The White Lotus has blossomed into the most talked-about television of the year. The HBO series, shown on Sky Atlantic in the UK, concludes its second series on Monday night, with a much-promised high body count, and a whodunnit almost as highly anticipated as Dallas’s who-shot-JR reveal.
The creator and showrunner Mike White has been a screenwriter for 25 years – he wrote the Jack Black film School of Rock, episodes of Dawson’s Creek and created the underrated Laura Dern vehicle Enlightened – but The White Lotus is his biggest hit to date. Its viewing figures have more than doubled since series one, thanks to a combination of online fan fervour and high-intensity, satirical drama that promises a rare unhappy ending against a backdrop of gorgeous scenery and excessive wealth.
The drama revived the notion of watercooler TV, with viewers having to wait a week to watch each episode, rather than bingeing it all at once, and the post-episode discussions on Mondays and Tuesdays, at home, in the office and online, have been extravagant and detailed, as fans try to work out what is going on. Its intricate and beautiful title sequence and excellent theme tune have also encouraged impatient viewers not to “skip intro” but to settle in for the whole experience instead.
Each series of the show takes place around a luxury resort named The White Lotus and follows the trials and tribulations of the mostly unhappy patrons and staff. It pits customers against workers, rich against poor, and somebody always dies. Series one took viewers to Hawaii, but this time we have been in Sicily, watching warring couples, and miserable fathers and sons as they attempt to enjoy their holidays and navigate their complicated sex lives. Spoiler alert: it’s not going well.
The theories
At the very start of the second series, the breezy young American Daphne goes for a swim, encounters a dead body and panic-paddles back to shore. Presumably, if it was her husband, Cameron, she would have made an effort to pull him out of the water, but that does not mean Cam is safe. When the hotel manager Valentina arrives, her colleague Rocco tells her that there is more than one body. “Rocco, how many dead guests are there?” she asks him. “I don’t know, a few?” he replies.
There has been carnage in Sicily, then. But why, how, and who? The caddish socialite Quentin (played by Tom Hollander) is in fact broke, and trying to separate lost heiress Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge, playing the only character to cross over from series one) from her money; it’s likely that a cocaine-fuelled tryst with the mob-affiliated Niccolo, hired by Quentin, has been filmed and will be used to blackmail her. We saw that Niccolo has a gun, and if Chekhov has any say, then it will almost certainly be used.
There are several motifs running through the show. There are the head vases, representing the legend of the Testa di Moro, or, as Daphne explains: “It’s a warning to husbands, babe. Screw around and you’ll end up buried in the garden.” There’s the recurrence of Madame Butterfly, another story of a cruel and faithless husband. And there are plenty of nods to The Godfather, not just in the location. The Di Grasso family – grandfather, father and son – tour filming locations, Portia wears a Godfather T-shirt, and in the trailer for the finale, Tanya is wearing the same dress as the mannequin representing Michael Corleone’s first wife, Apollonia. It’s worth pointing out that Apollonia dies in a car bomb intended for Corleone. White loves to make a point about the ultra-wealthy surviving while the workers pay the price.
Other questions still to be answered: who is the cowboy in the photograph with Quentin? The internet is suggesting it’s Greg, Tanya’s absent husband, and that he and Quentin are in it together. Is local sex worker Lucia really under threat from her aggressive pimp or is that another scam aimed at fleecing naive youngster Albie Di Grasso? Are glossy couple Cameron and Daphne actually broke, and hoping Cam’s old college friend, the newly wealthy Ethan, will bail them out, hence Daphne stealing Ethan’s wife, Harper, away for the night and Cam’s refusal to pay Lucia for her services? What happened when Harper and Cam went to the hotel room? And why is the theme tune so obscenely good?
So who will die?
Tanya
Survival odds: three Aperol spritzes out of five
She’s in danger, but The White Lotus has been renewed for a third series, so would White really kill off Jennifer Coolidge? Or will he do worse, and make her poor?
Portia
Survival odds: one Aperol spritz out of five
If White continues to ham up the cockroach-like survival skills of the wealthy, then surely Portia, the grumbling assistant having an existential crisis, should be very worried indeed.
Harper
Survival odds: four Aperol spritzes out of five
While she seemed a likely candidate for the chop at the start of the series, she’s probably in her room, reading, while the chaos unravels elsewhere.
Ethan
Survival odds: three Aperol spritzes out of five
In a series filled with awful husbands, Ethan is the last decent one standing: he didn’t cheat on Harper, though she doesn’t seem convinced. But the pressure is building now he thinks Harper cheated on him, and he looks like he is about to explode.
Cam
Survival odds: two Aperol spritzes out of five
Daphne has already explained what happens to cheating husbands. Is Cam going to find out for himself? And will Ethan be the one to do it?
The Di Grassos
Survival odds: four Aperol spritzes out of five
Surely Albie will find out that his father has also been with local sex worker Lucia – and grandfather Bert may be the one to tell him – but is that enough to push the terminally polite son over the edge?
Lucia and/or Mia
Survival odds: four Aperol spritzes out of five
Lucia has found herself in a pickle, but is all as it seems? I think they’ll make it, though I don’t think Cam is going to pay up.
Quentin
Survival odds: two Aperol spritzes out of five
It wouldn’t be very White Lotus to punish the true villains, but Quentin is on the edge of losing everything anyway. Will his plot succeed, or will he also end up in the Ionian Sea?
Jack
Survival odds: one Aperol spritz out of five
Quentin rescued “nephew” Jack from a deep hole, apparently, and presumably he is now employed by him, in a way. If he is the hired muscle, then maybe he will be the one to take the fall.
