"The White Lotus" Season 3 premiere became a celebration of perseverance, as creator Mike White acknowledged a tough shoot in Thailand, and HBO CEO Casey Bloys directed attention toward the caterers that lost their restaurants in the LA fires.

Mike White’s first job as a television writer, in the late nineties, was on the teen soap opera “Dawson’s Creek.” It was a sentimental show, leavened by sharp, self-conscious dialogue; the titular character,