Inside Episode 7: A Deeper Dive with Dan Savage
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What are the key themes of The White Lotus Season 3?
Hi, everyone. I'm Gia Tolentino. And welcome to a midweek bonus episode of the White Lotus official companion podcast to season three. So White Lotus is always about desire and transgression and identity and what's buried and what comes to the surface. And so much of it bends itself around money, but because this is the show that it is, it all is focused around human relationships and specifically a lot of it around love and sex. That's where you see the way people hide from themselves and reveal themselves and what they say they want and what they really want and how they lie and whether they lie, etc., etc., And so we thought, why not talk to Dan Savage, the author of Savage Love and the host of the Savage Love cast. He is someone whose work I have been consuming since, I don't know, 20 years ago when I was 16 and kind of learning about what sex could be other than what had been taught to me in high school. I feel like I spent so much of college reading Savage Love columns.
And I, you know, one could argue that to whatever extent we have developed a kind of healthy, open sexual culture in adulthood, we owe a lot to dance work over the last few decades. So I was really excited to talk to him. You might have already heard him on the Look Back portion of this podcast, Breaking Down Ethan and Daphne's Relationship. And so we're excited to have him back to talk episode seven. I'm so excited to talk to Dan Savage, who I've been a fan of for a really long time. Dan is, of course, the host of the Savage Lovecast, author of Savage Love. Welcome.
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
How does Dan Savage view the psychosexual dynamics of the show?
Let's talk about all the fucked up psychosexual dynamics going on in season three of The White Lotus. You talked on the Look Back podcast about how, you know, season two, it was the bedroom farce. It was, you know, this was much more about sex and romance in season one. Where do you place season three on the spectrum?
Oh my God, there's a lot of frustrated desire. Mook's desire for Guy Talks to be someone else, to be someone that she could possibly desire. But of course, the psychosexual drama that everybody's obsessed with is Sax and Lachlan, the brothers, and what we just saw happen. That was really teased in episode one.
Yeah, talking about fully grown genitals, etc.
Yes, yes.
Who are the compelling characters in Episode 7?
Well, and it's like, I mean, who is here looking for love? It's kind of Belinda, kind of, or who has kind of found a real-ish version of it. It's kind of Belinda. Guy Talk's looking for love. Mook is looking for a sufficiently aggressive man that can then arouse her sort of romantic loyalty or something.
Yeah, somebody that she's almost, it's almost like she's begging Guy Talk to be the kind of man she's a little afraid of.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's odd that she has options. Like there are the bodyguards who are clearly signaling their interest in Mook to Mook. But they're scary in a way that Gaitak is safe, but she wants Gaitak to have that dangerous edge that there's too much of in the bodyguards and perhaps other people that might be available to her or have already signaled their interest in her. And so she kind of wants to have her bad boy dangerous edge sort of adrenaline pumping love interest, but have the safety boy too, the nice guy too. She wants both in one package and she's begging in episode seven, Guy talk to become that man.
Right. And it's as if she knows that she can't tame the bodyguards into being sort of emotionally available and forthright. But perhaps she could get Guy talked to. I mean, she has a point in that, like, he does need to get better at his job. He's actually quite a bad security guard.
Oh, yeah. Who didn't say, why are you leaving a gun laying around?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why are you gift wrapping it for suicidal patrons?
But in episode seven, he does prove that he at least has it in him. to, you know, go on that secret mission to retrieve the gun.
Yes. Sweating bullets the entire time.
Gets the gun, yeah. Not yet the girl. He hasn't gotten the girl, but he did get the gun, at least back.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What are the key themes of The White Lotus Season 3?
0:21–2:06
2
How does Dan Savage view the psychosexual dynamics of the show?
2:06–2:53
3
Who are the compelling characters in Episode 7?
2:53–4:45
4
What is the significance of Frank's monologue?
4:45–9:00
5
How does desire and identity play into the show's narrative?
9:00–12:47
6
What role does power dynamics play in relationships on the show?
12:47–32:06