You’ve probably met her quite a few times before. At Freshers Week, when she held your hair back while you were sick in a bush. In the club toilet, when she said your boyfriend “sounded like a prick” because she overheard you complain that he never posted you on socials. At the office Christmas party, when she whispered, “Babe, your bra strap is showing,” before the boss took a group pic. Maybe she’s actually your best friend that you’ve known since secondary school. Maybe she’s actually you. Maybe she’s all of us. I’m talking, of course, about Chelsea, Aimee Lou Wood’s character in The White Lotus, AKA the people’s princess, AKA our Chelsea.
I knew I recognised her when she said, “You need to sort your shit out, you’ve got issues,” swiftly followed by, “Oooh, hey, maybe we should get fucked up tonight?” Or when she said, “I don’t mean to complain, but that’s not very much,” when the hotel waiter gave her some wine to taste. Or when she turned her back on American rich boy Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) because she can spot that shit from a mile off. She’s relatable in a way that’s hard to pinpoint, but easy to recognise, as familiar to British viewers as blue, red and yellow (the Lidl colours) or the affectionate suggestion of “let’s get pissed” (which Chelsea says in episode one). While watching, I turned to my partner no less than three times to say, “Yeah, that’d be me in that situation.”
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It’s not often that we get to see authentic-feeling British characters in a major American show, least of all the good-time girl. Mostly, we’re subjected to icy, upper-class versions of British culture, or the equally cartoonish swaggy cockney trope (it’s either Bridgerton or the Artful Dodger, there’s no in-between). But Chelsea’s a regular girl from Manchester. She wants to have fun, just like us. She’s a girl’s girl, with a boyfriend who’s essentially emotional deadweight.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen British representation that feels genuinely accurate in The White Lotus, actually. In season two, we were given Leo Woodall’s Jack, an Essex boy that sat somewhere between TOWIE and Cook from Skins. “I immediately recognised his energy,” wrote Hannah Coates for British Vogue at the time, adding that the lads were finally “getting the attention and appreciation they deserve”. In fact, Woodall’s swagger was so realistic that I was genuinely shocked to discover the man actually came from Shepherd’s Bush. Still, it felt fun to see a person you know so well IRL, but whom you rarely see portrayed correctly in a fictional sense.
There’s still much to find out about these characters, and the directions they’ll take in season three; if we’ve learned anything from prior seasons, it’s that you never know where The White Lotus will end up based on the first couple of episodes alone. Still, Chelsea is already our favourite character. And, more than just a character, she’s also everyone we know. Or want to know. Or at least go on holiday to Thailand with.
