Lucius Malfoy just showed us his wand. In the fourth and latest episode of The White Lotus, viewers saw more of actor Jason Isaacs than they expected. Several inches more. We screamed in unison with his character’s grossed-out children. You didn’t get that at Hogwarts.
As wealthy patriarch Timothy Ratliff, he has been steadily coming off the rails at the five-star Thai resort. The dodgy dealings upon which he built his high-finance empire have been uncovered by journalists in the US. The feds are closing in. Assets have been seized. He is desperately trying to cover his tracks to avoid jail time, while hiding the scandal from his dysfunctional family, who were forced into a digital detox upon arrival at the spa. Safe to say they will have a fair few notifications when they switch their phones back on.
As Tim spirals, he has turned to pill-popping by stealing his neurotic wife Victoria’s prescription lorazepam, washed down with copious whisky and wine. This wasn’t in the wellness brochure. “You’re not yourself,” Parker Posey keeps telling him in that mangled Mississippi accent.
A phallic manifestation of his meltdown came as we reached the season’s midway mark. Shambling around half-stoned in a complimentary White Lotus bathrobe, Ratliff Sr inadvertently flashed his junk at his offspring. Cue hands over eyes, faces buried in cushions and grossed-out cries of “Dad!” from Saxon, Piper and Lochlan (the diet Succession).
As well as Tim’s tackle, the latest series showed his sleazebag son Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) heading to the bathroom, butt-naked, to watch porn. It was squirmingly uncomfortable viewing – not least when he made meaningful eye contact with little brother Lochlan (Sam Nivola) before closing the door.
Creator Mike White’s sun-soaked satire has made such moments a trademark. All three seasons have deployed flashes of male nudity for comic effect. Such shock tactics might seem puerile but in the White Lotus universe, it works. Showing the insufferable super-rich in states of undress is a metaphor for their vulnerability.
It strips them of their generational privilege and aura of blithe superiority, reminding us that they are as flawed as the rest of us, if not more so. At any minute, the edifice could come crashing down. With an X-rated flourish, White shows the audience exactly who his characters are.
The full-frontal assault started from the acclaimed anthology’s first ever episode. During the debut season, hypochondriac trophy husband Mark Mossbacher, played by Steve Zahn, arrived in Hawaii worried that he had testicular cancer and was doomed to die young like his closeted father. (“He could’ve still been butch, Dad,” his college student daughter, Olivia, reassured him. “Maybe grandpa was a power bottom.”) Unsuspecting viewers duly got an eyeful when Mark showed his swollen parts to his tech tycoon wife, Nicole (Connie Britton). Zahn later admitted that he got to choose his own prosthetic. Perks of the job.
The bare-all baton was promptly picked up by doomed resort manager Armond (the magnificent Murray Bartlett) who, after five years sober, fell off the wagon in spectacular style. Honeymooner Shane (Jake Lacy) walked in on Armond performing a sex act on waiter Dillon (Lukas Gage) during a drug-fuelled romp in his office. Analingus – “getting my salad tossed”, as Dillon put it – is an act rarely seen on television, so all the more taboo-busting. When Shane got him fired, Armond infamously wreaked revenge by squatting and taking a dump in the obnoxious guest’s open suitcase.
The second outing, set in Sicily, didn’t stint on male flesh-flashing either. As cocky finance bro Cameron, actor Theo James wore a 9in prosthetic (which the actor joked was “ginormous”, “like a hammer” and “stolen off a donkey in a field”) for a sequence where his best college buddy’s wife, Harper (Aubrey Plaza), glimpses him changing into swimming shorts. Harper, who made a habit of rude interruptions, later walks in on her husband, Ethan (Will Sharpe), pleasuring himself in their suite.
Meanwhile, Essex boy Jack (Leo Woodall) was seen having graphic sex with his faux-uncle Quentin (Tom Hollander) – a scene Woodall admits left him “speechless” when he first read the script. Mike White, the showrunner, is openly bisexual and has said: “There’s a pleasure to me, as a guy who is gay-ish, in making gay sex transgressive again.”
HBO dramas were once notorious for “sexposition” – the shameless technique of advancing the narrative against a backdrop of bare bodies. The Sopranos would set plot-progressing conversations at the Bada Bing! strip club, so boring old dialogue could be enlivened by pole-dancers. Similarly, Game of Thrones often spiced up its power-plays with Westeros sex workers as living scenery.
Times have changed. Gratuitous female nudity is no longer the default setting. The GoT prequel House of the Dragon is more partial to, ahem, unsheathed swords. HBO stablemates such as Industry, Euphoria, And Just Like That and Scenes from a Marriage have also featured jaw-dropping phallic displays. Now comes The White Lotus and its priapic habit.
Since the hit show’s inception, White has interrogated the nature of modern masculinity and the dark side of sexuality. His subversive sensibility ensures his creation is consistently provocative. The Daily Mail recently clutched its pearls with a story un-snappily headlined: “The White Lotus doubles down on full-frontal male nudity in every single series – with solo sex acts, incestuous romps and prosthetic penises sending shockwaves through fans.” White wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s a welcome rebalancing of the books after decades of the male gaze. TV has swapped sexposition for dicksposition, with The White Lotus leading the charge. Well, at least until next week’s Full Moon Party episode, when all bets are off and it’s an equal opportunities flesh-fest. Welcome to the White Lotus. Leave your clothes at the door.
