The show The White Lotus on HBO is famous for its impressive cast, stunning filming locations, and intriguing opening credits featuring Cristobal Tapia de Veer‘s catchy theme song that won an Emmy award. In previous seasons, the creator, director, and writer Mike White cleverly inserted jokes into the series, but in Season 3 of The White Lotus, the opening credits delve deeper into the themes associated with each character.
One of the stars of The White Lotus, Michelle Monaghan, admitted to Decider that she initially didn’t realize Mike’s involvement in the credits but later learned about it. She expressed her admiration for the beautiful credits and the incredible new music.
“Then I saw so many clues into who each and every one of us is and was or are in the opening credits. And it just got me more excited,” she gushed.
In Season 3 of The White Lotus, the opening credits are filled with hints that foreshadow the storylines that will unfold as the new characters in the series embark on their journeys.
The good news is you won’t need to be a close-watching fan to connect the dots on most of the specific images White pairs with stars’ names. The reason why Patrick Schwarzenegger’s name pops up alongside art of a man leering at women is because his character Saxon is a relentlessly horny finance bro.
Sarah Catherine Hook’s character, Piper, is curious about Buddhism and obsessed with meditation, so her name comes with a literally meditating figure. Parker Posey’s Victoria is almost defined by her dependency on her lorazepam. Her name is saddled with a portrait of someone on drugs.
However, some of the connections White makes, be it with Natasha Rothwell’s Belinda and a white crane observing itself in a pool of water, or Aimee Lou Wood’s Chelsea depicted as a big jungle cat, seem to dig into less obvious themes explored over the course of The White Lotus Season 3.
Natasha Rothwell was super excited when she saw the opening credits, explaining that she thought the white crane hinted at layers upon layers of meaning for Belinda in Season 3.
“I really loved that when I saw it,” Rothwell said. “She sees herself in the water and is looking for something, which actually I think is pretty on point.”
White Lotus fans will see that Belinda has returned to the show to journey to Thailand. She’s enjoying three months at the White Lotus Thailand so she can soak up their knowledge about wellness and bring it back to the Maui location. It’s time for Belinda to consider what it means to enjoy life, versus living in service for others.
Rothwell sagely pointed out that there could be something of a warning for Belinda in the crane as well and she referenced Greek mythology to make her point.
“It also brings to mind the mythology of Narcissus,” Rothwell said. “You know, in looking at yourself, there’s a danger you could become overly preoccupied of what’s looking back at you and missing the forest for the trees. You’re there to get food and fed, but you can get distracted if you look at yourself long enough. And so I think it’s all of that in one.”
Can you decipher all of the various clues hidden in The White Lotus Season 3 opening credits? Could it be that Mike White has planted spoilers in plain sight in his choices? Or are we overthink a visual storytelling technique that was originally dispatched in Season 1 to wink at Steve Zahn’s character’s preoccupation with his oversized balls?
“It’s just another layer of Mike White’s creativity,” Monaghan said. ” Everything that he does is so nuanced and a lot of why we love Mike White a lot of what he does is nonverbal. And that’s the perfect example of that.”
New episodes of The White Lotus Season 3 will premiere Sundays at 9 PM ET on HBO and MAX now through April 6.
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