The White Lotus creator Mike White has clarified his decision to axe a sub-plot from season three featuring a non-binary child.
Earlier this week, The White Lotus season three star Carrie Coon revealed that her character, Laurie Duffy, was originally meant to have a non-binary child who used they/them pronouns.
While the child wasn’t set to appear in the show, they were set to be referenced during a conversation in episode three, between Laurie and the two women she’s on holiday in Thailand with, Kate Bohr (Leslie Bibb) and Jaclyn Lemon (Michelle Monaghan).
As cracks began to show in the friendship group, Kate revealed that she is politically independent, but hinted at voting for Donald Trump in the presidential election – much to the shock of her left-wing friends.
“You originally found out that her daughter was actually non-binary, maybe trans and going by they/them,” Coon explained to Harper’s Bazaar. “You see Laurie struggling to explain it to her friends, struggling to use they/them pronouns, struggling with the language, which was all interesting.
“It was only a short scene, but for me, it did make the question of whether Kate voted for Trump so much more provocative and personally offensive to Laurie, considering who her child is in the world.”
Coon added that “considering the way the Trump administration has weaponised the cultural war against transgender people even more” since filming wrapped, White felt it “wasn’t the right way to engage in that conversation”.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, White himself addressed the plot ending up on the cutting room floor.
“It felt right in March of last year,” White said of why he included the plot originally.
“Now, there’s a vibe shift. I don’t think that it was radical, but that’s not the kind of attention I want. The politics of it could overwhelm whatever ideas I’m trying to talk about. And a lot of it was about time. Every episode is bulging at 60 minutes.”
Coon further confirmed on X/Twitter that White felt the story couldn’t be told with the “nuance and care required” in such a short scene.
White said that though the political climate came into play when deciding to cut the plot, it certainly wasn’t the only thing to get the chop.
“There’s a lot of stuff that ended up being cut. Not because it wasn’t cool, I just needed to be hard on the material. As a writer, I got a little indulged. The episodes were coming in at an hour and 40 minutes, and HBO was like, ‘Yeah … you need to figure out how to shape it.’”
Thankfully, much like her The White Lotus character, Carrie Coon is a certified trans ally: she shared a powerful statement on social media to mark International Transgender Day of Visibility, and spent time shutting down the trolls who attacked her for it.
The White Lotus season three finale airs on Sunday 6 April on HBO in the US and Monday 7 April on Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK.
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