Monologue writing is deceptively hard. When character revelations don't happen through action and conflict, they tend to show the author's hand, which you never want to do. They also can very easily feel like we've hit pause on the actual story, which is rarely a positive experience for the audience.
So to do them well, they have to feel absolutely organic to the character and the moment. And ideally they should emerge out of some kind of problem or conflict and be self-revelatory in some way.
WHITE LOTUS 203 has four monologues, which makes for all that much more of a challenge. They could so easily have felt repetitive even if they were well crafted (and these are). In fact, all four of them have the same setting, the speaker and someone seated and having a meal.
But every single one of them absolutely lands. And I think that comes down to the fact that in addition to being organic, they each serve a different purpose. Here they are, in order:
1) Early on we've got Portia talking to Albie over breakfast. And after she sees Albie taking meaningless photos and her boss having breakfast with her husband, she launches into a monologue about her life. And it's absolutely organic to the moment and emerges out of the nightmare that is her job and and also her life.That line: "Is everything boring?" It's all right there, isn't it?
It is in a sense your classic monologue, in that it's a speech given by a character which reveals what's going on within them.
2) A little later while on his family's cringey Godfather tour, Albie delivers a monologue of his own about how the Godfather is loved by his father and grandfather because it celebrates the "salad days of the patriarchy". Once again, it absolutely emerges from the moment—his grandfather and father's praise for the Godfather—and also a conflict: he feels uncomfortable with them saying these things (and probably more specifically saying them in front of Portia).
And while it, too, seems like its purpose is to reveal character, in this case the monologue is much more self-conscious. Albie is not just speaking what he feels; he's speaking out in front of Portia, who he definitely has a thing for. Consequently it's performative in a way that Portia's monologue was not. Actor Adam DiMarco even gives a tiny glance in Portia's direction when he's finished, indicating he's looking to see how he did.
So here the purpose of the monologue is really to impress (and perhaps in Albie's mind to defend). It's still self-revelatory, of course, but not in the way that Albie intends.
3) Later in the episode we've got Daphne and Harper having a drink, and Daphne delivers this unexpectedly deep monologue about how lonely it would be to be a man. It has that fantastic end line: "They think they're out there doing something important but really they're just wandering alone."
And once again, the monologue emerges organically from the moment. Harper doesn't seem all that comfortable with being a woman, and in reacting to that discomfort Daphne offers this monologue as why she would never want to be a man. It is self-revelatory insofar as it shows a depth of reflection and a wisdom in Daphne that we haven't heretofore known was there. But really the monologue's purpose is to reveal something of what she's seen in Cameron and other men. The scene cuts from her final line right to Cameron and Ethan on jetskis, reveling in doing exactly the kind of nonsense stuff she was just talking about (right down to playing chicken with and then chasing each other). But then we cut to them seen from above and they're just going in circles. It's brilliant.
I will say, this monologue doesn't really emerge from a conflict or problem within Daphne. It's observational. We even get a whole story about elephants in the middle. And yet it doesn't drag at all, and it definitely feels like her point of view rather than the author's. I think that's because it's so thoughtful and interesting, it holds us. The fact that it leads right in to the next scene also makes it feel that much more organic.
4) Finally, we've got Cameron's monologue to Ethan about how everyone cheats and monogamy is just this bullshit bourgeois idea used to control the middle class. And you could say that it breaks all the rules: it's organic insofar as Cameron is reacting to the fact that Ethan hasn't cheated on Harper, but it's Cameron who brought the topic up. It doesn't emerge really from any sense of conflict within Cameron, though you could argue his response is his way of disagreeing with Ethan's monogamy, so there's conflict of a sort there.
And while it is self-revelatory, it seems pretty clear that is not its purpose at all. This monologue is a seduction. Cameron is trying to break down Ethan's integrity, whether because he really does think it's bullshit or because he knows if he succeeds then he's got leverage on Ethan. (The fact that earlier in this episode Cameron pitched his company to Ethan, exactly as Harper warned, definitely suggests that everything he's doing here is about working his way into Ethan's money.)
Really, Cameron's monologue has the most in common with Albie's. They're both trying to sell something. But Cameron is a lot better at it.
WHITE LOTUS 203 is a great episode to watch if you've got a monologue to write. There's so much there to learn from.
