Jake Lacy’s Shane gives supreme ‘Wait til my mother hears about this!’ energy in HBO’s limited series, The White Lotus. As a privileged newlywed, Shane believes he should always get what he wants because he deserves it. Whenever he doesn’t get his way, he throws an epic, and prolonged hissy fit that outlives his entire vacation in Hawaii. Lacy successfully tinkers with his nice guy persona and proves that douchebags truly finish first.
What’s so great about Lacy’s performance is that, on some level, you side with Shane’s plight. Not only did he catch Murray Bartlett’s Armand in a lie about the room, but the hotel manager won’t admit to his mistake. Shane’s reaction and behavior is the disturbingly perfect depiction of someone with so much wealth and influence that their brain is warped to how other people live their lives. You can see that frustration in Lacy’s body language. He constricts and releases tension like a fist grabbing desperately at money floating through the air.
Lacy and Barlett worked closely with creator, writer, and director, Mike White, on how to build that tension throughout the season. Shane’s relationship with his wife, Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), is entirely different dynamic, but he doesn’t understand why having a trophy wife would necessarily a bad thing. Lacy doesn’t make Shane entirely a bad person. The love Shane has for Rachel is from a real place, but it’s too bad that his obsession with the right room could cost him his marriage.
The White Lotus is streaming on HBO Max.