He added this "round of episodes is gloomier than seasons one and two, though still sharp and intriguing where it counts". Of the new characters, Lawson said he found the trio of girlfriends to be the "dishiest and most fun", with "shiveringly credible dialogue delivered with natural flair by the actors".
  
  More critical reviews opined that the show was returning to familiar territory and themes of previous seasons instead of covering new narrative ground. Lawson noted, "It's all interesting, but the sense of tight control and inventiveness that made the previous two seasons such wonders is not quite there," and commented that the season relies "on perhaps a few too many clichés as struggles to come up with new things for curdled rich people to do". Kathryn VanArendonk of Vulture said, "It's fun when The White Lotus reconsiders itself in structural ways, but at other points there's something anxious about how the series wants to wrestle with its previous obsessions, or continue to ignore its repeated blindspots, like pressing on a bruise to make sure it's still there." In The New Yorker, Inkoo Kang said, "The season as a whole feels trapped between tones: not quite dark enough to confront what happens in a country where foreigners can buy nearly anything they want for the right price, nor frothy enough to simply showcase the baroque weirdness of the wealthy."
  
  Multiple critics expressed that the native characters of color are not given as much depth as the white lead characters. VanArendonk wrote, "As various season-three characters seek enlightenment or escape, they recreate the season-one dynamic where white characters are full of fascinating, absorbing peculiarities, while the non-white hotel staff are one-note ciphers, destined to keep the plot moving but not have interiority or complex emotional lives." Mel Wang of Rolling Stone Philippines praised Thai actors Manobal, Thapthimthong, and Hetrakul's performances, but said that "good acting isn't enough to save half-baked character arcs." They further criticized the Thai characters' story arcs for "merely act as vehicles to drive the storylines of the show's American protagonists", lamenting Gaitok (Thapthimthong)'s "wasted" storyline in particular.