It's true — the characters suck, but the intro is catchy, and contagious is the urge to quickly flick your tongue across the mouth-hole along with the melody.
The off-beat comedy in the pilot is convincing, equal parts wit and commentary. Why not keep watching when the social tropes are so rotten and the finish so glossy?
The murder-mystery premise is enticing — something very important must be on its way — so we sit tight while the one-percenters play.
By about episode three, though, the caricatured inequality becomes a turn-off, and the once-titillating plot goes flaccid.
Maybe if we had just one character on the island to actually care about, or perhaps if they all weren't so collectively insufferable, there might remain a shred of appetite with which to appreciate the spectacle. But by the time redemption rears its forgetful head, we're long dead from moral malnutrition.
If I had a hundred dollars every time someone said or did something unlikable, not to mention unethical, well, I'd still be broke compared to these people.
White Lotus triumphs as a miserable representation of the cynical nature of elitism: the ones with the least give the most, and the ones with the most refuse to cede their privilege.
Because doing that would just "go against human nature," right?
Power is flung around flippantly. Those who have it articulately defend its abuse over fancy dining, meanwhile those who don't quite literally dance around as entertainment.
As the audience, we're meant to feel cheated when the entitled brats get their way and justice sets sail far from the resort. But with every obnoxious quip and selfish insistence, the circus grows increasingly grating.
It's not all annoying - the dialogue does deliver nuggets of virtue below the botox, but as the guests pump themselves full of uppers and alcohol, the debauchery has a rather sobering effect on the audience.
Ultimately, no amount of 'entertaining' on-screen prescription recreation can rescue us from the existential k-hole that is White Lotus.
Viewers with an ounce of conscience will be left pointlessly disturbed, questioning the extent to which authority should be inherited, especially when it means incompetence is compensated.