The White Lotus Stars Preview the Fallout From [Spoiler]’s Surprise Hookup: ‘It Feels Like Middle School’

For Jaclyn, Laurie and Kate, their trip to The White Lotus is all about female bonding… but some of those bonds are about to break.

In Sunday’s episode of the HBO dramedy, Jaclyn (played by Michelle Monaghan) snuck yoga instructor Valentin into her room for a late-night tryst, even though she’d been pushing her friend Laurie (played by Carrie Coon) to hook up with Valentin all vacation long. (Read our full recap here.) So what was Jaclyn thinking when she swiped Valentin out from under Laurie’s nose?

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“I think she’s looking to have a great time,” Monaghan tells TVLine. “It’s really as simple as that. She’s looking for stimulation, and some validation.” (We know that Jaclyn was feeling insecure after being ignored by her hot younger husband Harrison.) Monaghan adds that the “toxic positivity” we’ve seen between the three women, where they gush about each other to their faces but then gossip behind each other’s backs, “is just starting to turn a little toxic.”

But the hookup was no big deal to Jaclyn, she reveals: “I think she has every intention of telling the girls about it the next day. Like, whatever. ‘We’re on vacation. Laurie didn’t hook up with him. I guess I will.'”

As for Laurie, Coon says that Jaclyn’s secret fling is another example of how the ladies are “just not being honest with each other. Jaclyn’s not being honest about her marriage, and how it functions, and whether it’s successful or not. She’s not being completely upfront with us about how things are going with Harrison.” She admits that Jaclyn sleeping with Valentin is “maybe not that big a deal. But it feels like a violation when people aren’t being honest.”

Plus, Jaclyn’s decision stirs up some old feelings of betrayal in Laurie, Coon hints: “What you learn is that Laurie suggests that this is an old thing that Jaclyn has done before. Now they’re grown women! They’re not in middle school anymore. But it feels like middle school.”

Drop your thoughts on the Jaclyn/Laurie/Kate dynamic, and all things White Lotus, in a comment below.

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