“One of the most Unsympathetic Characters by the end”: Is Lisa’s Mook a Villain in The White Lotus Season 3?

The White Lotus season 3 is over and the finale was heart wrenching for many! While some fans are eagerly waiting for season 4 to arrive, others are busy looking back at the characters who were with us for an entire season. 

While we know what happened to the main cast, people are wondering about one character who didn’t have a major role to play this season- Lalisa Manobal’s Mook. Her character arc was connected to Gaitok, and by the end, both embraced when the latter got his much-deserved promotion from a hotel guard to a bodyguard. 

However, viewers felt that even though she was a shy, quiet, and soft person on the surface, underneath, she was hiding something. In this article, we will discuss whether Mook was a villain or not. 

Was Lalisa Manobal’s Mook a Villain?

It’s pretty clear that Mook wasn’t a straight up villain in The White Lotus season 3. She is a soft, shy, working local girl, and is a clear contrast to the wealthy, western, and rambunctious vacationers. Gaitok is taken by her and bashfully pursues her throughout the season while trying to figure out her true feelings. 

While she wasn’t kissing any siblings like The Ratliff Brothers, Mook was cunning underneath the surface. Gaitok pulled the trigger (per Sritala’s orders) and killed Rick, but it was Mook who quietly worked to make him abandon his pacifist values. Throughout the season, she implies to Gaitok that the path to their love is entrenched in clear masculine markers. 

She urges him to take the lead and be the protector and provider. She also hints that his prayers are interfering with his potential. Basically, for Mook to consider Gaitok, he had to take control and climb the social ladder. In a way, she was right. Gaitok abandoning and betraying the values of his temple to adopt a more aggressive and cruel approach did pay off. After all, it got him his promotion. 

This is also what results in him getting Mook. But is that what he wanted? After all, Gaitok wanted to leave the hotel when he couldn’t decide what to do with the robbers. Yet, changing Gaitok is what gives Mook the victory she was seeking, and she didn’t have to murder anyone, embezzle millions, or fight with her family to get there. 

With a beguiling smile, soft voice, and a careful approach that caused Gaitok’s spiritual collapse, Mook won out of them all. While the Ratliff’s are returning to financial ruin, Rick and Chelsea are in the afterlife, and the three friends are going back to their boring lives, Mook is the one who is going home with a possible better position in life. 

That is what makes her the most charming villain of the season. 

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Redditors Think Mook was a Complex Character

On The White Lotus subreddit, Redditors have a lot of views about the character of Mook. One thinks that her and Gaitok being together isn’t meant to be a happy ending. They said: 

“I found her to be one of the most unsympathetic characters by the end. She only seemed to interested in Gaitok as her idealised manly-man protector, and was actively turned off by his actual personality. I don't think them being together at the end is meant to be a happy ending, since she encouraged him to abandon his personal values in the interest of social climbing.”

However, another redditor is more sympathetic toward her and thinks she just wants to secure a good life through Gaitok. They wrote: 

“I read her character as an observation about the intensely competitive nature of rising to the middle class in Thailand. She is unabashedly using her marriage prospects as a means to secure stability in a feast or famine economy.”

But some are still put off by her seemingly only liking Gaitok for his job. One user wrote: 

“Gaitok basically point blank asks if she could still love him if he found another job that didn’t make him miserable and she said no.”

Another sums it up perfectly and says, “Both of them had reasonable but contradictory worldviews. They are a bad match for each other.”

Also, another user thinks Gaitok isn’t as innocent as he is made out to be. They wrote: 

“Right, it’s not meant to be a love story by the end. It’s a commentary on two people using each other to get ahead materially in life in a place where there aren’t a lot of economic prospects for locals beyond working at a hotel. Gaitok is meant to be unsympathetic as much, if not more so, as Mook by the end. It’s obvious from their first date he doesn’t really like Mook so much as the idea of Mook.”

What do you think of Mook? Is she a villain or just a well-written character? Let us know your thoughts.

Where can you Stream The White Lotus Season 3?

The White Lotus season three is now streaming on HBO and Max. If you want to refresh your memory, we have recaps of Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, and Episode 8. 

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