Oh no she didn’t. But oh, she sure did. The White Lotus‘s Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) showed her true colors 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 [creator] 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.
Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan, and Carrie Coon in The White Lotus S3.
Fabio Lovino/HBO
All season long, The White Lotus‘s Jaclyn has been urging her friend, Laurie, a divorced mom 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 recognize 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.
When the local women later confront Valentin and his buddies (I can’t tell you what they were saying since it was in Russian), Laurie suggests the guys come back to The White Lotus villas with them. Kate doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but Laurie and Jaclyn are all for it. And now that we know Jaclyn could care less about getting hot and heavy with guys who aren’t her husband on a dance floor, there’s no telling what she will do next.
But we know what she’ll do next, don’t we? Sure enough, later in the night, once the guys have come over for a nightcap to Jaclyn, Laurie, and Kate’s villa, Jaclyn and Valentin make plans to meet up after that. If she technically wasn’t cheating before, she’s about to now. But it’s not just her husband (who has yet to return her calls) who she’s betraying; it’s her supposed childhood friend as well. It didn’t matter if Laurie had yet to hook up with Valentin; Jaclyn basically declared that he was Laurie’s for the taking if she—and he—wanted to.
Personally, I’ve never had a friend go this far—ever—but I know it happens. And maybe just as bad, I have had friends (now ex-friends) betray my trust by telling people I had a crush on a guy, knowing it would get back to him. It felt like the most cruel betrayal, and I never understood how people who portrayed themselves as girl’s girls could be so careless with my feelings and their words. These are the same women that preach supporting other women, which makes you wonder if they’re just that clueless or if they just don’t care?
But does it even matter? No. Whether you ‘steal’ a friend’s crush or reveal something they swore you to secrecy, both are betrayals.
TBD on what unfolds next; the episode ends just as Valentin strips down and begins having sex with Jaclyn. Will she stop it? Does it even matter at this point? And if she doesn’t, how will Laurie react?
It brings me back to Coon’s quote: “[This storyline is] going to spark a lot of conversation about about female friendship and what it is to be a woman in the world.”
