HBO’s The White Lotus Season 2: Some excellent full-body cringe

The White Lotus thinks we all fall for the same trick twice. Much like the first season, HBO’s acclaimed comedy-drama begins with a dead body on the grounds of an idyllic resort town, before looking back to show us the week before this mysterious person died. Also like the first season, everything is a ruse: sure, you’ll find out who died, but if you were expecting a thriller or a mystery, you’d be wrong. Instead, it focuses mostly on the foibles and self-destructive behavior of a group of wealthy vacationers at the eponymous luxury hotel White Lotus as they drink, spend, gamble, and weave their way into a kind of oblivion. Someone will end up dying, but the first victim is always you. The White Lotus always murders you, the viewer, first. with spasm.

The White Lotus is an anthology series, each focusing on a different location and cast. The first season was set in Hawaii; the new season, which premiered this weekend, unfolds in Sicily. While two characters overlap, the hotel chain is all that ties the seasons together, and each can be enjoyed independently of the other. So far, both feel very uncomfortable.

Consider some of the characters and arguments introduced in the new season of The White Lotus:

• The Di Grasso Men: Dominic (The sopranos‘ Michael Imperioli), his son Albie (Adam DiMarco), who graduated from Stanford, and his uncouth father Bert (F. Murray Abraham). The trio appear to be arriving for a cross-generational father-son bond, but their vacation seems to drown out the breakdown of Dom’s family – his wife has cut short the trip and seems to hate him, and Dom has hired Lucia (Simona Tabasco). , a local sex worker, to spend the night with him discreetly – a secret. Hotel White Lotus is just too small to keep.
• Cameron (Theo James) and Daphne (Meghann Fahy) Babcock along with Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Harper (Aubrey Plaza) Spiller: Cam and Ethan are former college roommates who have nothing in common anymore but have decided to be together to go on vacation wives. Immediately, the two become entangled in a performative masculinity tug-of-war as nouveau riche Ethan tries to pretend to be comfortable with Cameron’s attitude as a wealthy alpha brother and as Harper struggles to understand why they are there, and Cameron casually molests him, stripping naked when they have a moment alone.

Photo Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO

• Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) and Greg (Jon Gries), the only recurring characters from Season 1, come to Sicily as their blissful romance from the previous season has turned too sour. In her suite, a never-ending cycle of discontent fueled by Tanya’s narcissism and Greg’s neglect prompts a third victim in Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), Tanya’s assistant, who is forced to stay out of sight during her stay.

This can sound exhausting and it would if it weren’t so damn funny. Creator Mike White is a writer well known for both his story and history survivor contestant (two of his fellow contestants, Kara Kay and Angelina Keeley, cameo on the premiere), his tremendously insightful storytelling (his previous HBO series, Enlightenedis a beautifully contemplative work) and his scathing sense of humor (“It’s a penis, not a sunset!” exclaims one character, denouncing the appearance of his genitals).

All three of these aspects are present in The White Lotus: Even at their most despicable level, when they’re sweeping everyone around them, the characters never seem written from a place of contempt, however deserving it may be. In a way, it makes their demise all the more tragic, satisfying, or devastating. Happiness is right there: in the partner they brought, their family members, the beautiful place where they are lucky enough to spend time. Still, they prefer to look the other way, and we cringe because we know they would.

in the The White Lotus, Vacation is a revealing act. This is what happens when people set out to consume a place and that place ends up consuming them. That’s why it’s important that it’s a story about very wealthy people: money is a fire accelerant, like kerosene on tinder. Through this perfect holiday you will find yourself, how that one Stars song goesthat self-ignite just because there’s nothing left to burn.