Arriving in Bangkok on Thursday, the White Lotus experience began before I reached the outer city limits. The only direct giveaway it was related to the show at all? A discrete HBO logo in the bottom corner. As ever, the magic lies not just in the intricately plotted mystery or, more accurately, multiple intertwining mysteries that will keep the audience tuning in every week, but in the richly drawn characters and the thoughtful performances that bring them to life.
Sure enough, at around 5. She headed towards the flotilla of White Lotus -branded and mercifully air-conditioned boats that were pulled up at the dock, to head upriver to the Iconsiam mall where the screening was taking place. I loved it. It was a moment for them all to reflect on spending half a year in Thailand filming the show, and the experience of returning to the Land of Smiles to celebrate.
At around 11 p. I walked in and I actually cried. I cried the next morning because I arrived at night, and so I didn't know how much my jaw would drop. The premiere weekend, too, felt a little surrealβand not just because of the jetlag. As I noted earlier, watching the show leaves you with the sense that you actually know these peopleβor at the very least the sense that you have, at some point, met them in real life.
As the cast described, the lines began to blur between their characters and their real selves after staying in those luxurious villas during filming; things, for me, also seemed to blur a little over the course of the Bangkok premiere, where the cast had the run of the hotel for the three days.
Was that Isaacs taking a call by the pool? Was that colorful muumuu I spotted fluttering around a corner Posey rushing to a spa appointment? I can say with some certainty that I found myself sharing an elevator with Schwarzenegger on multiple occasions. And that was definitely Lisa in a black corset slipping into the afterparty surreptitiously with a group of friends, dancing away to Diana Ross in a corner booth.
