Oh no she didn’t. But oh, she sure did. The White Lotus‘s Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) showed her true colours in the series’s fifth episode — big spoilers ahead — when she betrayed her friend and cheated on her husband. And even though we saw it coming, it didn’t make it any less troublesome or disappointing to watch.
“[This storyline is] going to spark a lot of conversation about female friendship and what it is to be a woman in the world,” Carrie Coon (Laurie) told Glamour at the start of the season. “Ultimately, in a show like this, what Jessica Radloff Mike White’s offering is non-judgment. He sets them out so people have a mirror and a reflection of their own values, but he’s not judging them, actually. That’s what’s extraordinary about him.”
That judgment, then, ends up on us. What’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s somewhere in between.
HBO
All season long, The White Lotus‘s Jaclyn has been urging her friend, Laurie, a divorced mum and lawyer from New York, to hook up with Valentin, their attractive, younger private butler at The White Lotus Resort & Spa. As the only single one in the group, Jaclyn wanted Laurie — who’s been portrayed as the slightly more frazzled, less ‘perfect’ one in terms of not having perfectly sculpted abs and high cheekbones — to let loose and get some action.
Laurie was shy (or embarrassed) at first, but gradually started to warm up to the idea that what happens in Thailand stays in Thailand, and that maybe she deserves some fun just as much as the next person. It all culminates in the fifth episode, when Valentin and his Russian friends take Laurie, Jaclyn, and Kate (Leslie Bibb) to a local nightclub. Before we know it, our sweaty and drunk trio (minus Kate, who opts out of most of the crazy action) are rubbing up against the guys as the drinks flow and music blasts.
Another group of local women watch as Jaclyn puts on a show with Valentin and his buddies, and their fixation on her only seems to motivate the Hollywood star more and more. Do they recognise her as the famous actress she is? Do they know she’s newly married to a man 10 years her junior? Or is she just getting off on making them jealous? Whatever the case, Jaclyn doesn’t care.