Mike White’s masterly series takes a new gang of shiny unhappy people to a Thai resort and serves up a sumptuous feast for the senses. This is killer TV

Eight to a dozen affluent Americans, half of them hiding a dark secret as they head to a glamorous location for a luxury vacation, the other half complicating the issue by creating some dark secrets of their own. A dead body ruining everyone’s fun but increasing the audience’s exponentially. Shiny unhappy people getting their just deserts by the end of an immaculately plotted eight-hour series. Yes, my friends, we can only be back at the White Lotus.

Written and directed as ever by Mike White, this time he is taking us, his new gang and one or two familiar faces to Thailand. We have the family group, with Parker Posey (possibly Parker Poseying it slightly too much in a part that doesn’t demand as much kookiness as she brings to it) as Victoria Ratliff, a heavily medicated Southern belle and wife of wealthy businessman Timothy (Jason Isaacs). They are the parents of three children: the enjoyably appalling chip-off-the-old-block Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger – and the answer to your first question is yes, he is; the answer to the next one is, no, he’s actually very, very good); idealistic daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), who is writing her thesis about eastern religion and at whose behest they chose Thailand as their holiday location; and sweet, gentle Lochlan (Sam Nivola), who may be trying to work out how to come out as gay in a family that does not seem to accommodate much difference.