The fantastic White Lotus resort in Sicily is home to a collection of Testa di Moro, beautifully decorated objects in the shape of a human head, made by local artisans and true to tradition. As the receptionist informs newly arrived guests in the second season of HBO’s The White Lotus, the objects represent a tragic folktale: When Sicily was occupied by the Moors centuries ago, a young Moor seduced a local woman, but when she learned he had family in his homeland, beheaded him and used his skull as a vase.
It is a violent, folkloric story about such a distinctive work of art, which most visitors pass by indifferently. “It’s a warning to husbands, baby,” comments a sunny heroine to her husband. “If you do stupid things, you’ll end up in the garden!”
The action itself is not fast enough to ignore the dark truths behind the luxurious facades. Created by Mike White, The White Lotus became a surprise hit for the way its first season lampooned the richest of the rich by combining absurdist humor with sharp commentary on colonialism, racial politics and the concept of class.
The series followed a group of one percenters at the eponymous resort in Hawaii, observing how their privilege blinds them to reality and corrupts everyone around them, leading to conflict, cruelty and ultimately violence. They can’t help but want more, more, more – to such an extent that even being in heaven is not enough for them.
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Thanks to its massive success—including 10 Emmy Awards—White Lotus, once billed as a limited series, was turned into an anthology series. Season 2 takes place overseas, and with the move away from America comes a change in thematic focus as well. Down there, in the toe of Italy’s boot, lust hangs in the air. Male passers-by look proudly at the female visitors who wander the streets around the hotel. Two local luxury escorts, Lucia (played by Simona Tabasco) and Mia (Beatrice Grannò), prowl the grounds like sharks, looking for rich clients to seduce. Even Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), the only returning protagonist from the previous season, is in heat: Now married to Greg (John Grice), whom she met in Hawaii, but with a broken relationship that she is desperately trying to maintain. Inside the White Lotus, adultery abounds, couples engage in power plays, and flirtation reigns supreme between old friends and strangers. Money plays a constant role: an elephant in the bedroom. The rich have lust in their eyes and lust in their hearts that their wallets can satisfy to the fullest extent.
Photo: YouTube
For the most part, the shift from observing class and race politics to sexual politics works in White Lotus’s favor. Season 2 is just as juicy as Season 1, but not as searing in its approach. The director has said he wanted the new installment to have “an operatic feel” to match (perhaps stereotypically) its Italian location, and the story is certainly much more soap opera than before. There is not just one dead body, but many dead guests by the end of the week. The service employees play a minimal role this time, leaving more screen time for the perverted games of the tourists. These changes contribute to a show that feels strangely familiar yet excruciatingly refreshing.
After all, the director’s greatest asset, his talent for writing vivid characters whose perfunctory dialogue betrays their deepest insecurities, is still in full force. Aside from Tanya and her harried sidekick, Porcia (Haley Lou Richardson), the superbly fashioned ensemble includes quite a few cut-and-sew parts for awkward situations. There’s Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan (Will Sharpe), a nouveau riche couple who, thanks to Ethan’s start-up business, are just beginning to understand the tax ladder they’ve recently entered. They travel with Cameron (Theo James) and his cheerful wife, Daphne (Meghann Fahy), who seem to be living the perfect Instagram life, vacationing and not reading the news. Finally, there’s the DiGrasso family—grandpa Bert (F. Murray Abraham), dad Dominic (Michael Imperioli), and son Albie (Adam DiMarco)—who are ostensibly visiting the small town their family hails from, but each of them is distracted by love interests and sexual prospects.
Photo: YouTube
Photo: YouTube
The early episodes take time to build up the new ensemble, but the story doesn’t feel sluggish. Instead, each conversation gives a glimpse of how each character is unhappy in their own way. The director seems to particularly enjoy portraying the passive-aggressiveness that flows between married couples: Cameron is a paragon of swagger, Daphne is the bumbling housewife who may or may not have voted in the last election, and Harper thinks she understands the phase. She and Ethan are, after all, much closer to what’s really going on in the world. They give much of their wealth to charity because, as they boast, they are “not materialistic”. And yet, Cameron and Daphne look so elegant, so in love. They definitely have more sex. What do they have that she and Ethan don’t?
The answer, of course, is not as simple as real, unadulterated happiness. No one in The White Lotus lives a perfect life, and the director is careful not to present anyone as an absolute villain—each character is shaped by the structures that allow them to prosper financially. The DiGrasos’ shared fragile masculinity is hereditary, shaped by the entitlement that comes with their wealth. Even Albie, the youngest and most disgusted by his father and grandfather’s overt lust for younger women, thinks he respects his partners, when in fact he comes across as condescending. Tania is as vulnerable and needy as ever, as her money both takes her to places like Sicily and keeps her trapped in her shrinking shooting range. “It’s a nice feeling when you realize someone else has money,” he sighs to Porcia. “Because then you don’t have to worry about them wanting yours.”
Photo: YouTube
When it comes to affairs of the heart, then, the characters are doomed to forever question what is real. Sex is transactional, as Lucia and Mia keep reminding. Stable marriages like Ethan and Harper’s are shaken when one husband finds gold. The social circles in which the rich feel “safe” are getting smaller and smaller, narrowing their prospects but raising the stakes of every secret, forcing them to pay to keep up appearances. “I do what I want,” explains one character because he puts up with his partner’s cheating habit “so I don’t resent him.” In the end, as the series suggests, everyone is on their own. This might sound like a very nice conclusion to The White Lotus, but episode after episode, the director turns up the heat so no one gets out unscathed.
*With data from theatlantic.com
