The main title theme song has been modified to fit the season three setting.
Each season’s main title theme is composed by Cristobal Tapia de Veer and takes inspiration from the location.
Season one’s “Aloha!” paid homage to Hawaiian sounds and rhythms. Meanwhile, season two’s viral “Renaissance” ditched the tropics for a tune that transformed from an operatic build to a club banger with 25 billion streams on Spotify.
Season three’s “Enlightenment” draws from Thai sounds and harkens back to the season’s overall theme of Eastern spirituality.
“The song changes every season, and it reflects the tone, mood, and the themes of the season,” Gabe Hilfer, the show’s music supervisor, told Rolling Stone. “The theme songs for the first two seasons were a little bit more related creatively, but they’re totally different songs. Season three is about spirituality, and it’s meant to be reflective of that.”
The opening credits imagery hints at each character’s storyline.
Sarah Catherine Hook’s name is accompanied by artwork of a woman meditating, which is appropriate since her character, Piper Ratliff, is a religious studies major who is writing a thesis on Buddhism.
Patrick Schwarzenegger, who plays the eldest — and horniest — Ratliff sibling named Saxon, is credited alongside an image of two men ogling at a topless woman.
Ratliff patriarch Timothy (Jason Isaacs), who’s in some kind of financial peril, is depicted by a man stuck in a tree.
Mook (Lalisa Manobal) and Gaitok’s (Tayme Thapthimthong) sweet flirtation is mirrored by a woman and a man smiling under an umbrella. But the imagery for Thapthimthong’s title card — a man trying to tame a vicious tiger — alludes to Gaitok’s work struggles this season.
On their way to the resort, the Ratliff siblings mimic the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” imagery.
As the Ratliff family travels via boat to the White Lotus resort with fellow guests, siblings Saxon, Piper, and Lochlan (Sam Nivola) sit on a bench and unintentionally reference the old proverb “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” which is usually symbolized by three monkeys in different poses.
Saxon’s sunglasses cover his eyes (see no evil), Piper wears headphones over her ears (hear no evil), and Lochlan’s mouth is covered as he drinks from a bottle (speak no evil).
Season three certainly hasn’t been subtle with the monkey symbolism. Time reported that there are more than 140 monkey statues sprinkled throughout Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui, one of the filming locations. These statues and the monkeys that the cameras linger on between scenes reflect the mischief and hijinks taking place at the resort.
“Survivor” cast members Natalie Cole and Carl Boudreaux have cameos as resort guests in the season premiere.
Belinda sees them while dining and waves, happy to encounter other Black people at the resort who aren’t staff.
The husband-and-wife duo is played by Carl Boudreaux and Natalie Cole, both of whom competed against “The White Lotus” creator, writer, and director Mike White in the reality TV show “Survivor: David vs. Goliath.”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” star Ke Huy Quan has a voice cameo in episode two.
Ke Huy Quan told Entertainment Tonight that he’s a big fan of the show and said yes right away when he was asked to be part of season three.
The Oscar-winning actor’s character Kenneth Nguyen, aka Kenny, is first referenced during the season three premiere when Timothy Ratliff takes a call from a journalist at The Wall Street Journal who’s running a story about a shady business deal Kenny made. Timothy is connected because he did Kenny a favor and helped him set up a fund called Sho-Kel as part of some plan involving money laundering and bribery.
Timothy finally gets a hold of Kenny near the end of episode two. Quan doesn’t appear in the episode, but his voice is clearly heard panicking on the other end of the line as they discuss why the Journal is investigating them.
“Fuck me, I’m done,” Kenny tells Timothy, after explaining that 20 agents just raided his office and have his accounts, emails, and documents.
Kenny continues ranting and says that a whistleblower in his office snitched on him to the media. Details about the business deal are sparse, but Kenny says that he never should have taken a position in Brunei, but the money was too good to pass up.
Kenny also confirms that Timothy is “for sure” implicated.
Chelsea getting bitten by a snake is foreshadowed by a moment in episode two.
In episode two, right before a masked man robs the hotel’s store, Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) asks an employee if she can look at a snake choker. Although Chelsea is unharmed, the near-death experience with the robber leaves her shaken.
Then in episode three, she and her boyfriend Rick (Walton Goggins) attend a snake show. But Rick, who feels sympathetic toward the snakes, goes rogue and releases a bunch of them from their cages. As soon as Chelsea sees what Rick has done, she’s bit in the leg by a venomous snake and rushed to a hospital.
