Jaclyn and Laurie’s ‘White Lotus’ confrontation, explained by star Michelle Monaghan

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Season 3 of “The White Lotus.”

A fresh piece of gossip has hit the trio of longtime friends on vacation on Season 3 of “The White Lotus”: Jaclyn hooked up with one of the hotel’s wellness gurus, Valentin.

But this time, instead of talking behind each other’s backs, Laurie (Carrie Coon) confronts Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) about the betrayal in Episode 6 of the hit HBO show.

Monaghan tells TODAY.com she thinks the tense scene comes as a shock to her character Jaclyn.

“I think for Jaclyn, it was a pretty big surprise how upset Laurie was. I mean, Laurie really considers it a betrayal of sorts,” Monaghan says.

“I think for Jaclyn — from my perspective and from Jaclyn’s perspective, I think she was just having fun. Laurie didn’t hook up with him. I think Jaclyn was really sincere, like, ‘You should hook up with him!’”

Monaghan adds she thinks Jaclyn’s decision to hook up with Valentin was “very impulsive.”

“I don’t think it was malicious. I think it was something that she was probably going to tell the ladies the next morning, and be like, ‘You guys, guess what I did last night!’ Not thinking that it was going to be such a sore point, a pain point for them,” she says.

“And so when Laurie does call her out on her choice to do this, it becomes very clear that Jaclyn has done something that might be irreparable to this friendship,” she continues. “So she immediately puts her guard up. It will be interesting how (Episodes) 7 and 8 play out.”

The friend group drama began when Kate (Leslie Bibb) sees Valentin (Arnas Fedaravičius) leaving their villa early in the morning, waving bye to Jaclyn.

Kate immediately tells Laurie the news over breakfast. Laurie is angry, as Jaclyn had been encouraging her to hook up with Valentin all week as a rebound from her divorce.

While the trio is lounging at the pool, Laurie whispers to Kate that she has to say something to Jaclyn. The pair go back and forth about bringing it up, before Jaclyn asks what they are talking about.

“We know about Valentin,” Laurie says.

“What about him?” Jaclyn replies.

“That he spent the night,” Laurie says. “Well, how was it?”

Jaclyn says that nothing happened, and Laurie says that whatever happens in Thailand, stays in Thailand.

“I told you, nothing happened,” Jaclyn says, more forcefully.

Laurie says she needs a drink and asks for three margaritas before she starts the real confrontation.

“Can I just ask, and I’m just curious, why did you keep pushing him on me? When it was always your plan to hook up with him yourself?” Laurie asks.

Jaclyn says she never had a plan to do anything, and that she thought Laurie was mad since she was coming at her.

Laurie then reveals it was Kate who told her she saw Valentin coming out of Jaclyn’s room.

“It’s like nobody ever changes,” she says. “We’re still in the tenth grade — it’s just funny.”

Jaclyn pulls out her book, but Laurie isn’t done.

“This is what you always did. Never mind, forget it, it doesn’t matter,” Laurie says, putting her sunglasses back on.

Monaghan says she thinks the trio’s friendship exemplifies the reality, and complexity, of friend groups.

“The ladies all have something going on personally. But they’re turning up to this vacation feeling like they want to put their best foot forward, and so they distract themselves from what’s really going on by talking about some of the failures or some of the successes of each other,” she says. “I think that’s an easy trope for some people to fall into, and I think folks are finding it very relatable.”

Monaghan credits the show’s creator, Mike White, with choosing to explore how female friendships operate in this season of the show.

“I think he really wanted to tackle the idea of how women do constantly compare each other to everyone based on, again, failures and successes, and how we endure that as women and how painful that is,” she says. “And also how we perpetuate it as well.”

Jaclyn, Laurie and Kate’s friend group has been the subject of many memes as the season has gone on, from Kate’s forced smile to the instant gossiping that happens once one of the three is gone.

Monaghan says she’s seen some of the memes.

“I think what I didn’t expect was how much fun fans are going to have. I underestimated how much fun this part of the process would be — it’s such a fun journey,” she says. “I just love how invested they are in the show and in the conversation around it. I’m enjoying it as much as everyone else.”