Every Season Of The White Lotus, Ranked

This article contains spoilers for all three seasons of "The White Lotus," including the season 3 finale "Amor Fati."

In 2022, after season 2 of "The White Lotus" wrapped up, creator, writer, and director Mike White spoke in a post-finale featurette (via Variety) about how each season of the series has a different theme. "The first season kind of highlighted money, and then the second season is sex," White said at the time. "I think the third season would be maybe a satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at White Lotus."

Now that the third season is complete, we know that it's precisely what White did, exploring themes of revenge, family, and spirituality through deeply flawed characters like Piper Ratliff (Sarah Catherine Hook), who plans to move to a monastery there before abruptly changing her mind and choosing creature comforts back home, or Rick Hatchett (Walton Goggins), who thinks he finds peace about his late father before going on a wild rampage through the resort that results in the deaths of three people (including him). So where does the third season that focuses on "spirituality" rank amongst the seasons that center "money" and "sex?" I'll say this: even a lesser season of a show by White is pretty good, so keep that in mind as I go ahead and rank the seasons of "The White Lotus" from least amazing to most incredible.

Unfortunately, season 3 — which takes place in Thailand — is the "least great" of Mike White's supposed anthology series, but again, even White's weakest effort is absolutely worth watching. In the third installment of White's ode to rich people behaving badly on vacation, we meet the Ratliff family — Timothy (Jason Isaacs), Victoria (Parker Posey), and their kids Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), the aforementioned spiritual faker Piper, and Lochlan (Sam Nivola) — and quickly learn that Timothy isn't anxious to go back to North Carolina any time soon on account of all the money crimes he's been doing. (Also, Victoria is drunk and on pills for the whole season, and the two brothers end up hooking up with each other. It's wild!) Three gal pals — Jaclyn Lemon (Michelle Monaghan), Kate Bohr (Leslie Bibb), and Laurie Duffy (Carrie Coon) — spend a lot of the season sniping at and about each other but all realize the importance of their friendship by the end. Natasha Rothwell's Belinda Lindsay, who makes her debut in the show's first season, is visiting Thailand to learn from other White Lotus wellness experts, and Rick Hatchett is traveling with his much younger girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), who just wants her crabby old man to be happy for once.

The sad truth about season 3 of "The White Lotus" is that it builds to a potentially interesting point but just doesn't pay off. Yes, we get the requisite death scene at the end (wouldn't people stop staying at fictional White Lotus locations considering how many people die at them?!), but compared to the show's first two seasons, the story doesn't feel nearly as satisfying. For the millionth time, this is still a very good season of television. It just never reaches the heights of either of its predecessors when all is said and done.

The season that properly launched "The White Lotus" is extremely good, pitting the extraordinarily wealthy against the workers at the hotel and driving to a truly unforgettable conclusion. Newlyweds Shane Patton (Jake Lacy) and Rachel (Alexandria Daddario) arrive at the White Lotus location in Maui, Hawai'i only for Shane to be entirely unsatisfied with their beautiful room, developing a bizarre obsession with the "Pineapple Suite" that has to be handled by the resort manager Armond (Murray Bartlett). The season marks the debut of Jennifer Coolidge's now iconic character Tanya McQuoid, who, at this point in her story, is traveling with her mother's ashes to mourn her (resulting in a deeply funny and macabre scene where she disposes of the ashes during Rachel and Shane's "romantic" boat ride). This is also where she meets Greg Hunt (Jon Gries), a guy who will, without exaggeration, ruin her entire life. We've also got the Mossbacher family, made up of parents Nicole and Mark (Connie Britton and Steve Zahn), their daughter Olivia (Sydney Sweeney), and son Quinn (Fred Hechinger), who brought Olivia's friend Paula (Brittany O'Grady) along on their vacation. Also, Molly Shannon shows up as Shane's horrible mom Kitty, which is fantastic.

Classism and privilege are on full display in "The White Lotus" season 1, with people like Rachel and Paula grappling with the fact that they've only been invited into the world of the wealthy ... and overstepping any boundaries could mean they lose their place in the upper echelon of society. The ridiculous conclusion of season 1, which sees a furious and resentful Armond taking a crap in Shane's suitcase only to be accidentally run through with a knife by the Pineapple Suite's number one fan, completely sticks the landing, and as audiences watch the surviving guests of the White Lotus prepare to return to their everyday lives, it became clear that Mike White created something genuinely incredible.

Season 2 is the best season of "The White Lotus" so far, and I won't hear a single argument against that. You've got a powerhouse foursome with Aubrey Plaza, Meghann Fahy, Theo James, and Will Sharpe, with Plaza and Sharpe as Harper and Ethan Spiller — a couple navigating their brand new wealth — and Fahy and James as Daphne and Cameron Sullivan, an already wealthy couple who seem shallow but are revealed to be constantly deceiving each other. Three generations of Di Grasso men — grandfather Bert (F. Murray Abraham), dad Dominic (Michael Imperioli), and Albie (Adam DiMarco) are supposed to be finding their Italian roots but simply end up discovering upsetting things about each other. Tanya is back, this time with her beleaguered assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) by her side — as well as Greg, who's married to Tanya now, seemingly hates her, and mysteriously departs partway through the season — and the Sicilian resort's manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) is constantly dealing with two young women, Mia (Beatrice Grannò) and Lucia (Simona Tabasco), who keep trying to "wander" into the hotel undetected.

It's genuinely hard to pick a standout performer in season 2 of "The White Lotus," because they're all so good — and even though Coolidge took home a boatload of Emmys for her swan song as Tanya, I have to say that Fahy's Daphne, a woman who's willing to overlook her husband's indiscretions to maintain her unbothered life, is perhaps the single strongest one in the bunch. (With that said, they all give her a run for her money, including and especially Plaza, who laser-focuses her trademark sarcastic sneer throughout the season). Between a beautifully ambiguous ending for the married quartet and Tanya's shocking demise, season 2 of "The White Lotus" provides a deeply satisfying and thought-provoking conclusion. It's genuinely hard to imagine a better season of the show, but we'll see what Mike White has up his sleeve for the future.

"The White Lotus" is streaming on Max now.