Opinion
‘The White Lotus’: The Root of Victoria & Tim’s Marriage Mess Is March Madness
The Ratliff family on The White Lotus is a house divided in so many ways.
Victoria (Parker Posey) and Tim (Jason Isaacs) are players in a marriage in name (and money) only, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) don’t get along at all, and I’m not going to even attempt to dissect the potential incest plot line between Saxon and Lochlan (Sam Nivola). But, the center of this fractured family stems back to Tobacco Road.
Piper and Victoria went to UNC-Chapel Hill, the nation’s first public university and home of the Tar Heels, while Tim and Saxon are Duke University alums and Blue Devils fans. No wonder Lochlan is questioning where he wants to go to college. He’s been thrust in the middle of the greatest rivalry in college basketball — and one of the many reasons this family has likely always been at odds.
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For context, only eight miles separate UNC and Duke’s campuses. A quick 10-minute drive down the road will get you to the Dean Dome or Cameron Indoor Stadium. With over 100 years of rivalry history behind these two teams, the stress in the Ratliff household over the Duke vs. UNC debate could break the strongest fan. No wonder Piper has dragged them all the way to Thailand.
Can you imagine the tension in the Ratliff house when the Blue Devils and Tar Heels meet on the court every year? I come from a family of four UNC alums (my mother, myself, and my two siblings), and watching games together is hard enough. My mother paces around the kitchen and living room (occasionally going outside for a “lap,” but really, she’s listening to the car radio), uttering “I can’t watch this” between expletives — behavior that’s more devil than angel.
And I can tell you the moment Victoria and Tim’s already unsturdy marriage shattered: Coach K’s final game. Tar Heels and Blue Devils alike will remember the once-in-a-lifetime season when UNC and Duke met up in the Final Four during the 2022 NCAA tournament just weeks after the Heels beat the Blue Devils at Duke, which also happened to be Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s last home game.
The game determined who would go on to the national championship and was also Coach K’s last game ever as Duke’s head basketball coach after 42 seasons. This also marked a new era for the Tar Heels as Coach Hubert Davis, a UNC basketball alum and assistant coach, had taken over for the beloved Roy Williams. (“The Carolina Way” is to keep it in the family.)
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The Ratliffs, I’m sure, journeyed down to New Orleans to watch the ultimate Battle of the Blues — Row 10 seats, mind you. Victoria likely took an extra Lorazepam after two French 75s, while Tim had one too many bourbons on Bourbon Street with his Duke fraternity alums who still think they can party like the “good ole days” despite being closer to the retirement home than college. Saxon joined him after pre-gaming with his bros and placing an overconfident bet on Draft Kings, Piper actually took a road trip with her fellow UNC girls to avoid the familial stress, and Lochlan had to make sure his mother made it to the stadium after she couldn’t figure out how to get there from Cafe Du Monde (she pronounces it “Cafe Du Mon-DAY”) despite having Google Maps.
Victoria and Tim’s marriage reached the point of no return when Carolina guard Caleb Love hit that game-changing three-pointer with 26 seconds left. The Tar Heels pulled away to win 81-77, sending Coach K home on a dark Tobacco Road after the most blistering loss in college basketball history. Your last game ever and the Tar Heels beat you? There’s no recovering from that.
If you’re a UNC fan, this is the game that you never let anyone from the opposing side forget — much less your family. There’s no way Victoria and Piper have let Tim and Saxon have a moment’s peace since then, rightfully so. It’s the acceptable type of annoying.
Saxon would try to lob an insult that UNC lost the national championship the next week, but the scent of sweet victory and Duke’s loss was still fresh. Most Tar Heels would take that win and Coach K’s total humiliation over a national championship. We have plenty of those on Tobacco Road, but there’s always room for one more.
Will Victoria and Tim’s marriage survive the Thailand vacation? That remains to be seen. They might not even make it out of there alive! But if they didn’t divorce after the 2022 basketball season, they might just live miserably together for the rest of their lives — or maybe just let eight miles separate them.
The White Lotus, Season 3, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO
