A shooting and a floating body. This is normal in the White Lotus hotel chain, isn’t it? Especially if YES, Greg is back! Greg Hunt (John Gries), Tanya McQuoid-Hunt’s (Jenniffer Coolidge) husband, who met her at the White Lotus in Hawaii and set her up to die at the White Lotus in Sicily, is the big surprise of the first episode of the third season and – for me – it is the only part of the plot that matters, especially since, from what the trailer shows, he not only identifies Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) but also harasses her enough that she asks for the police to be called (which the manager denies). This makes more sense than her son’s panic in the opening scene and now I just want to know about Belinda!

Well, let’s recap the first—and once again great—episode that opens The White Lotus.

As I mentioned, and by tradition, the season opens with a crime (whoever posted that didn’t fool me and was wrong) and we go back a week to contextualize the drama.

The images of the engravings in the opening always mislead messages about the series. Here, it is clear that the animal and violent nature will dominate the guests, the opposite of what the place suggests (it is a wellness and meditation center). In the first scene, we have Zion (Nicholas Duvernay), Belinda’s son, who comes to find her and is extremely tense. When he starts hearing the gunshots (there are many) he worries about his mother (why?) and tries to go find her, but on the way, he is the one who comes face to face with the body floating in the lake…

The suspects of the season still have no clear connection to Greg, besides Belinda, but let’s go.

The Ratliffs are detestable: rich, handsome, and clearly unbalanced. The incestuous vibe between the siblings makes Game of Thrones seem like a children’s story, and we haven’t seen anything else yet. Timothy (Jason Isaacs) is an arrogant investor married to the perpetually drugged Victoria (Parker Posey). From the outside, they seem like loving parents, but they are imposing and distant. Timothy has just found out that a scam from his past will be exposed in the Wall Street Journal and has become extremely tense.

The three children — Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), and Lochlan (Sam Nivola) — are oddballs. Saxon is obnoxious and has a crush on his sister who is clearly hiding something and doesn’t fit in with the family, leaving Lochlan to seem oddly fixated on Saxon.

In other words, there’s a strong element of something about to explode between them all, which means that the amount of gunfire could be one of them freaking out. I’ll say it: it doesn’t seem like them to me. But it’s too early to rule them out.

The connection with Greg (yes, he’s the only one I’m interested in) could come through Rick (Walton Goggins) and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and please Mike White, protect Chelsea because she was the best thing about the episode. Rick is clearly a scammer, he’s clearly in trouble, he’s wanted by Interpol (he can’t go to Australia) and there’s something very specific (financial) that brought him to The White Lotus. Aggressive and irritable, he’s insufferable and so blatantly “suspicious” that I’m ruling him out for now. Chelsea, the young yoga teacher, is determined to have a good trip and enjoy herself; nothing that comes from her boyfriend gets to her.

Saxon has already tried to charm her, but Chelsea is determined to “bring happiness” to Rick. And it’s with her that we discover Greg’s presence in Thailand. Alone at the bar, she meets Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), an English woman who’s dating a much older, bald, and grumpy guy who, yes, is Greg. The two have a house near the hotel and only come to dinner, and she reveals that “Gary” (yes, he changed his name) has mood swings and has been living in Thailand for a year. Now the mystery: is he really Greg or Gary?

Belinda is in Thailand on a three-month exchange program, feeling optimistic again. Poor thing…

Among the guests, are the three childhood friends who are there to take a break from their personal and professional lives, but the disagreements are clear. Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) is the famous one, and Kate (Leslie Bibb) is the rich one who envies Jaclyn’s success and despises Laurie (Carrie Coon). Laurie, hiding behind a lot of wine, is frustrated and irritated with the two of them, and they have barely landed in Thailand!

In my opinion, I am careful about who has access to weapons and even though the trailers showed that the guests will have them, I initially thought the scene with the hotel security guards was a big sign of where most of the shooting will come from.

It’s still too early to speculate with any certainty, but we can try.

There will be a lot of complexity between the characters, but I bet the shooting is Greg trying to eliminate Belinda, but – in what I hope is a “mistake” – the security guards come into action and so the violence escalates. Who dies? Someone by mistake… but who?

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