The White Lotus

Ciao Season 2 Episode 1 Editor’s Rating 5 stars *****

The White Lotus

Ciao Season 2 Episode 1 Editor’s Rating 5 stars *****

Scusi! The White Lotus is coming to Vulture Festival! Join us for an advance screening of episode three in Los Angeles on November 12, followed by a live conversation with Meghann Fahy—tickets are on sale now!

It’s finally time to check back into The White Lotus. After the success of last year’s Hawaii-set season, what was originally supposed to be a limited series is now an anthology, with this second season following a (mostly) new set of characters at the White Lotus’s Sicily location. While the new locale means a new Italian twist on the opening credits, one element of the show that stays the same in its opening moments? Somebody’s dead.

The season opens with Daphne (Meghann Fahy) at the end of her trip, enjoying the beach and striking up a conversation with two guests beside her who’ve just arrived. If you watched creator Mike White’s season of Survivor, you might recognize that these two women are none other than his former tribe mates Angelina and Kara. And speaking of surviving, Daphne’s trip takes a turn when she decides to wade into the ocean for one last swim, where she’s horrified to discover a body floating by her in the water. But unlike last season’s sole fatality, the resort manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) is told that this time “a few” guests have been killed. But who?

We flash back one week earlier, to the beginning of the trip, as our guests arrive at the resort by boat. We meet a multigenerational Italian American family of three men, a mismatched pair of married couples, and the returning Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge), this time with her assistant in tow. “Whenever I stay at a White Lotus, I always have a memorable time,” she tells Valentina, who mentions her status as a Blossom Circle member. “I was a Petal, and I worked my way up to Blossom,” Tanya clarifies, with a phenomenally ironic use of the word “work.”

Married couple Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Harper (Aubrey Plaza) have been invited on this trip by his pompous college roommate Cameron (Theo James) and his wife Daphne — but the disconnect between the two couples is immediately apparent. Harper is particularly unable to hide her disdain for the privileged duo, but promises Ethan that she’ll make an effort — even though she’s convinced that they were invited on the trip for some kind of proposition, business or otherwise.

While touring their rooms, Ethan asks about a recurring piece of décor: head-shaped vases, which we’re told are called teste di moro. “The story is, a Moor came here a long time ago and seduced a local girl. But then she found out that he had a wife and children back home. So because he lied to her, she cut his head off,” a bellhop informs us. White is good at very deliberately constructing the lens through which we view these stories. Take the show’s cold-open format, for example; knowing that some of these characters will be dead in a week’s time completely changes how we watch and interpret their every move. And now, by incorporating the legend and visual motif of teste di moro, he’s signaling that infidelity and debauchery are afoot — influencing how we’ll interpret these characters and their interactions.

Look at Bert Di Grasso (F. Murray Abraham), for example, who wastes no time flirting with the female staff, despite the fervent attempts from his son Dominic (Michael Imperioli) and grandson Albie (Adam DiMarco) to shield them from his horniness. But interestingly enough, when it comes to the three Di Grassos and their interactions with women, we see diminishing returns on sleaziness as we move down through generations. Just when we think that elderly Bert is the deviant of the family, we see that Dominic’s no saint either when he calls to check in on his (presumably) ex-wife, who has zero interest in talking to him. Whatever offense he committed has alienated both her and who we can assume is their daughter Kara, who wants nothing to do with him now. He doesn’t understand the estrangement, saying that Albie isn’t upset about it — to which she says that he is, he’s just too sweet to fight him.

If you’re anything like me, that voice on the other end of the line might have sounded a little familiar — and that’s because the uncredited cameo is none other than Laura Dern, delivering a tour de force in phone acting. Dern, of course, is another Mike White muse, the two having teamed up on his last HBO show, Enlightened. Nobody conveys exasperation better than her, even over the phone, but unfortunately for us, it doesn’t sound like her character wants any more phone calls.

Speaking of White’s muses, a lot’s changed for Coolidge’s Tanya since she was scattering her mother’s ashes last season — she’s now married to Greg (Jon Gris), the man she ditched Belinda for back in Hawaii. But the charm on display back then has vanished, and we see a much darker side of him on this trip. Right from the jump he’s ignoring her texts, chiding her for eating five macarons, and demanding that she send her assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) away.

Why is Portia on the trip in the first place? Well, if you remember Tanya’s relationship with Belinda last season, you’ll recall her affinity for an emotional crutch that she can lean on when needed and dispose of when not. That need is surely exacerbated by a cold, distant husband — so Portia likely is on deck to fill that role for her. Rather than send her home like she told Greg she would, she has Portia stay close in case she needs her, but orders her to stay hidden away in her room.

In the meanwhile, Tanya is still fawning over Greg, propositioning him by gracefully placing his foot squarely on her breast. But in the middle of having sex, we see flashes of a teste di moro vase, and she throws him off of her. “I must have been dissociating. I was seeing all these faces of men, with these very effeminate hairstyles,” she says. Later that night, Tanya finds the last two macarons that Greg accused her of eating, proving that she didn’t really eat all five. When she goes to proudly show them to him, she discovers him locked in the bathroom whispering on the phone — a work call, he assures her. Teste di moro!

Over Aperol Spritzes, Harper makes more of an effort with her husband’s friends — but the tension is still palpable. Even more so when she says she practices employment law, representing clients suing for discrimination and sexual harassment, prompting Cameron to complain about “bogus” claims his company’s been dealing with. It’s an awkwardness that Aubrey Plaza as Harper is able to lean into with a self-assured revelry. But the real chasm between the two couples is best illustrated when Harper mentions that everything going on in the world makes it hard to sleep. “What do you mean? What’s going on?” the wealthy couple wonders.

The conversation is cut short when Harper goes up to the room to get sunscreen and Cameron joins her to borrow a bathing suit. As she rummages in the bathroom, he undresses behind her to change, fully visible in the mirror. Penis and all. Later, Harper tells Ethan about the bizarre encounter. After a pause, he says he doesn’t consider it to be too weird. But then he takes a long, ominous look at the teste di moro vase beside their bed.

Speaking of penises, the Di Grassos have a conversation about the grandfather’s continued inappropriate promiscuity, over dinner of all places. Dominic doesn’t understand the point of his father’s incessant flirting given that he’s 80 years old. Bert explains that as he gets older, the women he desires remain young — “You can relate to that,” he says to Dominic, giving some context to the phone call we saw with his ex-wife. Albie is puzzled by this conversation, saying that he’d imagine the human body would just naturally stop getting horny by 50. Suddenly, Dominic changes his tune: “50?! 50 is not that old,” he says, now on the receiving end of the same judgment he was just dishing out. But Albie maintains that it seems “undignified,” and that no girl should have to be exposed to an old guy’s junk.

Amidst this dinner, Albie spots Portia across the restaurant, despite Tanya’s attempt to conceal her behind a menu. The pair connected earlier in a cute exchange by the pool, a stark contrast to his other family members’ female interactions, but they were interrupted when Albie’s grandfather took a tumble down the stairs. Juxtaposing that romantic glance is the eye contact Portia makes with Tanya, scored with tense horror music as Tanya mouths, “GO TO YOUR ROOM,” to keep Greg from seeing her.

As our guests’ first day at the resort has been playing out, Valentina has been playing a game of cat and mouse with two locals, Lucia and Mia, intent on sneaking into the hotel so Lucia can meet up with an American man she met online. They finally get by her in time for dinner, where Mia connects with the restaurant’s piano player, telling him about her dreams of becoming a musician. Mistaking her as a prostitute, he asks how much she is and says he just needs to be home by midnight — and Mia throws a drink on him. Teste di moro!

Lucia, meanwhile, is on her way to her mysterious American suitor: Dominic, who after a long day discouraging his father’s urges, has a dalliance of his own planned. They have a conversation parallel to Mia and the piano player, with a different result. She loves that he’s from Los Angeles, a place that she dreams of going to, but Dominic is uninterested in making conversation, and tells her as much. But rather than throwing her drink, Lucia puts it down and positions herself on Dominic’s lap as the episode ends.

The White Lotus Recap: Picture It, Sicily, 2022