Class and Karma Collide in The White Lotus’ Second Season, Or: STD Party in Sicily

After a long viewer journey meant to cover a mere week in Taormina, Sicily (a.k.a. tourist kryptonite thanks to The Godfather being shot there), the second season of The White Lotus finally came to its predicted conclusion. For it’s not as though Mike White was trying to hide the fact that Tanya McQuoid’s (Jennifer Coolidge) doomed fate was sealed from the moment she arrived on the island. The foreshadowing was already written when Tanya stumbled uneasily off the White Lotus’ charter boat as Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore), the hotel manager, watched nervously from afar. Clearly, Tanya’s unwieldy body and alcoholic predilections don’t make her an ideal candidate for getting on and off a boat seamlessly. Which, believe it or not, is a very important skill for a rich person to have, being that they’re among the few with regular boat access.

But before Tanya can become aware of what’s about to happen to her, she’s welcomed by Valentina as an elite member of the “Blossom Circle” (“I was a Petal and I’ve worked my way up to Blossom,” Tanya reminds—as though spending her fortune is “working” to become a higher-level VIP). Using more heavy-handed presaging language, Tanya tells Valentina, “Whenever I stay at a White Lotus, I always have a memorable time. Always.” Along for that memorable time on this edition of the vacation is Tanya’s extremely vexing assistant, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson). Except that, apparently, she’s not really supposed to be there, per the wishes of Tanya’s recently bagged husband, Greg (Jon Gries). Who, in reality, doesn’t want her to be present because he needs Tanya to be cornered alone by the bevy of gays that are going to take her under their wing in her state of abandonment. But without Portia, there is no interconnectedness to Albie (Adam DiMarco), in town with his father, Dom (Michael Imperioli), and grandfather, Bert (F. Murray Abraham), to visit their relatives… who have no idea who they are, nor do they care.

It is in Portia’s state of distress over being exiled and told to make herself scarce by Tanya that Albie finds her next to the pool. Inherently attracted to “wounded birds” a.k.a. lost souls a.k.a. damaged goods, he asks her if everything’s okay. She’s quick to place her confidence in him, treating him more like a Dawson-esque “bestie” than someone she could actually be attracted to.

Elsewhere in the fray is the pair of couples, Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Harper (Aubrey Plaza) Spiller (most disgusting last name ever); Cameron (Theo James) and Daphne (Meghann Fahy) Sullivan. Linked together solely because Ethan and Cameron were roommates in college. As far as opposite styles of personality and dynamic go, there couldn’t be a more divergent set of couples. While Ethan and Harper have a sense of gloom about the world (particularly Harper), Cameron and Daphne don’t even bother to watch the news, preferring to remain content in their money bubble. Something Cameron feels Ethan should start to do as well, now that he’s become a very rich man after selling his company.

The “swingers”-esque vibe put forth by the quartet throughout is initially established by mention of the Testa di Moro, the legend of which is retold to the naïve foursome by an employee named Rocco (Federico Ferrante), who rehashes, “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.” And then turned it into a vase she could plant basil in. Cameron half-jokes that the presence of the head in someone’s garden means, “If you come into my house, don’t fuck my wife.” More foreshadowing indeed. Daphne then chimes in, “It’s a warning to husbands, babe. Screw around and you’ll end up buried in the garden.” When Daphne says her “joke,” however, it later becomes apparent that she’s not as dim and clueless as she comes across on the surface.  

Tanya, on the other hand, certainly is. And her sense of over-the-top drama seems to be a way to compensate for her vacancy. Much to Portia’s irritation, as she tells someone over the phone by the pool, “She’s a mess. She’s a miserable mess. If I had half a billion dollars, I would not be miserable. I would be enjoying my life.”

Tanya tries in her own way to do that… mainly by having half-hearted sex with Greg that afternoon, only to throw him off of her as she tells him that, while disassociating, “I was seeing all these faces of men with these very effeminate hairstyles. And then… I saw you! And your eyes were like shark eyes. Like just completely dead. Just like, dead.” A very witchy premonition, of sorts, to be sure. But what Tanya never could have predicted is that Greg would decide to leave just three days into the vacation, informing Tanya of as much at the end of episode two, “Italian Dream.”

Claiming he has to get to Denver for an Important Work Thing, she tells him that he should quit his job. He reminds her how insecure he feels about that, especially since the ironclad prenup he signed would mean that he’d get nothing if they didn’t work out. She counters that of course they’ll work out. Greg, not in a mood for sugar-coating, reminds, “You change your mind about everything constantly. You drop your friends. You fire people on a dime. I mean, you’ve been through—how many fuckin’ assistants have you been through? You just discard people.” And there it is: the crux of her bad karma. Something she was also guilty of during the first season of The White Lotus, when Belinda Lindsey (Natasha Rothwell), the manager of the spa at the Maui White Lotus, was dangled the promise of financing from Tanya to start her own wellness business. Alas, when Greg came along with his wrinkled dick to distract her, she quickly pulled the plug on Belinda’s dreams, which she hadn’t dared to have in quite some time. She even put together an elaborate business plan that Tanya never bothers to so much as glance at because Greg showed up and expressed an interest in her.

So it is that the more pronounced class element of The White Lotus’ first season becomes manifest in a subsequent exchange between Belinda and Rachel Patton (Alexandra Daddario), the new trophy wife of affluent real estate agent, Shane Patton (Jake Lacy). After realizing too late that she’s signed on to be a trophy wife, her existential dread amplifies throughout their Hawaiian honeymoon. And although Belinda gives Rachel her card during a moment when Tanya hasn’t totally dashed her dreams in her position as “she who controls the purse strings,” Rachel makes the mistake of calling Belinda to vent after the latter has had her fill of rich white people bullshit. So it is that, as she sits there listening to Rachel complain about not having to work anymore because Shane is loaded, she finally responds, “You want my advice? I’m all out” before walking right out of the room. And Tanya is entirely responsible for her sudden jadedness. For Belinda was always aware that there was a class divide, but never had it been used against her quite so cruelly.

Thus, Tanya seems to be paying for that karmic slight big time in season two. With Greg being no “gift” at all, so much as a master manipulator. Eerily enough, Greg says to her in the final episode of season one, “Enjoy your life till they drop the curtain.” Little did she know, he was talking about her and not himself. And yes, one has to wonder if Greg ever had cancer at all, or if it was all part of the long con, some kind of “sympathy lure” (even so, he assures her in “Bull Elephants,” “You’ve done a lot for me, you found those doctors. I’m gonna live…because of you”). More uncanny still is that Tanya replies to his comment, “I’ve had every kind of treatment over the years. Death is the last immersive experience I haven’t tried.”

Thanks to the sudden appearance of a gaggle of gays (Hugo [Paolo Camilli], Didier [Bruno Gouery] and Matteo [Francesco Zecca]) led by Quentin (Tom Hollander), she’s about to get her wish. And it’s no coincidence that they show up in episode three, “Bull Elephants,” right after Greg leaves. Ready to pounce on her with flattery as much as Cameron is ready to pounce on Ethan with propositions of debauchery now that Daphne and Harper have gone to Noto for the day… and night. The plucky prostitutes at the center of it all, Lucia (Simona Tabasco) and Mia (Beatrice Grannò), take advantage of the duo’s temporary “lonesomeness,” especially after Lucia’s sure gig for the week, Dom, decided to back out due to being racked with guilt over all the times he’s cheated on his wife (voiced over the phone by Laura Dern). Not that it matters now, for she refuses to take him back. Nonetheless, Dom suddenly sees fit to make an effort at “being good.” His own self-imposed karmic payment (for the moment, anyway) being abstinence.

As for Cameron, he starts to act like the devil on Ethan’s shoulder as he insists, “Monogamy was an idea created by the elite to control the middle-class.” Giving in to the peer pressure of yore, Ethan goes along with hiring Lucia and Mia, only to rebuff Mia’s advances out of his “respect” for Harper and their marriage. Harper, meanwhile feels kidnapped by Daphne, who offers her some placating weed so they can get a little more comfortable with one another. Comfortable enough for Daphne to remark that, in order to control the karma balance of Cameron cheating on her probably pretty regularly, she does what she wants so she doesn’t “feel resentful.” This is Daphne’s running mantra throughout The White Lotus, telling Harper, “And if anything ever did happen, you just do what you have to do to make yourself feel better about it” and then similarly telling Ethan, “You just do whatever you have to do not to feel like a victim.” And, in this way, she justifies all of her wrongdoings, from having another man’s child and passing it off as Cameron’s to fucking Ethan on the Isola Bella. This is how she staves off karma—by stating that she’s merely offsetting the bad karma of others with what she does in response.

It doesn’t work quite the same way for Tanya, whose death is further alluded to when Portia tells Albie, “I feel like if I murdered my boss, I could argue it was euthanasia.” So yes, Greg isn’t the only one who’s had it up to here with Tanya’s self-involved theatrics. In episode five, “That’s Amore,” Tanya’s self-obsession amplifies when she asks of Greg’s abrupt departure, “How did I not see the signs, Portia? Do you think I’m oblivious?” “No,” Portia lies. Ignoring her answer anyway, Tanya continues, “You know, sometimes I think I should’ve started that spa for poor women with that girl from Maui. You know, ‘cause she was like a real healer. The real deal. But you know, sometimes, I think those healers are a little witchy. Maybe she put a curse on me.” Of course, that’s quite the self-victimizing rich person’s thing to say—for the only “curse” Tanya has is invoking her own bad karma with her carelessness. Some might call it “innocent” because she “doesn’t know any better,” but the veneer of Tanya’s spoiled privilege isn’t enough to excuse her reckless actions when it comes to other people. Usually those who don’t have even one iota of her power (read: money) level, Portia included.

As for those, like Ethan, who have achieved that rare feat—coming into money through hard work—it still feels like they’re somehow never “good enough” for those born into wealth. Something that Cameron made him feel throughout their collegiate tenure. But Cameron is not without his insecurities either, with Ethan explaining to him at one point during a wine tasting, “You have a bad case of something called mimetic desire… If someone with higher status than you wants something, it means it’s more likely that you’ll want it too.” Ah, the competitive nature of the rich and rich-ascending. Their karma ultimately being perpetual dissatisfaction. This is where Belinda’s sarcastic and incredulous “poor you” face comes to mind.

The discrepancy of karmic repercussions among the two clashing classes (broke ass and moneyed) is the one way in which The White Lotus sustains its season one venom for the rich; a venom that does not necessarily mean justice for everyone, so much as the presentation of the affluent as largely untouchable. For, apart from Tanya, the punishment against the less wealthy always seems more severe. Even the lowly piano player, Giuseppe (Federico Scribani), is subject to his karma, finally ousted from his position by Mia for being a garden-variety lecherous liar.

Then there’s the more financially flush Dom, who is told by Albie that all he really needs to do to absolve himself in his son’s eyes is make a literal karmic payment… of fifty thousand euros. Money Albie “requires” to give to Lucia, who has been playing her own long con, albeit (Albie-it?) to a less malicious extent than Greg and the gays. Promising that he’ll put in a word with “Mom” about him, Dom can’t resist the exchange. And, much to his shock, Albie speaking favorably about his father results in her actually answering the phone and saying they can talk when he gets back. So much for paying karma back in blood, sweat and, in Tanya’s case, death. In this sense, White appears to be iterating that there’s nothing un uomo bianco can’t get away with (a fitting message considering White’s last name).

At the same time, there is the unusual curveball of the prostitutes being the real victors of the entire narrative, though who knows when their own debt to karma might come along? Knowing prostitute luck (and profligacy), it will only be a matter of weeks before the money slips through their hands. In any event, if there is one other key takeaway from the second season of The White Lotus—apart from class and karma (including its evasion) going hand in hand—it’s that a lot of people bone with devil-may-care attitudes in Sicily. With Cameron being the only one who appeared to use a condom amid the varying adulterous dalliances and permutations (and the takeaway from that was: condom usage only leads to evidence that will get a person caught). But hey, what happens on vacation stays on vacation… except the STDs.