Review: 'The White Lotus' Season 3 is on the edge of anarchy

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It's always fun, if not very relaxing, to check back in at "The White Lotus."

HBO's luxury-hotel set anthology series is a deliciously twisty wealth satire with sharp edges and deeply thoughtful themes. It is also pretty anxiety-inducing to watch, even when you've been on this particular vacation two times before. In the new third and humid season, "Lotus" (Sundays, 9 EST/PST, ★★★ out of four) travels to Thailand with yet another star-studded cast and deeply stressful vibes. That's just the general rule when it comes to the series: the fancier the hotel, the more uncomfortable the audience's stay there will be.

While the cast is still beloved and appealing and the odiously wealthy are still dragged through the mud, the new "Lotus" doesn't quite have the same sharpness as Seasons 1 and 2. It takes a fraction too long to get things moving, and the satire feels a little less biting. But that's nit-picking the acclaimed Emmy-winning series. Expectations for "Lotus" and writer/creator Mike White are so astronomically high because its first two seasons were so out of this world. An only-good season of "Lotus" is much better than most other TV shows right now.

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Like the two previous seasons, this year's story begins with a mysterious death and then flashes back a week. Season 3 ups the ante on the violence, opening amidst a shooting that may have had more than one casualty. But as horrific as that bit of barbarity is, we instantly swerve back to the smiles and waves of the Thailand White Lotus staff as our three main groups of guests arrive.

There's the twangy Ratliff family − Timothy (Jason Isaacs), Victoria (Parker Posey), Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Lachlan (Sam Nivola) − a North Carolinian dynasty humoring their daughter's interest in Buddhism.

Looking for "wellness" and bonding are Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), Kate (Leslie Bibb) and Laurie (Carrie Coon), three longtime friends who have aged into very different women in their 40s.

Finally, there's Rick (Walton Goggins) and his conspicuously young girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), a somewhat trashy pair who look completely out of place among the posh and refined.

Among the hotel's proverbial "downstairs" of employees is Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), returning from Season 1, on a work exchange at the Thailand branch of the Lotus hotels. There's also Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) an earnest security guard with a massive crush on breezy "health mentor" Mook (Lalisa Manobal, of K-pop group Blackpink). As is usual in the "Lotus" universe, the hotel employees are just trying to do their jobs when the antics of the guests interrupt their lives.

Season 3 of "Lotus" may be lacking in some aspects, but creator White's ability to build tension in his stories is simply unparalleled. Scenes set on luxury yachts and in gorgeous hotel pools can generate the same fraught anxiety and apprehension as a battle scene in a different show. Every conversation the characters have in "Lotus" feels deeply important, and also as if it might devolve into blows at any moment.

Season 1 was more of a straightforward critique of the white elite and Season 2 devoted a great deal of time to analyzing the toxicity of men. Season 3 is obsessed with facades and artificiality. Everyone at the Thailand Lotus is putting up some kind of front, be it subconsciously or intended. But breaking down all the faux personas leads to truths most of the characters don't want to face.

Full of veterans and bright young faces alike, the cast is once again perfectly predisposed to their roles. The breakout this time is Schwarzenegger (yes, he's the son of who you think), a snide, entitled trust fund kid who thinks the world revolves around him and his appendage. The actor plays despicable almost too well, with greasy smiles and quick wit and anger.

Each subsequent season of "Lotus" has offered fewer laughs and far more moments so cringeworthy you might try to hide behind something. Perhaps that's simply a case of form following function: The world that each season has premiered in has gotten successively less lighthearted with every headline. If every moment in "Lotus" teeters on the edge of incivility and bloodshed, it might just be because the world at large feels that way.

We're all just one mai tai away from the worst versions of ourselves.