The third season problem

Why "The White Lotus" and "Yellowjackets" have lost the thread

This week’s Marginalia: putting my TV critic hat back on. Trying out an audio version (I hesitate to call it a podcast), if you’d rather listen than read. Let me know what you think of it.

If you've followed my work over the last few years, you might know that I'm a "White Lotus" dissenter.

I'm not wild about the acclaimed HBO murder mystery anthology series, which follows a different set of rich vacationers at various outposts of the fictional White Lotus resort. When the bar for the "eat the rich" genre is sky high, set by shows like "Succession" and films like "Parasite," I firmly believe any new addition needs to have a clear point of view and something to say. The problem with "The White Lotus," like certain other overhyped shows of the prestige TV era, is that it merely gestures at ideas.

Loose ideas do not make a show. This was especially apparent in Season 1, which missed so many opportunities to tell a more nuanced story about its Hawaii setting. Season 2, set in Italy, had a bit more richness in its character development (and gave us Jennifer Coolidge delivering the inimitable line: "These gays, they're trying to murder me!"). But still, I found myself thinking: if I wanted to watch a clown car of rich people being miserable in Italy, I could just fire up Season 3 of "Succession," right there on the same streaming platform!

Morgana O'Reilly, Arnas Fedaravičius, Christian Friedel, Dom Hetrakul, and Lalisa Manobal as the staff of The White Lotus resort in Thailand, in Season 3 of HBO’s “The White Lotus.” (Fabio Lovino/HBO)

So I'm not surprised that in its third season, "The White Lotus" is spinning its wheels. Every part of its formula — a murder that punctuates a tense week at the resort, rich guests with a bunch of secrets, the beleaguered staff attending to their every request — is so stale that I could throw it against a wall and it would bounce back. It's a show that's all vibes, no substance.

The third season stagnation is also central to Showtime's "Yellowjackets." Again, it's not a surprise. Season 2 of the survivalist drama, about a high school soccer team marooned after a plane crash, had expanded into a few too many characters and subplots, weighing down the already unwieldy show. (It also took quite a while to get to the — spoiler alert, but most viewers long expected this — cannibalism.)

Spread across two timelines — the teen characters 25 years ago and the adult versions of the characters in present day — "Yellowjackets" and its attendant mysteries are often compared to "Lost." But at a certain point, a mystery box show has to start to point the audience toward some answers (and "Lost," well, it too lost the thread eventually).

Now in Season 3, I'm not even sure what the mysteries are. The questions have wound themselves into unrecognizable webs, like piles of years-old yarn that are too far gone to try to untangle. In each of the timelines, it's hard to identify what we're supposed to focus on. During the show's first season, some of the glimpses into the past at least attempted to reveal a missing puzzle piece in the characters' present. But as each season drags on, what's the endgame here? I mean, the talking goat dream sequence in last week's episode? The out-of-nowhere cliffhanger that ends this week’s? Mystery, speculation, hallucination: sure, those are all part of the vibes of the show. But there's no discernable direction. You can’t coast on vibes alone.

Sophie Nélisse, Vanessa Prasad, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Silvana Estifanos, and Liv Hewson in the third season of Showtime’s “Yellowjackets.” (Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME)

On "The White Lotus," some of the acting has been able to rise above the flimsy atmospherics. Yet in Season 3, even the acting is stiff and unmemorable. The underutilized Natasha Rothwell returns for an arc this season, but why bring her back for this middling story? Some of the few performances keeping me afloat (pun intended): Parker Posey at her Parker Posey-est, downing that lorazepam; and Carrie Coon adding to her "eat the rich" résumé in between seasons of "The Gilded Age."

Certainly not every show stalls in its third season. But if Season 1 of a great TV series is about establishing itself, and Season 2 is about pushing it forward while retaining what made its first season so lightning in a bottle, it makes sense why Season 3 might be where it hits a wall. Last summer, I liked Season 3 of FX's "The Bear" more than I think other people did. But it was definitely the show's weakest season yet, stymieing itself by leaning into excess. However, at least it tried something new, like giving more characters the spotlight (that gorgeous Tina-centric episode, for instance). Taking some swings is better than nothing at all.

Are you watching the new seasons of "The White Lotus" or "Yellowjackets"? Let me know what you've been thinking. Or what are some other third seasons of shows that also felt like they were on autopilot, or counterexamples of third seasons that really hit their stride? Reply, comment, drop me a line — and please don't book a stay at the White Lotus.