Get ready to rub shoulders with the world’s most annoying rich people, because the third season of The White Lotus is on the way, though not without some confusion for fans of BLACKPINK’s Lisa.
In case you missed it, HBO shared a criminally short teaser of the upcoming third installment of the Mike White-created satire, ahead of its release sometime in 2025. In the eight-second teaser, we got brief snippets of season three castmates like Leslie Bibb, Parker Posey, and Natasha Rothwell (the last of whom is reprising her role from season one), but it’s the clip of the K-pop star that’s causing the most stir. “Welcome to The White Lotus in Thailand,” Lisa’s character says in the clip.
It marks the first detail we’ve gotten around the extent and nature of Lisa’s role in the series, but the revelation that the singer-turned-actress will be portraying a hotel employee, and not a guest, has some fans confused. “Not Lisa being a housekeeper/manager at the white lotus?”, one user wrote in response to the singer’s character reveal, “why did i think she’d play some kind of thai socialite guest at the hotel.” Another fan seemed equally unimpressed with the supposedly minor role, writing that the “White Lotus producers gotta be jailed” for having Lisa “play a random resort worker.”
While some people expressed frustration about Lisa’s character reveal — perhaps assuming she will be given less narrative importance or screen time than the castmates playing hotel guests — many were quick to remind them that, historically, the role of hotel staff is pivotal to the broader story arc. “If you’re upset Lisa is playing hotel staff then you’ve never seen an episode of The White Lotus,” one user wrote, with another agreeing that “being the manager/receptionist is one the main characters and an important role in the series.”
Echoing the sentiment, one fan said Lisa’s portrayal of a hotel manager will be “a key role of the show,” and more broadly expressed excitement that “she’s debuting in a MAIN ROLE [for] her first ever acting” credit. This kind of excitement seems fitting, since it is true that hotel staff characters are just as important as guests in The White Lotus universe. In both of the previous installments, the hotel manager — played by Murray Bartlett in season one and Sabrina Impacciatore in the season two — played a crucial role not only in the guest’s intersecting storylines, but in compelling character arcs of their own.
This track record should come as promising news for Lisa fans, especially since Bartlett’s role was noteworthy enough to warrant his Emmy win for Outstanding Supporting Actor in 2022. Rothwell, who also played a hotel employee in season one, is returning for season three, in yet more evidence that BLACKPINK fans have nothing to worry about in terms of Lisa’s role. In any case, the K-pop star’s appearance in the teaser is one of the few sparse details we’ve gotten around the return of the series.
So far, we do know that the jet-setting satire, which was set in Hawaii in season one and Italy in season two, will this time take place in Thailand, with reported stops in Phuket and Bangkok. We also know that Lisa will be joined by already announced castmates like Carrie Coon, Fallout’s Walton Goggins, Harry Potter’s Jason Isaacs, and Gen V’s Patrick Schwarzenegger, reestablishing The White Lotus’ status as one of the starriest shows on TV.