I felt left out when the first season of HBO’s The White Lotus became such a phenomenon.
I thought the writing was good in crafting the world and the acting from the cast was very good, but overall I felt disconnected from what the story was telling. I saw these characters so rich and having only rich people problems, or guilt, as they have different interactions with the less affluent staff. But to what end? It didn’t really end up saying much to me about those issues beyond good and bad. I never got a sense about what we were seeing otherwise. By the end, the rich guests are still disconnected from the poor and move on, and the poor are stuck or in even worse situations. I had nothing to think about after I was done with the series.
Despite my mixed feelings on season one, when the second season received good reviews, I wanted to see what was going on, and I immediately noticed different shadings on the second season. The opening theme started with classic Italian music meshing into a version of season one’s theme song. This Italian bent was so clever that it made me laugh. Then, when being introduced to the characters, I immediately felt something was different. I was more intrigued from the start. What connected them? How would their relationships build into a thematic spin? This season, relationships are the focus, and that was what made it such an improvement for me. For this new version of The White Lotus, that focus changed the distance between these characters and allowed them to be more open to us as viewers. Most importantly, it allowed them to grow.
What is fascinating about all these characters as individuals or as couples is the variety of ways we explore their feelings. As such, I became incredibly invested in them and their variety of relationships. For Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan (Will Sharpe) as a long married couple with new mega wealth, you felt the disconnection they were suffering but knew that their affection and love was still there. Both are given moments of grave doubt in the other, and we see them take it out on each other. The pain coming from both these actors is fantastic, and it is clearly based in the hurt and deep desire not for it to be true but because they still care.
F. Murray Abraham as Bert could have easily been just an annoyingly inappropriate grandfather, and he was that in many ways. But he was also a man with a past. We see his desire for reconnection with his roots and his memories of his wife that may be viewed through rose-colored glasses. However, he presents a character that, while at many times unlikable with his inappropriate behavior and views, still has feelings and pain that makes him feel real.
Sabrina Impacciatore as Valentina, the manager of the White Lotus, begins to allow herself to start looking for someone. That leads her to some missteps, thinking one of her receptionists is gay and likes her. But through this she finds a way to become a sexual being, and her journey isn’t so much finding someone in the end but that she now is in a much better place to find someone and having a wingwoman to help with that.
Even Jennifer Coolidge as Tanya was as annoying in the first few episodes as I found her in season one (minority opinion, I know), trying to live out fantasies in Italy with her husband. But once he leaves and we see her looking back on her choices in life while also having fun with “the gays,” as she calls them, she starts to get a lot better as a character. She goes from the falling apart, annoying character I wanted off the screen to someone where you feel her pain about her choices with men when she gives off-the-cuff advice to her assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), who seems determined to make similar bad choices in men as Tanya has.
I could go on and on about this entire cast, but what is amazing is that there is no wrong note here in the main cast’s journey. Mike White has such a clear hand in moving all his characters without everyone interacting, but all feeling as part of a whole in the journey of wanting something more fulfilling out of life through some level of connection. That may be a relationship with a significant other or with friends, but that there is a chance to be with someone at some point that will make things better. If there was a worry I did have it was with the ending with what happened to Tanya.
[Spoiler] Her death was fantastic on so many levels, defining her with the great line “These gays, they’re trying to murder me!” Then the utter ridiculousness of her accidentally dying after killing her would-be murderers felt perfectly in character. Plus, I thought the show would become overly dependent on her, so to kill her was very brave on writer-director Mike White’s part. The trouble I had was that her husband was behind this murder plot. It felt very over-the-top based on what little we knew about him, even though it was a perfect ending for Tanya as a character and led to my favorite moment with Portia and Bert’s grandson Albie at the airport questioning their choices.
This didn’t ruin anything but just gave me pause for a while, thinking about the show and what wrongly kept it from my top ten list. But what really got me overall is, despite everything the show throws at the characters, we leave with a sense of hope for the future for everyone. (At least, everyone who didn’t die.) Nothing is perfect, but we are left with the idea that the situations they are in are, for the most part, on the right track.
