Why Is There So Much ‘White Lotus’ Backlash Happening?

This Week

Parsing the White Lotus backlash.

Making sure you watch Dying for Sex.

The TV episode that will make you cry.

Kelly Clarkson is forever perfect.

My favorite talk-show moment of the week.

Is The White Lotus Too Slow?

Complaining is one of my greatest passions. It is like breathing to me: I need to do it to survive. It is my sustenance. A hearty meal of whining and making a fuss nourishes me. But even I have a limit.

For all the preoccupation there’s recently been over The White Lotus—and good lord, does it seem to be all anyone is talking about—I’ve noticed a concerning pattern: Far too many people scoffing to me that they’re not liking this season. I’ve heard it from friends at brunch and dinner. I’ve heard it on podcasts. I’ve seen it, against my will, in Meghan McCain’s social media posts.

There’s no accounting for taste, and it is theoretically fine for people to have different opinions from me about things—ludicrous and ill-advised as that may be. But I do find the notion that this season is too slow, too boring, or too uninteresting to be a confusing one.

As we head into Sunday night’s finale, which, at 90 minutes, will be the biggest episode of The White Lotus thus far, I’m curious how those naysayers are going to respond. The different ways the episode was talked about in The Hollywood Reporter’s recent deep-dive into the show certainly raise an eyebrow.

“It’s kind of epic. As a filmmaker, it’s probably the piece of work that I’m like, ‘I can’t believe I did that,’” series creator Mike White said. Then there’s the assessment from actress Charlotte Le Bon, who plays Chloe: “People are going to hate Mike White.” Let’s unpack that.

In some ways, the worst thing that can happen to a breakout TV series is that it continues to grow in popularity. With success comes strong opinions, expectations, and, inevitably, backlash. Fans assume that the series they helped turn into a hit should be a certain thing and remain unchanged, or even that it owes them something. Look at the reaction to the most recent season of The Bear, for example, or the hatred Ted Lasso received in its second and third seasons.

There’s a common complaint I’ve heard from friends and have seen online that nothing is happening this season on The White Lotus: There’s not enough plot twists, or the episodes are moving too slow. I would counter that, um, there’s been an incest-y threesome, an instantly viral MAGA moment, a robbery, a man from the past returning to terrorize Belinda, two of the wildest monologues about sex I’ve ever seen, and Carrie Coon escaping through a window after being chased out of a hookup by an angry Russian girlfriend.

That’s, in my opinion, a lot that is happening this season. But part of my confusion is that this gripe seems to misremember what The White Lotus’ first two seasons were. Maybe we’re thinking back on them from the perspective of having seen all the wild plot developments that happened, being shocked at the murders, and thinking that must’ve meant that the series was pulse-pounding or twisty in every episode. Really, though, the show was always very slow-moving, chiefly wafting through the weird vibes of the characters and their rich-people problems.

Even White himself stresses this in the THR piece. “People are already like, ‘It’s too slow! Let’s go, let’s go! Nothing’s happening!’ he says “But nothing happened in the first season. Literally. It was basically people sitting around eating meals, but the music gave this tension, and you knew something bad was going to happen.”

That’s what made the show such a discovery in Season 1. Viewers watched this HBO series in the Sunday night slot that runs big epics like Game of Thrones and Succession, and couldn’t figure out what to make of it: Until the action picked up in the final episodes, we were kind just watching Connie Britton and Sydney Sweeney eat breakfast.

That, of course, is also what made the show singular and, eventually, so cool.

Surely, there are elements of this season that merit criticism. With a full-throat, I join the chorus of people who are exhausted by Jason Isaacs’ character and whatever his money problems are.

But mostly I’ve been enthralled by these new characters, invested in all their strange little problems, living for the memes that come out of each episode, and generally loving the vibes. I’m so excited for Sunday night’s big finale.

“My hope is that it’ll feel like a cathartic sad or a satisfying sad and not a ‘What the f---?’ sad, but people are going to have a million different opinions,” White said about the episode. “You just hope you stick the landing.”

Today’s Top Entertainment News

Dying for You to Watch This Show

I don’t know if it was when the man dressed as a dog asked to be peed on or when a penis puppet started to fly through the air that I realized I had never seen a show quite like Dying for Sex before.

Wild as those things may be, however, it was almost instantly in the first episode, when the series established its devastatingly emotional, still hilarious tone, that I was struck by how lovely this series is. Now streaming on FX on Hulu, Dying for Sex stars Michelle Williams as a woman with terminal cancer, whose biggest bucket-list item is for a man to give her an orgasm before she dies.

A medical death sentence turns out to do wonders for freeing a person of their inhibitions or concern over what others might think of embarking on a raunchy sexual odyssey. The desperate horniness intertwined with the epic pain of cancer treatments is its own trippy viewing experience. But the real magic of the show is the beautiful friendship it draws between Williams’ character and her best friend, played by Jenny Slate, who becomes her caretaker.

It’s one of those soulmate friendships that transcend any other connection, revealing over the season that Dying for Sex is neither a death story nor a sex story. It’s a love story between these friends, who have to grapple with the extreme experience of that connection amidst the extreme experience of knowing that death is looming just around the corner.

I can’t recommend it enough, though I also encourage stocking up on Kleenex and maybe making sure you watch alone—there will be ugly crying.

A Beautiful Send Off

While you have your Kleenex handy and are already ugly crying anyway, I’d suggest keeping your Hulu app open and checking out a very special episode of Mid-Century Modern.

The series, which is now streaming, is referred to in shorthand as “The Gay Golden Girls” because, well, that’s essentially what the series is: three gay men become roommates in Palm Springs, with the fourth roommate being one of their mothers.

Sitcom legend Linda Lavin plays the mother character, essentially the series’ stand-in for Golden Girls’ Sophia Petrillo. Lavin died of lung cancer during the production of the season, and Mid-Century Modern writes the death into the show in the episode “Here’s to You, Mrs. Schneiderman.”

It’s a lovely, incredibly emotional tribute to Lavin and what very clearly is the profound relationship she established with her co-stars during that first season. Sometimes you want to turn on a sitcom and have a good cry—and this episode of Mid-Century Modern more than earns it.

The One and Only American Idol

Monday was the Trans Day of Visibility, which you might not have realized because of how invisible that kind of support or celebration is under the current administration. I was heartened, however, to see Kelly Clarkson devote an entire segment to it.

Celebrity-driven daytime talk shows like The Kelly Clarkson Show typically retreat from anything that could be considered political and, in 2025, spotlighting the trans community is, sadly, very political. To do this on daytime TV at this moment is incredibly audacious and important—and just plain cool of Clarkson. It’s further proof that she may be the best famous person we have.

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A Perfect Response

Andy Cohen had a brief, lovely conversation with Michelle Williams about Brokeback Mountain when she was a guest on Watch What Happens Live this week. He asked her about the film famously losing Best Picture at the Oscars to Crash, to which Williams had the perfect response: “I mean, what was Crash?” It is sure to be a niche quote among gay cinephiles who you would be surprised how often find a way to bring up Crash in conversation.

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