Spoilers ahead for the most recent episode of The White Lotus.
HBO is known for being a hub for acclaimed television, and folks with a Max subscription are currently being treated to the third season of The White Lotus. The first five episodes have been wild, and the stakes are raising for all of the respective storylines. And, while the Ratliff brothers' kiss broke the internet, I feel like people are forgetting the crazy crap we saw during Season 2.
As some folks are figuring out how to watch The White Lotus Season 3, superfans like myself are dissecting every frame of footage for what might be coming down the line. While seeing Sam Nivola's Lochlan and Patrick Schwarzenegger's character, Saxon, lock lips was a wild moment that many saw coming, I maintain it's nothing compared to the Quentin and Jack storyline from last season.
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In Season 3, Quentin and Jack were introduced as a nephew and uncle who were traveling together at the White Lotus in Sicily. So when Jennifer Coolidge's Tonya saw them having sex with each other, both she and the fans were left utterly gobsmacked. Because this scene came out of nowhere and the Ratliff boys' story was more of a slow burn, I still think that the Season 2 incest plot line was way more of an unexpected plot twist.
Of course, there's been some debate among the fans about whether or not Quentin and Jack were actually related. There were hints that this was just the story they told while traveling; in Episode 6 of Season 2, Jack mentions Oliver's money problems and references "his family." And there's a long-standing theory that Leo Woodall's character was actually just a sex worker with no familal relationship to the older man.
Woodall himself weighed in on this debate to THR when Season 2 of The White Lotus was still airing. The 28 year-old actor got honest about that ongoing mystery, offering:
Mike didn’t say straight-up what it was. He sort of let me make up my own mind about it. But, to me, it was clear that Quentin wasn’t actually his uncle.
Even if Woodall's theory is correct, audiences thought that the two characters were indeed related when that wild sex scene aired last season. We obviously also know that Saxon and Lochlan are brothers, but it's been hinted for a number of episodes that the latter might be having some attraction to his sibling.
In conclusion, all the folks out there who were so shocked about the brotherly love in Season 3 seemingly have faulty memories of the debauchery this show has already given us. We'll just have to see how things go down with the entire Ratliff family, who look like they're about to explode into full chaos.
New episodes of The White Lotus air Sundays on HBO and streaming on Max as part of the 2025 TV premieres. We'll just have to wait and see what happens to the characters, and who makes it out alive.