There are the sun-drenched locations, luxurious hotel settings and murder mysteries at the heart of each season, but let’s be honest, we really tune into HBO’s The White Lotus for its roster of despicable characters.

The show’s creator, Mike White, knows exactly how to create a character that audiences will love to hate, and this season is no exception. From the filthy rich guests to the staff who never seem to be able to just do their job, the Thailand outpost of The White Lotus is full of brilliantly awful and wonderfully insufferable characters.

We’re not at the end of the season just yet, but the guests and staff are already starting to show their true colours, and as their complexities are revealed episode by episode, some characters are becoming easier to hate.

So, what better time to rank the class of season three of The White Lotus in a league table of awfulness, from least annoying to most insufferable?

Be warned, there are spoilers for season three ahead!

Returning character Belinda (played by Natasha Rothwell) is living her best life in Thailand – she’s picked herself up after Tanya promised to help her start her own business and then ran out on her. Her son, Zion, with whom she seems to have a great relationship, has just joined her, and she’s even found a love interest in her mentor, Pornchai. We wish nothing but the very best for our Belinda.

Kind, gentle Mook (Lalisa Manobal) is the hotel’s health mentor who has so far given us few reasons to find her annoying. She’s nothing but smiles and politeness with everyone she interacts with, but we all know looks can be deceiving at The White Lotus. As unlikely as it may appear on the surface, could there be a downward arc for Mook in the last couple of episodes?

Sweet, endearing Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) has a heart of gold and an outlook of pure sunshine, so why oh why is she tailing around after her despicable boyfriend, Rick (more on him later)? Chelsea sees the good in everyone, constantly trying to encourage Rick out of his dark moods and worrying about him when he runs off to Bangkok mid-season, leaving her behind. She’s not nearly as annoying as some of the other hotel clientele, but we do want to sit her down and ask her what on earth she sees in Rick.

Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) seemed like a lovable character at first, albeit one short of backbone. However, he’s shown himself to be rather poor at his job as the hotel’s security guard: first, a smash-and-grab robbery happened on his watch; then, his gun went missing from the front gate office because he was distracted by Mook (who he’s clearly besotted with). Not only did he put the hotel at risk, but our spineless security guard didn’t alert anyone to the incident for fear it would cost him his job – which it probably should have.

Laurie (Carrie Coon) strikes us as a smart, accomplished woman, so why is she hanging around with her abysmal school friends, Jaclyn and Kate? She wails when she spies her friends staying up late without her, yet shows no restraint to gossip about each of them behind their backs when given half a chance. When she antagonises Jaclyn about sleeping with Valentin, the yoga instructor, it shows a nasty streak. The cracks in this toxic friendship trio are beginning to show.

Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) is our overly earnest twenty-something of the season. A lost soul, she’s lured her family out to Thailand under the pretence of getting some research done for her thesis on Buddhism. However, she’s really there because she wants to join a monastery after she’s graduated, which is a fairly manipulative act to pull on your own parents and siblings. She despises her abhorrent, culturally disrespectful family, while completely overlooking her own entitlement.

Complicit in the ostracising of Laurie and always making sure she’s aware of her lower ranking in the trio, Kate (Leslie Bibb) is a ferocious gossip – these three women clearly love talking about each other more than to each other. When she outs herself as a Trump voter, it shocks her friends, which flips the friendship dynamic and positions her as the outcast (which compels her to use her only currency – gossip – to an even greater extent).

It’s hard to hate Victoria, the matriarch of the Ratliff clan, because she’s so entertaining to watch. Played to perfection by the brilliant Parker Posey, she has all the best lines (“We flew over the North Pole!”), but we can’t overlook Victoria’s cultural ignorance. When her daughter, Piper, reveals her intent to live in a Thai monastery after graduating, she goes ballistic, exclaiming, “You want to live in Taiwan?” This is a lady who doesn’t even know what country she’s in. She’s self-absorbed, constantly pining for her lorazepam, and once she gets going, there’s no stopping her stream of insults about Buddhism, its practitioners and, bizarrely, Hillary Clinton (by conflating the politician with Charles Manson).

This queen of the humble brag was an easy contender for the latter half of this list. As a famous TV star, Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) obviously considers herself in a class above Kate and Laurie and is more than happy to assume her position as leader of the group. But her worst behaviour occurred when, after encouraging Laurie to hook up with Valentin, she then slept with him herself – cheating on her boyfriend, Oliver, in the process.

As far as annoyingness ratings go, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) is up there. A classic all-American ‘bro’, he “just loves working”, as he tells his dad, whom he works for. He bullies his siblings endlessly, tries to mould his younger brother, Lochlan, into his wingman and displays predatory-like behaviour as he attempts to hit on as many women around the hotel pool as possible. However, as over-confident as he is, there’s a vulnerability to Saxon that we’re now starting to see shine through – is it all just bravado?

We’re getting into the real scoundrels of the season now, and Rick is definitely up there with the best of them. Skulking around with the pouty face of a teenager, he’s rude to staff and even ruder to his ray of sunshine girlfriend, Chelsea (not to mention he doesn’t seem overly concerned when she’s involved in an armed robbery or when a snake – that he let out of its cage – bites her). He clearly has no intention of paying Chelsea any attention and has ulterior motives for being at the hotel. It’s not until later on that we discover his reasoning (wanting to avenge his father’s murder), which does encourage some sympathy for the grumpy, rich white man with anger issues. We said some.

Meek at first glance and awkwarder than awkward, Lochlan (Sam Nivola) is this season’s answer to season two’s Albie. But there’s something sinister under the bumbling, mumbling college student front, which has now fully come to light after he peer-pressured his older brother, Saxon, into taking drugs at a full moon party (despite his resistance) and then proceeded to engage in incestuous acts with him. Wherever this plot line is going, we’re pretty sure we’re not going to be team Lochlan by the season finale.

On arrival, Tim (Jason Isaacs), the patriarch of the Ratliff family, shows no sign of wanting to partake in the hotel’s no-phones policy, despite his daughter’s insistence. He started off the series rude and ignorant, but now he’s days away from being exposed for money laundering and bringing shame on his whole family, he seems to be having something resembling an epiphany. A privileged white man who’s only remorseful now that he knows he’s going to be caught? We see through you, Tim.

Now living in Thailand with his new, much younger girlfriend, Chloe, Greg (Jon Gries) now goes by the name of Gary, having got away with the plot to murder his wife Tanya (and therefore inherit her fortune) that formed the finale of season two. He hasn’t said much so far this season, but Belinda’s onto him, having recognised him as Tanya’s husband. Now, it looks like he’s plotting something against Belinda, which we sincerely hope doesn’t come to fruition.

Images: HBO