Warning: This post contains spoilers for “The White Lotus” Season 3.
Timothy Ratliff’s world is beginning to crumble around him in the second episode of the new season of “The White Lotus.”
After the businessman and father of three, played by Jason Isaacs, receives a call from a Wall Street Journal reporter while on vacation in Thailand in the first episode, it’s clear he believes he may be implicated in his business partner’s dealings in Brunei.
Tim tells the reporter he hasn’t spoken to Kenneth in years and hangs up. But immediately after, he dials Kenny and tells him to call him back as soon as possible.
While Kenny doesn’t call back until Episode 2, the voice on the other end of the line is quite a surprise: It’s none other than Oscar-award winner Ke Huy Quan.
Over the phone, Kenny tells Tim he doesn’t care about the Wall Street Journal story because 20 agents had just raided his office, and he fears he could go to prison.
“You told me this couldn’t happen — remember that?” Tim tells Kenny. “You f—— swore that this could not happen!”
Kenny says he didn’t think a whistleblower in his office would rat him out to both the press and the FBI. Tim asks what exactly the media and the feds know, and Kenny says they have “everything” and that he had gotten a lawyer.
“Just tell me: Am I implicated?” Tim asks.
“Yes! For sure, Tim, yes,” Kenny replies.
Tim asks Kenny if he’s sure, and his business partner replies that he had purchased a burner phone just to talk to Tim — and that he needs to get a good lawyer, “like, yesterday.”
Tim puts his hand over his mouth and says: “You’ve got to be f—— kidding me.”
“This was a favor to you, remember that? I didn’t want to do it, this was all you,” he continues. “And now I’m wrapped up in some f——money laundering, bribery situation? And I only made $10 million out of your stupid f—— scheme? F—!”
Kenny seems to start crying on the phone, and then Tim lays out a thinly veiled threat.
“I swear to God, Kenny, if you f— me on this, I will kill you,” he says. “I will f—— kill you. You hear me?”
Kenny replies, “If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to f—— kill myself!”
Tim calls him a “piece of s—” and tells him to do it.
The camera then cuts to the hotel’s security guard, Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), in the security station, who appears to have heard Tim’s entire side of the conversation — though Tim never noticed him in the booth.
It’s unclear if Quan will ever appear in-person in the third season of the show. The fate of Kenny and Tim’s business dealings have yet to be revealed in the third season of the hit HBO show.
But Tim isn’t the only one in trouble with the authorities — Gaitok has issues of his own now, too. Earlier in the episode while chatting with Valentin, one of the hotel’s wellness guides, as he’s leaving the resort on his motorcycle, Gaitok accidentally lets a car pass through the security checkpoint.
After the black SUV passes through, Valentin then promises Gaitok tickets to a big fight his friend is in later in the week.
The SUV speeds to the front of the hotel, and a man wearing a face mask, sunglasses, white hoodie and a backpack jumps out of the car and walks inside.
He heads straight for a shop inside the hotel, and pulls out a gun on Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and the shopkeeper. He starts breaking open glass jewelry cases by smashing the gun through the top and putting the pieces in his backpack — all while the rest of the hotel is unaware an armed robbery is underway.
Chelsea and the shopkeeper stand in the corner with their hands up, and the man leaves after taking a few items, including a snake necklace Chelsea had been eyeing.
After he runs out, Greg’s (Jon Gries) girlfriend Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), who had been in the fitting room the entire time, comes out and asks, “What the f— was that?”
Outside the hotel, the car pulls up to Gaitok’s security checkpoint, and the masked man gets out of the car to try to lift up the gate himself. Gaitok tries to stop him, and the pair begin to struggle until the masked man pistol-whips Gaitok, sending him to the ground.
The car speeds away, the authorities are called and an investigation is underway at The White Lotus. Chelsea and her boyfriend Rick (Walton Goggins) reunite after the robbery, and they end up getting dinner with Chloe and Greg, who now appears to be going by the name of Gary.
While the four are getting dinner, Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), the spa manager from Season 1 who’s set to spend three months at the hotel chain in Thailand, looks up from her own dinner and spots Greg for the first time since they met at the resort in Maui.
Belinda seems to rack her brain on how might know him, but she ultimately shakes her head and starts to look at the menu.
While all the characters’ plotlines are heating up, the episode ends with Tim looking at his family walking into their villa while he sits on a pool chair, before he gets up and walks in behind them.
