On "The White Lotus," Natasha Rothwell's Belinda finally gets a break

There’s the moment when Natasha Rothwell’s Belinda Lindsey is received at the Thailand branch of The White Lotus Resorts and another when she arrives. These are separate scenes in the third season premiere of “The White Lotus” whose significance may be most noticeable to Black travelers. 

The first occurs when Belinda, the Hawaiian resort’s put-upon spa manager, arrives by boat and is warmly greeted beachside by Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul), her Thai counterpart and mentor. Belinda has come to Thailand to learn their practitioners’ techniques and share what she knows. But it’s also a reset, a chance to heal. 

If Belinda were back home in Hawaii, where Rothwell’s character was introduced in Season 1, she would be the one receiving new guests on the beach, and they would either dismiss her or burden her with the weight of their expectations. Being on the other side of this tradition changed the feeling, she told Salon in a recent conversation.

“Where so many of the other guests are never sated, you know, and always wanting more, I think Belinda is seeing how good it can get, and accepting it as it comes,” she observed.

Natasha Rothwell and Dom Hetrakul in "White Lotus" (Fabio Lovino/HBO)This leads to her true arrival midway through "Same Spirits, New Forms," transpiring in a wordless exchange that may hold extra meaning to anyone who has vacationed in locales where few people look like them. While waiting for her dinner to be served, Belinda witnesses a Black couple enter the hotel's restaurant, striding majestically to a table with a view of the evening’s entertainment. 

As the woman takes her seat, Belinda gently waves at her, and the lady returns that acknowledgment with a friendly smile and nod. Belinda's shoulders visibly loosen as she relaxes more fully into her meal. 

“That was a moment I actually pitched to Mike,” Rothwell said. “I told him, ‘You know, when I travel and I see Black people in spaces that are pretty homogenous, it lets me know that I'm allowed to do that.’”

Rothwell describes that turn as going from being completely voyeuristic to participatory, stepping out of her usual observation role to get as close as possible. “She's flirting with what it might be like to be, you know, ‘on the other side,’” the actor said. 

The moment is brief, and she may never encounter the couple again during her work sabbatical. But their shared presence in a rarified space allows Belinda the momentary safety of belonging and acceptance. “It is permission to dream,” Rothwell added.

This being “The White Lotus,” we already know that in a few days, a body will be floating in the water steps from her villa. More ominous is the glimpse of another familiar face from previous voyages — someone from Belinda’s past with whom she may not want to cross paths.

Jon Gries in "White Lotus" (Courtesy of HBO)By recurring in more than one season of Mike White’s hit anthology, Rothwell's Belinda follows the path of Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya McQuoid. Both characters and actors were Season 1 breakouts, together and separately. Tanya clownishly imposed on Belinda, robbing the hard-working therapist of her personal time and space with promises to bring to fruition her goal of owning a spa. 

Anyone watching the show knew Tanya’s assurances were empty, that this flaky bird would peck away at Belinda's threadbare patience and fly off without a care in the world. Therefore, it was acutely painful to witness Belinda turn herself inside out to win approval and financial backing from someone who never intended to give her either.

Rothwell reminded me that this was only part of Belinda’s plight. “In addition to the forbearance, I think she was under almost like a gag order. You know, she couldn't express how she was thinking and feeling,” she observed. “And I think there is a bit of an exhale when she gets to Thailand because she gets to be more herself than she probably allows herself to be.”

Some of this, Rothwell admits, is a vacation persona, the part that lets go and behaves differently than normal. “But I do think that in the time between season one and season three, she's gone on this healing journey,” she said. "She's not a stranger, but she's still fundamentally good. She's unfurling, I think, like a flower."

So when Belinda confesses to her Thai colleagues that their program of exchanging wellness techniques was the blessing she needed after a rough couple of years, we know what she’s talking about. “I don’t know what I expected, but I’m starting to feel like something good is going to come out of this,” Belinda tells her son in a phone call.

That may not last, because — surprise! — Greg (Jon Gries), Tanya’s ex-husband who orchestrated her death to claim her $500 million fortune, is also back. A year after the loopy heiress' watery misadventure, Greg is shacking up (and hiding out) near the resort with the much younger Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), all of which we discover through her conversation with Aimee Wood’s Chelsea.

Belinda is the only character in Season 3 who knows Greg's past. Whether she remembers who he is or kept tabs on Tanya after her single-serving friend ghosted her is an open question.

One assumes White has a greater purpose for including her in the only plot extending through all three seasons. Belinda is one of the few caring figures in this retreat for terrible people. Despite how little we know about Greg he's by far the worst; we only know what he told Tanya about himself and can assume those were lies. Mystery and misdirection are the grifter's calling cards, after all.  

“I want to send Belinda on a vacation, but where?” I wrote back in 2021. “Another paradise locale would remind her of the hell she commutes to every day.” That turned out to be partly right. Thailand’s paradise nurtures what appears to be a gentle, contented culture. The place isn’t what may remind her of hell. The problem is nearly always other people. Or just one.

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Each new season of “The White Lotus” also feels as if White is broadening his efforts to bring more of the audience into the sweeter side of the drama’s thorny wish fulfillment. 

Granted, this is the perspective of someone who was deeply irritated at the way non-white characters aside from Belinda were sidelined or exploited to serve the rich guests’ subplots. Setting Season 2 in Italy dispensed with all that since the locals weren’t indigenous people but slightly more exotic white Europeans. (Although, newsflash, there are plenty of Italians of African descent.) 

Regardless, this conveyed a subtle message that Black people don’t travel when Rothwell herself contradicts that misconception. She related a story shared with White about a trip to Ireland, where she toured a castle atop a mist-wrapped hill. Suddenly, she said, this Black family emerged from the mist very cinematically, “and I just walked up and I hugged them. Neither of us spoke before we hugged.”  

“When I travel and I'm in spaces that are homogenous, and I see someone who is like me, it's an instant connection and permission, almost to exist there,” she said. “And while I was not the only melanated person on set, I was the only Black person, cast-wise, you know, outside of Nicholas (Duvernay, who plays Belinda’s son Zion). So when that couple comes through, it validates her experience. You know, it's the Black nod – like, ‘I see you,’ ‘I see you.’ It means something when you're seen by your people.” And now the full “White Lotus” audience finally gets to witness that overdue scene too.

New episodes of "The White Lotus" debut 9 p.m. Sundays on HBO and stream on Max.