The White Lotus Season 3 Episode 3 “The Meaning of Dreams” continues the HBO show’s trend of showing us the catty ways in which “best frends” Jackie (Michelle Monaghan), Kate (Leslie Bibb), and Laurie (Carrie Coon) turn on each another as soon as one of them is out of earshot.

**Spoilers for The White Lotus Season 3 Episode 3 “The Meaning of Dreams,” now streaming on MAX**

It’s been an ongoing round robin of toxicity that finally reaches its natural end point this week. A tired Kate can both see and hear her “coastal elite” buds Jackie and Laurie slam her for essentially outing herself as a Trump supporter that day. Does she confront them? No. She stares on, sadly, almost in resignation, before returning to bed.

In previous nights, Laurie was too drunk to cotton to the fact that her friends were shit-talking her “defeated” appearance and troubled daughter, while Jackie walked away from the sound of Laurie and Kate chattering about her obvious plastic surgery.

When these three women gossip about one another, they’re not only picking apart the carefully constructed fronts the others have assembled, but projecting their own insecurities. The White Lotus star Michelle Monaghan told DECIDER this was all the design of series creator/director/writer Mike White.

“I mean, that was the nature of Mike’s storyline for those ladies,” Monaghan said. “I mean, it was really on the page. It comes from, obviously, what he’s witnessed in his own life and what we can all relate to.”

“We’ve all experienced those kinds of inter-dynamics amongst friends and friendships and using gossip as a way of connecting and/or distracting ourselves from our own shit, so to speak.”

This season of The White Lotus focuses on many themes, one of which is that of identity. We’ve watched Rick (Walton Goggins) push away the council of meditation expert Dr. Amrita (Shalini Peiris) and Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) embrace the spirituality of Buddhist belief. There’s poor Lochlan (Sam Nivola), who doesn’t seem to know who he is or where he fits in, and even Greg (Jon Gries) masquerading as “Gary.”

Monaghan said it was “fun” tapping in and out, so to speak, with co-stars Bibb and Coon in these scenes in part because they were able to explore how “toxic positivity” serves as a mask for many people.

“Those shifting power dynamics, and one kind of playing the victim, and the perpetrator, and then, you know, the peacekeeper, and how that just continually shifts,” Monaghan said. “Yeah, it makes it really relatable, I think, for a lot of people, a lot of women specifically, out there.”

“That toxic positivity, that exists really front and center with those ladies, specifically at the top of the season.”

Monaghan’s comments that this “toxic positivity,” where they lavish each other with false praise in person only to slam the same person in private, suggests the charade won’t last forever. In fact, there’s footage in one of the trailers for The White Lotus Season 3 that sees the three women turn on each other at dinner.

So what exactly will happen to finally break through the frenemies’ agreed upon facade? You’ll just have to continue to tune into The White Lotus Season 3 to find out…