“The White Lotus”: A Late-time Emmy Winner’s Companion to David and Tanya in “The Lost Lot”
The first thing it brought home was that the sex in the visit to “The White Lotus” tended to be transactional. In between, the second installment proved almost as engrossing, uncomfortable and meme-worthy as its Emmy-winning predecessor, which is no small accomplishment for writer-director Mike White.
White spoke about the death of a fan-favorite character, the effects of it on some recurring characters, and what’s in store for season 3 in the post-Finale interview.
Tanya, however, wasn’t the only character being manipulated for money or advantage, which is what connected the show’s various threads. That included the hard-working hotel manager, Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore), who succumbed to her repressed sexual needs, and gave a job to Mia (Beatrice Grannò) after she satisfied them; and Albie (Adam DiMarco), the young American trying to play the white knight by rescuing Mia’s friend, the call girl Lucia (Simona Tabasco), talking his father Dominic (Michael Imperioli) into giving her 50,000 euros.
How are you going to make it in life if you are this big a mark? Dominic asked, before giving in, because he was influenced by his son’s promise to reconcile with his wife.
Lucia and Mia went into the sunset to the song, “The best things in life they’re free,” which is ironic, near perfect and shows a show about money, old relationships and new.
The third major plot involves two college friends vacationing together with their wives and was based on wealth. Over the final episodes, Ethan became preoccupied with his suspicion that Cameron had seduced Harper, which he attributed to resentment over the fact that Ethan had become so much more financially successful than his friend.
Yet the rift between them was healed by Daphne, who had clearly found her own ways of dealing with her husband’s philandering, and after leading Ethan into a secluded cove, seemingly opened his eyes to possibilities – to mysteries, as she put it – within the confines of a marriage that might even have saved his moribund relationship with Harper as well.
Where is the third season of the White Lotus? A post-credits chat with Mike White, the host of Smash 2, and where does he want to go?
In addition to the change in locales there were key differences in the service worker-hotel guest dynamic that defined the original, including the way that class distinctions echoed through those interactions.
White again conjured up a disarmingly off-kilter vibe and both editions anchored the strange occurrences not only around a death foretold but the struggles of a hard- working hotel manager, grappling with what a personal life will look like while tending to spoiled infants.
Keeping Coolidge around might have been a sort-of security blanket for the producers, but for any doubters, White has demonstrated that “The White Lotus” can be situated in any posh setting, as long as people remain willing to stay at a hotel chain where terrible things occasionally seem to happen.
HBO isn’t free (and like CNN, it’s part of Warner Bros. Discovery), but thanks to “The White Lotus,” it’s home to one of the best things on television, and as anthology-style concepts go, potentially one of the most durable.
If you have watched any of the first two installments of the series, you will most likely be in awe of this weekend’s finale, and eager to hear details on the third.
Mike White, the man behind the series that made Smash a cult hit, gave a post-credits interview about the finale. He speculated on where season 3 may take place and what the focus would be. (CNN and HBO are both part of the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.)
White has also dropped clues about the next season of “Lotus” from the Pacific to the Mediterranean.
“I think it’d be fun to maybe go to a whole different continent. You know, we did Europe, and maybe Asia, something crazy like that, that would be fun,” White told Deadline in October, going on to mention Japan as a potential contender for the setting of the third ritzy White Lotus resort.
During a painfully awkward dinner with her three travel companions, the Season 2 finale provided a hint as to what might have been.
It feels like there has to be somebody who knows where it is because of the fact that all of those guys die on the boat. He said you might have to wait to find out what happens.
In the Season 1 finale, Gries and Coolidge appeared as Greg and his wife, both of whom were seen in a hairy situation left at the end of this season.
Even though she is scared off by Jack’s warning, she could still come back since she was registered as a witness in the aftermath of the finale.
White told Deadline that it is enjoyable to bring back cast members from each season.
Whether Richardson will return or not, she has her own ideas for fresh faces in the cast for the third go-round, telling Today last week that Jamie Lee Curtis would be her pick for a new White Lotus guest.