Inclusive Screen Weekly #28: The White Lotus and the case of the very unnecessary brother moment
Below Deck x Real Housewives crossover | White Lotus Review | Quick Fire: The Crow Girl, Treasure Hunt docuseries and more...
It’s been a big week in appointment television. We’ve had to say goodbye (or see you later) to The White Lotus, The Pitt, and Yellowjackets. Yes, I decided Yellowjackets still deserved a spot in that list.
Thank the TV gods, we now have The Last of Us, Hacks, and a quick Black Mirror binge to fill the void.
If you haven’t heard me rant about it yet, I’m a huge fan of The Last of Us. I played both games before the first season came out, and I haven’t been able to find a new game to fill that void. The second game was by far my favorite, and I cannot wait to see how it was translated to TV. If you like the show, I cannot recommend the game enough. It has some unique gaming dynamics that I think will be very hard to reproduce in a show, but make the story so much more heartbreaking.
Needless to say, you can expect some heartfelt reviews of the show from me every week in the Rapid Fire section. Starting next week :).
The story that stuck with me this week
Bravo finally answered the fan’s prayers and ordered a Below Deck x Real Housewives cross-over [Deadline]
For people who don’t know the Bravo shows, Below Deck follows the crew working on super yachts, and Real Housewives just follows the lives of rich women. Real Housewives always go on a few luxury cast trips during their season. We’ve seen a few housewives appear on Below Deck, but we’ve never had a full housewives group go on a Below Deck superyacht during their season yet. So this is huge!
The story gets even better if you’re a Bravo fan like me. The Below Deck crew will include Captain Jason, Chief Stew Daisy Kelliher, and Chef Ben Robinson. The only thing that could have made this better for me would be to replace Chef Ben with Chef Rachel.
The Real Housewives side will have the whole cast of Salt Lake City, which shockingly still includes Britany Bateman. I guess she what-about-me-d herself into the new season. I didn’t see Mary listed in the Deadline article, but she’s on the sneak peek photo Bravo shared on their Instagram.
What I’ve been watching
In the hot seat: White Lotus | Season 3
Where to watch: Max | My rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
My final take on the season: Was the bro incest storyline really necessary?
David Bernad, the show’s executive producer, explained in the New York Post that “as the season wraps up, you’ll see the purpose of that story turn. The show goes there for a larger thematic idea. I love that family storyline, especially the brother story — and, it culminates in a very satisfying way.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t see it. What was the “very satisfying” payoff to that scene? That Lochlan jerked off his brother because he’s a people pleaser? It was one of the weakest parts of the finale for me.
I’m really glad Loch didn’t die because of a stupid protein shake. Honestly, having him drink that final shake was enough to show how much he just wants to fit in and please his brother.
This season dropped the ball with queer representation even beyond the invest scene in my opinion. I’ve been working on a master list of all shows/seasons that came out in 2025 and have queer representation. As I started to put that list together, I struggled with this last season of White Lotus. In the end, none of the characters are confirmed to be queer. The only storylines involving any type of queerness are:
The unforgettable rant from Rick’s friend in Bangkok, where he admits to sleeping with men and wonders if he wants to sleep with asian girls or be an asian girl
The incest scene
A kiss between Chloe and Chelsea before the incest events, that’s more or less your typical girls get drunk and kiss as part of some group sex situation
The past seasons had some messed-up gay and lesbian characters, but they made sense in the White Lotus universe.
More reading on the White Lotus finale because it was pretty good, people pleaser incest aside. Others already wrote everything better than I could 😎 so I’ll just link to some of my fav reviews:
- makes some great points about Lochlan’s storyline being quite tragic, the great bookend on Belinda’s story, and the underwhelming plot around Gaitok and Mook
- writes a hilarious review from start to finish with some very great points around the Weekend at Bernie’s vibe from Tim the whole season, or how the Blond Bob group had the best platonic love happy ending out of any characters.
- made some very sensible comments around how no one seemed to react to the mass shooting at the end. Just imagine being at a 5-star hotel, and this is the end of your trip!
Rapid Fire Reviews:
I’m back to an emoji “rating” system because I can’t make up my mind, and the moon ratings were not bringing me joy.
🤪 Yellowjackets | Season 3 | Paramount+: The pit girl mystery finally gets resolved. I just didn’t care that much for it anymore. That rescue call from Natalie to Living on the Edge tho? That was great! I can't believe Shauna is just reminiscing about how great their trip to the wilderness was when she had to eat her best friend and lost her baby. Most of them are completely losing it in the adult timeline. I still hope we get a final season to tie up all the loose ends, like what happened to Caligula, or who the hell is Walter?
🤗 High Potential | Season 1 | ABC/Hulu: I was honestly shocked by how casually the cop plugged in a random USB drive into her computer. It’s the one thing that stuck with me since high school. Never plug a random USB drive into your devices. Other than that, the dynamic between Karadec and his old partner was great, and I’m hoping the FBI gets more play in future seasons.
🤯 The Crow Girl | Season 1 | Paramount+: I mostly watched this show to see if the two lead women would finally get together. Spoilers: They do. I have to admit that the crime thriller storyline eventually kept me watching. It was a bit hard to put all the pieces together at first, but I did not see the final reveal coming. It’s been a while since a show surprised me like this.
💅🏻 The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills | Season 14 | Bravo: Kyle’s still dodging questions about her relationship with Morgan, but she is not really denying anything. At this point, it feels like she wants to honor Morgan’s wish to not be on the show. I would love Jennifer Tilly as a full-time housewife, but she’s a bit of a wild card. The fact that she watches the show makes me think she’ll care too much about what the fans say about her online. Everyone gets a villain edit at some point, and I don’t think Jennifer can handle this.
😭 The Pitt | Season 1 | Max: This show really hit me hard. The end had me in tears, and I wasn’t expecting to care so much about every character. The parents of the sick kid with measles were especially hard to watch. I don’t understand how people care so much about saving kids from abortion, but parents are then allowed to deny medical treatment for their kid because they saw some conspiracy theory about vaccines on TikTok. The Pitt was the biggest surprise of the year for me so far and I can’t wait for season 2.
🎥 The Studio | Season 1 | Apple TV+: This feels like a show for TV & Movie nerds. The whole meta approach, where they do a whole episode in a specific style (eg. the 1-shot episode) while commenting on that specific style in the episode, works for me. I’m also shocked at how many guest stars the show has. No wonder Apple TV+ is losing money.
💰 Gold & Greed: The Hunt for Fenn's Treasure | Season 1 | Netflix: If you’re looking for a fun docuseries with funny eccentric people featured, this is a fun watch. The redneck family was my favorite. They were so confident in their treasure-hunting skills. I felt really heartbroken for them at the end. I was a bit disappointed to find out at the end that the whole thing was just a big ad for Justin’s new treasure hunt, though.
😤 Pulse | Season 1 | Netflix: I’m deep into my medical show phase, and this one feels like a cheap version of Grey’s Anatomy with a side of sexual harassment drama. At this point, I want to watch just to understand where they are going with that harassment storyline because it’s giving me the ick. I also like a good emotional soundtrack. It’s just hard to watch some of the characters being total jerks to the point where I don’t even care if they have a redemption arc.
😍 Black Mirror | Season 7 | Netflix: I’ll do a full review on Black Mirror season 7 soon because I have so many feelings about it. I’ve watched almost all the episodes already (just halfway through the last one), and it reminded me of some of the OG black mirror Netflix seasons. It’s much more focused on technology and has some clear callbacks to previous episodes. Episode 3 has a lot of similarities with San Junipero, which is one of my favorite episodes of any TV show ever.
I’m gonna be quoting this for days
That’s it for me! Now it’s your turn to let me know about all the interesting news and new shows you’ve seen lately.
I love your emoji rating system!! I’m watching The Pitt! It’s so good!!! I’m almost done the season.
I'm in love with The Studio. Every new episode is better than the last. Seth Rogen is an absolute treasure.