The White Lotus is one of HBO‘s best series, including and especially because of its sense of humor. As a satire primarily about class, the series is rich (pun intended) with material about those who are out of touch because of their wealth, characters who are willing to do a lot to get ahead, and hotel workers who have to put up with a bunch of spoiled brats with nutty requests. The range of this cast allows for people of all backgrounds to provide terrifically funny lines, and they have been among The White Lotus‘ trademarks throughout its successful run.
Even its latest season, which wasn’t as humorous as the other two, contains some hilarious moments that rival its predecessors. These quotes can seemingly come out of nowhere, and even come from very minor characters, which is one of the most delightful parts of this show. People like Victoria Ratliff (Parker Posey) and Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) can have lists of their own, especially the latter, but below is a list that spans several characters and all three seasons. Ranked by how funny they are in context, how perfectly they encapsulate their respective characters, and how well the show sets them up, here are the 10 most sidesplitting quotes in The White Lotus so far.
10
“Is Greg having an affair?”
Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge)
Of all the times a character has asked another if her husband is having an affair, this has got to be the most outrageous. Tanya just shot several men, and she proves a surprisingly good shot. She’s still very upset by the whole situation, but at least she’s in control now. Dying on the floor, Quentin (Tom Hollander) rolls over and looks at his killer. The shot in his chest looks fatal, and it seems he’s knocking on death’s door. At this point, Tanya asks, “Is Greg having an affair?” and it’s no surprise that Quentin doesn’t respond.
This scene is very dark for the most part, what with Tanya crying as she kills several men who were clearly trying to murder her. But leave it to a show like The White Lotus and a character like Tanya McQuoid to still elicit a big laugh at such a time. The fact that she’s not even positive (or even cares in the first place) that Greg is being unfaithful, despite shooting down all these guys who were clearly conspiring with her husband, is pure Tanya.
9
“Yes.”
Quentin (Tom Hollander)
Another superb moment between Tanya and Quentin. When he was still in the process of charming her, Quentin took her to the opera, and for some inexplicable reason, Tanya is under the impression that she’s in the presence of Italian royalty. After looking at the balcony beside theirs, Tanya asks Quentin if the woman on her left is the Queen of Sicily. Tanya asks as if she’s already sure and just needs vocal confirmation from her more cultured friend.
That line is priceless enough, as no such Queen exists, but Quentin’s reply is arguably even better. He waits a beat, then calmly says, “Yes.” That pause is everything; the viewers can see him working through this in his mind and casually deciding, Why not? It’s a lie that she’s clearly not equipped to unpack, and his job is to impress her, after all. It’s just so funny that he didn’t need to answer in the affirmative, a decision that gets even funnier upon revisiting.
8
“I dreamt that I was on the top of this beautiful mountain range in Asia…and I had a cyanide pill…”
Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge)
There are so many terrific Tanya McQuoid quotes that even the other memorable characters in this series struggle to reach her level of comedic consistency. This quote is from season one; Tanya just had a spa session with Belinda that relaxed her so much that she fell asleep. She describes the experience to Belinda, and it’s very peaceful at first: “I dreamt that I was on the top of this beautiful mountain range in Asia.” Then, all of a sudden, she adds a detail that really throws us for a loop: “And I had a cyanide pill….”
She almost keeps going, too, completely unaware of how troubling the dream sounds from someone else’s point of view. Ms. McQuoid is surely an agent of hysterical chaos, and this particular moment is one of the shorter but no less precious examples. If only we could know how the rest of the dream went; it probably had enough twists and turns to make a full episode of top-shelf television.
7
“Don’t worry, it’s deconsecrated!”
Giuseppe (Federico Scribani Rossi)
The pianist at The White Lotus’ Sicily location, Giuseppe (Federico Scribani Rossi), is so turned on by a young lady that he’s willing to have sex with her when she approaches him out of the blue. She tells him that she’ll sleep with him in exchange for help with her piano career, but she wants to get it over with right now. It’s the middle of the day, and the only place that he can think to take her is a church. Mia (Beatrice Grannò) asks if he’s nuts, and understandably so. In the heat of the moment, he reassures her that it’s okay: “Don’t worry, it’s deconsecrated!”
Technically, it’s a good location because, as he says, no one goes in here. On the other hand, it feels like the reasoning he gives only makes it slightly less ridiculous. It’s great how Giuseppe has apparently already thought this location through, as if he’s used it for this purpose before, and the delivery of the line shows that he’s just as impatient as she is to get it on. It’s one of those moments when season two is having the kind of fun we regularly got from the first season; in fact, this storyline is hilarious throughout the entire episode.
6
“I nailed dinner!”
Armond (Murray Bartlett)
If you’re going to get fired, then you might as well go out in style. This is precisely what Armond (Murray Bartlett) chooses to do in the Season 1 finale. He’s got drugs, he’s got alcohol, and he’s just finished with his final White Lotus service. Whatever he took put him in quite a good mood, as he spent that dinner humming Johann Sebastian Bach, and now believes he did a flawless job. Armond’s pride comes through when he returns to his office and tells two lower-rank employees how well he did: “I nailed dinner!”
Armond is one of the most likable characters in The White Lotus, and this scene showcases that. His pride has been dialed up a few notches, and the line is written as if Armond’s a gymnast who stuck an important landing in competition. He even says it was the best seating ever, and we’ll have to take his word for it. Armond deserves to be disproportionately pumped up, and it’s so much fun to watch.
5
“Do you know these gays?”
Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge)
Back to Tanya. The finale of Season 2 puts her in a pretty rough spot. Trying to figure out how to get off Quentin’s yacht, she accidentally drops her phone in the water and seeks help from the boat captain. Her “friends” are too far away to hear or see her, so she could potentially get the information she needs. Unfortunately for her, this man doesn’t speak English. Of course, she’s going to try and communicate anyway, though. Pointing down and away, she asks him, “Do you know these gays?” Before the captain has time to reply, she whispers again, “Do you know these gays?“
What a classic move to needlessly ask the same question twice, as people often do when speaking to someone who doesn’t understand their language. Another famous line has her talk about Quentin and his friends as “gays” trying to “murder her,” but the awkwardness of meeting a new person, the clumsiness of trying to overcome the language barrier, and the extreme circumstances she’s trying to convey all make this interaction funny on too many levels. Overall, this is more proof of why Tanya remains the best of the characters who appeared in more than one White Lotus season.
4
“I am her, and I’m f*****g me.”
Frank (Sam Rockwell)
Assassins are supposed to be tough guys, badasses, usually straight. Not this guy, though: meet Rick’s old buddy Frank, who, after moving to Thailand, became an out-of-control sex addict. This whole speech is fantastic, as Rick has to sit and politely say “Mhm” as his friend from the old days describes when he figured out he wanted to be an Asian girl having sex with himself. After innumerable one-night stands with women, Frank started sleeping with men who looked like him while he paid an Asian girl to sit and watch. Frank would look at these girls and think, “I am her, and I’m f*****g me.”
Sam Rockwell is so good here: his wide-eyed stare, the pauses, the way he turns up the side of his lip in a crazed smile near the beginning of his monologue. Given this scene’s rather dark tone and ominous score, it feels intriguingly inspired by Colonel Kurt’s extremely quotable monologue in Apocalypse Now. Rockwell makes it much funnier, though, putting a nuanced spin on the myth of Narcissus, the American assassin, and the whole idea of you-think-you-know-a-guy.
3
“If that strange man is going to have my baby, he better be the best Buddhist in China!”
Victoria Ratliff (Parker Posey)
Once Victoria Ratliff learned that her daughter Piper was planning to stay in Thailand for a year, she wasn’t happy about it. Convinced that this monk is the leader of a sex cult, Victoria tries to persuade her daughter against joining. She doesn’t believe in Buddhism and doesn’t trust a culture so far removed from her North Carolina roots. Victoria tells Piper with great conviction, “If that strange man is going to have my baby, he better be the best Buddhist in China!”
This quote hilariously encapsulates just how ignorant Mrs. Ratliff is. She thinks the monk is a “strange man” because he dresses as a monk typically would dress, and she is apparently under the assumption that every Buddhist monk of considerable standing is a malevolent cult leader. Victoria previously confused Thailand with Taiwan, and she now invokes China as if all Buddhists come from there. Victoria’s detachment from reality is truly something, and Parker Posey makes the most out of this hilariously vapid woman.
2
“Yeah, maybe Grandpa was a power bottom! Does that make you feel better?”
Olivia Mossbacher (Sydney Sweeney)
Few conversations capture the generation gap better than the one in which Mark Mossbacher (Steven Zahn) reveals to his family that his father actually died of AIDS complications he contracted from having sex with men. Mark is mortified that his father led a double life he only just found out about, but his daughter Olivia (Sydney Sweeney) doesn’t think it’s a big deal at all. She and her friend Paula (Brittany O’Grady) wonder aloud about what position the deceased grandpa took during intercourse. Seeing how dejected her father looks, Olivia suggests that “maybe Grandpa was a power bottom! Does that make you feel better?”
The fact that she thinks her father would have more pride in knowing Grandpa was a “power bottom” is endlessly amusing. Being the kind of bottom who’s in charge is something a straight guy of Mark’s generation likely wouldn’t even be aware of. Overall, Olivia’s specificity with hypothetical details that her father doesn’t want to picture makes this one of The White Lotus‘ greatest quotes.
1
“She had to take me down!”
Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge)
The funniest storyline in the whole series might just be Tanya’s need to empty her mother’s ashes in the ocean. The woman is still in mourning, but she’s not with anybody she knew before coming to the hotel. This entire eulogy is basically just a very troubled person trying to pay tribute to a woman who deserves no such recognition in front of a bunch of strangers who are socially and professionally obligated to accept this as their fate for the evening.
Tanya started her speech in a positive light, but that changed so suddenly and so quickly that it’s almost impossible for the average viewer to stop laughing. At one point, she claims that her amazingly terrible mother “told me I would never be a ballerina, and that was when I was skinny! Poor mother, she just couldn’t handle her jealousy. She had to take me down!” At this point, it feels like Tanya started off trying to describe a Disney princess and wound up describing an evil witch. Along with smaller details (of course, Tanya would call her “mother”), everything comes together to make this a truly unforgettable quote from one of The White Lotus‘ most memorable characters.