‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 Character Guide: Who’s Who in Thailand?

Belinda, the spa manager from Season 1 of “The White Lotus,” travels from Maui to Koh Samui to embark on a three-month wellness program, learning the Thai tricks of the trade. Back in Hawaii, Belinda befriended Tanya McQuoid, the wealthy heiress played by Jennifer Coolidge, who promised to help her open her own spa one day. (Those plans went out the window.) It’s unclear whether Belinda knows about Tanya’s demise at the end of Season 2.

The patriarch of the Ratliff family, Timothy is a wealthy businessman who struggles with the resort’s emphasis on unplugging. He just wants to go to the gym and hang on to his phone. He seems like a nice man who loves his family, but things start to come into question when he starts getting calls from prying journalists.

A Xanax mom with a Southern drawl, Victoria is the over-the-top Ratliff matriarch who can’t seem to overcome her jet lag. She’s skeptical of her daughter Piper’s thesis and interest in Buddhism, and she laughs at all of Saxon’s off-color jokes. She loves her family, and reminds Timothy “how great of a man” he is.

The eldest Ratliff sibling, Saxon is a headstrong, finance bro who works for his father. (He also dresses like him, in a tucked-in athletic polo.) His main concern on his family vacation is getting himself and his younger brother, Lochlan, laid. He doesn’t exactly subscribe to the Buddhist ideals of Thailand, telling Lochlan that “getting what you want in life” — namely, money and women — “is true happiness.” 

The middle Ratliff child, Piper is a Buddhist convert with a keen interest in Eastern spirituality. Her interview with a monk for her college thesis paper is the reason her family traveled to Thailand. She’s embarrassed by her older brother’s crude jokes and is uncomfortable about her parents’ wealth, bringing her closest to Lochlan.

Lochlan (or as his siblings call him, Lochy) is the baby of the Ratliff family, a high school senior saddled with the decision of where to go to college. A shy teen in a family of strong personalities, Lochlan is stuck between Duke (where his dad went) and UNC Chapel Hill (where his mom went). He’s also caught between his kindhearted older sister, who prefers meditation and yoga, and his douchey older brother, who’d rather get drunk and hit on women.

Jaclyn is a famous actress who has traveled to Thailand for a girls’ trip she’s funded for her childhood best friends, Kate and Laurie. It’s been awhile since they’ve seen each other, so they’re eager to celebrate each other’s successes — for instance, besides her career, Jaclyn has just married the love of her life. But there’s something cattier going on beneath the surface, as she and Kate keep forgetting to include Laurie in their mutual praise.

Kate is at the White Lotus for what she calls a victory tour, even if her husband is calling it a midlife crisis trip. She’s excited to catch up with her childhood friends Jaclyn and Laurie, who she hasn’t seen in years. But she also seems to be digging for gossip, telling Jaclyn how great she looks before asking, “Who’s your doctor?”

Laurie starts to feel like the odd one out very quickly on her trip with her childhood friends Jaclyn and Kate. She’s grateful to Jaclyn for paying for their stay at the White Lotus and happy to see Kate, but her normal corporate career makes it hard to keep up with their conversations about plastic surgery, Hollywood and life as a socialite. It doesn’t help that Jaclyn and Kate keep heaping each other with compliments before having to remind themselves that Laurie’s in the room.

Chelsea is a free-spirited young woman from Manchester who’s always looking for signs from the universe. She’s a former yoga teacher, so she fits in perfectly at the wellness-focused White Lotus. The problem is that she has no idea why she’s there, having been dragged along by her miserable, tightlipped life partner, Rick, who is two decades her senior. She meets and makes friends with Chloe at the hotel bar while both of their boyfriends mope and self-isolate.

Rick is Chelsea’s older boyfriend. The White Lotus is just one in a string of many exotic locales he’s whisked her away to, but don’t mistake him for a romantic — beyond his standoffish demeanor, he seems to be involved in something shady, as Chelsea suspects that he’s wanted for arrest when he says he can’t take her to Australia. He refuses to tell her why he chose to come to Thailand, but reacts with outsized anger when resort employee Mook says that the owner’s husband, an American named Jim Hollinger, is away in Bangkok. He fixates on Hollinger, secretively looking up photos of him online later in the day.

Chloe frequents the White Lotus, but she isn’t staying there as a guest — she lives in a house just up the hill. Like Chelsea, she’s a young woman with a much older boyfriend who brought her to Thailand a year ago. Chloe, who says she’s a model, bonds with Chelsea over the difficulty of dealing with their grumpy partners when they meet at the resort bar. 

Mook is a kind, young health mentor at the White Lotus. She’s friend’s with Gaitok, one of the resort’s security guards, who helps her get to work on time on his motorbike after hers breaks down. She’s impressed by the resort owners’ bodyguards, who get to travel the world, but it’s Gaitok she has a soft spot for.

Gaitok works at the White Lotus as a security guard. He seems to have a crush on his friend and co-worker Mook, calling her his princess and getting intimidated when he sees her chatting with the resort owners’ bodyguards. He tries bragging about his own “exciting” job, as he once saved a man from drowning — but that was two years ago, and he spends most of his days welcoming cars onto the resort property. Still, Mook is charmed.

Sritala is the glamorous boss of the White Lotus in Thailand, which she owns with her American husband Jim, who is recovering from a recent stroke in Bangkok. In a past life, Sritala was an actor and singer who wrote books and achieved moderate fame in Thailand. She says she pioneered the wellness program at the resort after she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder.

Fabian is the sniveling, somewhat awkward general manager of the White Lotus in Thailand. He greets the vacationers upon their arrival and eagerly seeks the approval of his boss, Sritala.

Pornchai is the wellness expert assigned to train Belinda as she visits from the White Lotus in Hawaii for a fellowship of sorts. He teaches Belinda new massage techniques and makes her feel at home in Thailand.

Valentin is a young man from Russia who works at the White Lotus in Thailand as a “health mentor.” According to resort owner Sritala, “Everyone requests him because he’s handsome,” and it’s true: The second Jaclyn, Kate ladies lay eyes on his chiseled abs, they swoon.

Zion is Belinda’s adult son, who visits her from law school while she’s training in Thailand. In the first scene in Season 3, a flash-forward one week after the vacationers arrive in Koh Samui, Zion’s meditation session is interrupted by gunshots at the resort. Worried about his mom, Zion jumps into a pond and prays to a Buddha statue that she will be safe.