You could predict the horrified responses to brothers Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Lochlan (Sam Nivola) hooking up on The White Lotus long before anything physical happened.
From the premiere of the show’s third season—in which Saxon asks his little bro what porn he watches, and Lochlan stares longingly at Saxon’s bare backside—it was clear there was something more than fraternal between them.
Sure enough, once the two finally kissed in Episode 5, encouraged into some light incest by drug use and the urging of chaos agent Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), the predictable headlines arrived. “Patrick Schwarzenegger’s ‘White Lotus’ incest scene divides fans: ‘Way too much,’” says Fox News. “White Lotus fans ‘disgusted’ by INCEST scene & rage that show has gone too far,” The U.S. Sun declares. Most diplomatically, The Hollywood Reporter offers, “‘White Lotus’ Fans React to That Incest Kiss: “My Jaw Is on the Floor.”
One can only imagine how those same scandalized viewers felt watching the March 23 episode, as Saxon and Lochlan remember snippets of their threesome with Chloe, including Lochlan manually stimulating his brother under a blanket. The Redditor who labeled the kiss “the nastiest thing i’ve ever seen on HBO” must have had to do some very quick re-ranking.
Anyone who understands the outrage industrial complex and its need to be fed knew that this response was as inevitable as the brother-on-brother action. The escalation of their entanglement will only provoke more clutched pearls, but the reaction to White Lotus’ turn toward incest feels especially performative.
It’s hard not to roll your eyes a bit at Le Bon’s description of Schwarzenegger’s challenge in filming the kiss scene. “For Patrick it was really difficult,” she told Vulture in an interview. “Patrick’s reaction in the episode is his genuine reaction. We all thought he was going to throw up. And Sam was like, ‘It’s fine, it’s just a kiss, calm down!’” I’m inclined to agree with Sam Nivola here—is it really that serious?
It should go without saying, but in the interest of making sure we’re all on the same page: Schwwarzenegger and Nivola are not actually brothers or even related, and this is a fictional drama. That doesn’t mean it can’t inspire a feeling of discomfort, like so much great fiction does, but that this need not be a moral question.
The way many people online are talking about the sexual relationship between the White Lotus brothers feels a little like the classic Twitter meme “shaking my head the whole time so people know I disagree.” In reality, it’s completely acceptable to consider what’s happening between Saxon and Lochlan to be good storytelling, or even (sensitive readers, cover your eyes) sexy. These are two consenting actors playing out a scenario that, for some people, might prove extra titillating because it’s so taboo.
This season of The White Lotus is far from the first time incest has been portrayed on television—it’s not even close to the first time it’s been portrayed on HBO. Game of Thrones gave us twin siblings-turned-lovers Cersei and Jaime Lannister, and Jon Snow bedding his aunt Daenerys Targaryen. The ongoing spinoff series House of the Dragon has continued to dramatize the Targaryens’ penchant for keeping it in the family. Incest has popped up on shows as varied as Boardwalk Empire (also HBO!), American Horror Story, Dallas, Bates Motel, and Dexter.
Outside of TV, it’s a plot point in classic literature, Shakespeare plays, and the Bible. More often than not, it’s depicted as something repulsive, or at least with a more overtly negative tone than the Saxon and Lochlan hook-up, but this isn’t exactly a line that never gets crossed.
Perhaps what makes the White Lotus storyline so triggering is that ambiguity. Are we meant to be disgusted or a little turned-on? Frankly, it’s hard to watch the initial kiss or the threesome in the most recent episode and not see something designed to stimulate. But a moment can be sexy without just being sexy.
In a New York Post interview defending the show’s “incest twist”—can something really be a twist if it’s been telegraphed from the beginning?—executive producer David Bernad noted, “[Series creator] Mike [White] is brilliant, and I think those big story turns are not just for shock. There’s a specific reason in terms of the narrative storytelling, and the larger thematic idea Mike is trying to get across.”
We won’t know exactly what story White is telling about these brothers until we reach the end of the season, but there’s already so much to unpack. On a thematic level, the Ratliffs owe a debt to William Faulkner, whose novels feature multiple instances of Southern family incest. There, as in The White Lotus, incest is often a manifestation of covetousness. Saxon’s obsession with Lochlan’s and their sister Piper’s (Sarah Catherine Hook) virginity betrays a feeling of ownership. He has spent the season trying to take possession of Lochlan, and it doesn’t strike me as out-of-character that his entitlement and desire for control over his brother would culminate in this sexual transgression.
The way it plays out, however, is even more compelling on a character level. The kiss and the threesome show a shift in the power dynamic between the brothers: Saxon is left disoriented and physically ill as he remembers a sexual encounter where he was out of control. Now it’s Lochlan (with apologies for the double entendre) who has the upper hand.
This opens up a range of possibilities for the final two episodes of the season. What does Lochlan’s new position within the family power structure mean for his future, and his ability to forge a new path away from Saxon or Piper’s influence? The question of what Saxon does to regain control feels equally urgent, especially as he’s now headed for a collision with Chloe’s cuckolded boyfriend “Gary” (Jon Gries), who we know is really dangerous scammer Greg Hunt.
No matter what the fallout is, we can feel confident that the Saxon/Lochlan hook-up will pay off—The White Lotus has proven itself to be the kind of slow burn where every interaction, large or small, propels the story to an explosive finale. But it also works as a moment unto itself, a dramatic climax the season has been edging us toward since the first episode.
Like so much of what White has done on this series, the incestuous yacht tryst blurs the line between comedy and tragedy, pushes the boundaries of erotic expression, and unlocks challenging new questions about the nature of its characters’ identities. That it’s also pretty hot is simply an added bonus.
