Jennifer Coolidge returns to play Tanya
(Picture: © 2022 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved. HBO® and all related programs are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.)When The White Lotus, a show about the one percent behaving badly on holiday, came out in July 2021 it immediately earned itself a crowd of dedicated fans. It was nominated for 11 Emmys (winning five) and catapulted Jennifer Coolidge back into the limelight. Now it’s back for round two and creator Mike White has upped the ante in sun-soaked Sicily.
Not only are the surroundings even more opulent, as characters take trips to palazzos and party on yachts on the sparkling blue Med (the series was filmed at the Four Seasons Palace), but they’re richer, too, spending thousands a night on services rendered. Even when it comes to death, more is more, as the show seems to open with several bodybags – clearly, one was not enough for this sex-driven sequel.
If season one was a meditation on loneliness and connection (within relationships, families, jobs), season two is a meditation on lust. The fact that two of the second season’s main characters are sex workers is a testament to this. Friends, new acquaintances, married couples and even families – no one is spared from the explosive effects of this insatiable force. The result, naturally, is that season two is much, much darker. Carnal desires don’t always lead to marital bliss.
It’s a battle of the morals – which get increasingly blurred as the show goes on, and White adds only a sprinkling of Catholic guilt for balance. For the most part, it’s hedonism that rules at The White Lotus. What is it about a holiday that makes people well and truly lose the plot? White seems to ponder. Are we all just waiting for the right moment to succumb? Or is that just the moneyed?
The fantastic Tanya McQuoid (Coolidge) is back, this time being courted by some flamboyant gay men (one of whom, played by Tom Hollander, is a long-term retiree after inheriting his father’s estate, and whose charm and generosity mask something much, much darker). She is as madly insecure as ever, but this time she has assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) with her too. Is this the best job in the world or the worst? At times Portia gets shooed from restaurants and told to sit in bathrooms awaiting orders, and at others, she gets invited to party at private villas and spends days by the pool. Portia doesn’t care much either – she’s a confused, overwhelmed millennial just looking for an adventure away from her phone.
There is a grandfather Bert (F. Murray Abraham), father Dominic (Michael Imperioli) and son Albie (Adam DiMarco) – who are all randy in their own special way, and who also become entangled with the two sex workers, Lucia and Mia, (played by Simona Tabasco and Beatrice Grannò) who spend their days lounging around the pool looking for their next customer (who may also be their ticket to a new life). As do two college roommates, Cameron and Ethan (played by Theo James and Will Sharpe), who are holidaying with their wives. Both have hit gold in their careers, but happily, the geek rather than the jock now earns the most – giving him the higher status he always sought. Ethan’s wife Harper (Aubrey Plaza) is uptight and well-read, rolling her eyes because Cameron’s wife Daphne (Meghann Fahy) doesn’t vote.
In season one White also anatomised inequality – more obviously between the staff and the guests, but also the fallout from financial imbalances in relationships and friendships. But in season two he doesn’t push on with the same exploration. Staff, other than the (often enjoyably) demanding manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore), who clip-clops around her hotel, falling in love with one of her receptionists and trying to flush out the escorts, are secondary figures. Instead, the main focus lies on the new cast, who are as thrillingly awful a bunch as the last.
That’s White’s magic. While he seems to be constantly making fun of his characters – who are most often sickeningly vacuous and vain – they are also often likeable, and every now and then thought-provoking. Each storyline seamlessly intertwines with the others as the plot thickens, never seeming forced.
As our obsession with shows about the ultra-rich, in inaccessible locations, being incredibly, well, lame (The Crown, Succession), continues, The White Lotus stands out. As funny as ever, if slightly seedier, the second series is a brilliant rumination on desire and its destructive capability.
