Products are independently selected by our editors. We may earn an affiliate commission from links. Each has a spout of water, and each has spiral eyes suggesting something not quite right is afoot. On grooved switchback roads heading down to the beach, bronze visages stand serenely in the lush foliage. At night, there are orchids tucked behind their ears.
Early in the morning, the blooms are mysteriously… gone. Only now, with season three, is the partnership becoming more formal more on this later. This alignment was proof that necessity is the mother of invention: early in the COVID pandemic, HBO execs needed a project that could be filmed in a standalone and easily surveilled setting. White set his comedic hothouse noir at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea in Hawaii, and, as season one grew in popularity, the public got behind it: the hotel-as-total-set worked brilliantly.
It was almost like a high-budget black box theater, walled and tony and tense. And while there were off-campus excursions in that episode run, the property remained largely center stage. Which brings us to season three, premiering on February The Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui is stunning—maybe the prettiest so far in The White Lotus canon—with 43 acres of steep beryl hills that plunge into the pristine and paper-flat Gulf of Thailand.
What do all those jungle eyes actually see? I think this will stay true after the show airs in full, too; why not travel with a little silver-screen imagination in mind? Geographically, the Four Seasons Koh Samui is highly contained.
Its 60 villas and 15 or so private residences funnel into a valley between two slopes, fragrant with tropical flowers and alive with exotic, sometimes haunting birdsong. The show filmed here in February and March of , and while the hotel was closed to outside bookings, it operated as it would otherwise—the stars and crew all stayed on property. General manager JJ Assi tells me that, on certain filming days, boats anchored in front and illegally flew drones overhead.
