Look, It Had to Happen

Spoilers for The White Lotus season three, episode six, “Denials.”

Mike White had been teasing White Lotus season-three viewers with some brother-on-brother action between Saxon and Lochlan, the Ratliff boys played by nepo-babies-in-arms Patrick Schwarzenegger and Sam Nivola, since the very first episode. The season practically marinates in the queasiness of the prospect, luxuriating in the taboo with Saxon’s whole “so hetero something’s gotta give” aura; his generally carnal disposition around his siblings; and Lochlan’s own inscrutable demeanor, capitalized upon with that early scene in the premiere where he quietly gazes at Saxon’s bare ass. It’s a whole lot of setup, and it would either be malpractice or simply out of character for The White Lotus to simply nudge, nudge, wink, wink, then head-fake away from crossing that boundary.

Sure, it’s reasonable to think that their make-out sesh in “Full-Moon Party” (egged on by Charlotte Le Bon’s Chloe during their brotherly three-way) was going to be as far as it would go. But this is HBO we’re talking about. Incest is like an every-other-Tuesday thing at that place. There was, obviously, the whole Lannister situation on Game of Thrones, which turned out to be grade-school stuff compared to the niece-uncle marriage-and-office rivalry that’s ultimately table stakes in House of the Dragon. HBO’s affinity for intra-bloodline paramour-ing isn’t just limited to the fantasy genre either: Recall the short-lived Gossip Girl reboot, which featured an offhanded twincest reveal that pretty much only existed for a punch line. In any case, The White Lotus already flirted with a shock incest scene last season, when Tom Hollander’s mysterious Quentin was caught railing Leo Woodall’s Jack, whom he had previously introduced as his “naughty nephew.” Now, in retrospect, it’s all but certain they weren’t actually related beyond being connected by the same criminal scheme, but the moment did result in Jennifer Coolidge’s late, great Tanya McQuoid uttering the deeply memorable line: “Well, he was kinda fucking his uncle.”

All of which is to say that, in a world where super-producer Ryan Murphy has already mixed incest and parenticide with Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, a make-out sesh was not enough. The payoff had to be more transgressive than that, so it made every sense in the world that this week’s episode, “Denials,” yanks us back into the hazy memory of the Ratliff boys’ megayacht bender to make an additional taboo-tastic reveal, with the brothers gradually learning — Saxon by being told by Chloe and Chelsea; Lochlan while vibing out in meditative bliss — that the height of their brotherly love wasn’t capped at a mere locking of lips, but with a straight-up handy.

Yeah, it’s sacrilegious, but The White Lotus demands it. The meta-story of the series is one of escalation season over season. The debut Hawaii outing stroked its viewers’ neuroses around money and rounded things out with hotel manager Armond in a drug-induced bender during which he’s caught giving a rim job, defecates into a guest’s luggage, and dies after accidentally shoving his chest into a knife. The second Sicilian season ramped things up by shifting its gaze to carnal matters — the Cameron-Daphne-Harper-Ethan quad, in particular, is a knotty yarn exploring how wealth reshapes sexual politics — and ended its run with Tanya shooting up a yacht, then dying after hitting her head in a vain attempt to jump on a lifeboat. This Thai jaunt has firmly served up yet another escalation. Now wading into Western anxieties around death and spirituality, the season has proved to be a markedly darker and stranger affair: An active-shooter event anchors the opening flash-forward, the image of Ratliff patriarch Timothy pointing a gun to his own head is now a meme, and Sam Rockwell makes a cameo for the ages where his character extensively narrates his journey into embodying an Asian woman.

Last week’s make-out scene triggered quite the hubbub; one can only imagine jaws are back on the floor after tonight. David Bernad, an executive producer on the show, insisted to the New York Post that these bouts of incest aren’t just bandied about for shock value — and that they will, in fact, culminate “in a very satisfying way.” We’ll see about that, but I’m sated enough by the effort. I’m more interested in what comes next in the itinerary, given that the fourth season has already been green-lit. Where will White’s Lotus go from here? Necrophilia? Russia?