The White Lotus Season 3: Michelle Monaghan Teases Jackie’s Wild Choices and Downward Spiral; What Happens Next?

Michelle Monaghan breaks down Jackie’s destructive choices in The White Lotus Season 3 Episode 5. Read on to know the details.

Written by Ipshita Chakraborty , Entertainment Journalist

Updated on Mar 19, 2025 | 06:51 PM GMT | 1.9K

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The White Lotus Season 3's newest episode, Full-Moon Party, submerges Jackie (Michelle Monaghan) and her entourage - Kate (Leslie Bibb) and Laurie (Carrie Coon) - in a night of decadence and treachery that graduated into something much darker than just a care-wrecking evening.

The group, swayed by the charms of their wellness guide, Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius), and his accompanying Russians, dives headfirst into an ocean of alcohol, dancing, and reckless fun. What begins as a boozy night gets concluded in the villa pool — followed later by a show in Jackie's bed.

Jackie, in her 30s, married to an unfaithful younger man, crosses the line and sleeps with Valentin. It is a double betrayal: against her marriage and Laurie, her mate, to whom she had practically spent a week egging on to go after Valentin. But Jackie enjoys the thrill anyway.

What she does might be driven by something that surpasses mere lust. Jackie's craving for attention is subliminally present all through the episode: around men, from younger women who covet her, and from anyone who comes close to buttressing her dying self-esteem. This craving for acknowledgment drives her obnoxiously reckless behavior.

Michelle Monaghan says Jackie's choices are more than just wild fun. Underneath those polished, Hollywood-perfect appearances, she is, in fact, coming apart at the seams. Jackie overtly seems to embody confidence and charm all day and fits the profile of a woman who has it all. However, the facade begins cracking throughout the season, revealing her deep loneliness and emotional emptiness.

"We start to see her, I guess, sort of kind of devolve," Monaghan said to Decider. She added, "We see her initially very like in her power, right? This perception, this idea, that she's this Hollywood actress. She's very happy. She kind of basically has it all. And then we start to slowly reveal that she's kind of lonely, I would say, and she's a little bit sad."

As their friendship experiences instability, Jackie, Kate, and Laurie begin to find the ties that hold them together, which are often eroded by passive-aggressive gossip that distances Jackie more and discourages any thought of reconciliation. The search for adrenaline, even at the expense of self-destructiveness, now becomes her form of aliveness.

"She's not getting what she needs from the ladies, and she needs a little bit more validation. I think, you know, she realizes she needs to be more stimulated. It's not happening at this detox place. She wants to get outside in Thailand," Monaghan noted.

The actress explained, "She wants to go and have a day, have a night," adding that it may not be the best choice, but drinking and dancing with the mysterious Russians provide her with a certain thrill.

She said, "I think there's a little self-sabotage in there. And I think she's trying to fill her cup and looking for validation in kind of all the wrong places."

The White Lotus season 3 airs on Sundays on HBO Max.