The White Lotus (Season 2), Episode 2: “The White Lotus” wasted zero time in its sophomore season and dazzled our screens with eccentric characters and a mysterious dead body (bodies actually, as there are more) in last week’s season premiere.
In episode 2, Mike White has decided to take some time and play it a little slow. But of course, White capped off the episode with a not particularly unpredictable but still a banger of a cliffhanger.
Aubrey Plaza particularly shines in this episode and she is the pick of an overall fantastic acting ensemble who are doing a great job.
The White Lotus (Season 2), Episode 2 Recap:
The ocean is dark and buried with secrets.
We get an underwater shot of the ocean and slowly, the Sicilian sunrise is here to grace our tourists. It’s day two in the picturesque paradise and everybody has plans of their own.
Sicilian tour with the De Grasso family
As established in the last episode, the De Grasso family of Bert, Dominic, and Albie are here to find their Sicilian roots, mainly due to Bert’s insistence.
After spending “quite” a night with Lucia, Dom seems to be in a slightly better mood when he and Bert meet Albie for breakfast. Portia, still hiding from Tanya (and Greg) is sitting with Albie at the table. Bert couldn’t remember her from the previous day though.
Dominic’s good mood soon takes a u-turn thanks to Bert’s pestering him over fixing his relationship with his wife. An overly enthusiastic Bert even offers to call Dom’s wife which irks Dom further and eventually leads to him leaving the table.
However, the family soon gets out to visit The Greek Theatre, and upon their insistence, Portia tags along with them quite happily. But just before they are leaving, Dom asks them to move forward as he has to make a call.
That’s just an excuse of course because Lucia and Mia are here.
Lucia, Mia, and a taste of classy hotel bliss
After spending the night with Dom, Lucia sees him in the morning and asks him to help her and Mia with the “getting inside the hotel” problem (quick refresher: manager Valentina tries her level best to keep the sex workers away from her workplace). Dom obliges and “after an extremely awkward interaction” with Valentina he manages to solve the issue for both Lucia and Mia, by making them official guests of his.
After Dom leaves, Lucia and Mia lavishly spend the day at the hotel at his expense.
Tanya’s day out on a Vespa
After being the annoying asshole for most of episode 1, Greg seems to be back to somewhat resembling his season 1 persona and offers Tanya a day of whatever she would want to do.
Tanya, like a true romantic at heart, shoots for the Italian dream of dressing like Monica Vitti and riding into the sunset on a Vespa (about which Valentina seems skeptical but Greg proves her wrong). Despite it seems like he is clearly not into Tanya’s activities, Greg does manage to pull it off.
What’s up with the couples?
Ethan goes for a run early in the morning and a lonely Harper meets Cameron and Daphne at breakfast. The “perfect couple” boasts about how they don’t fight at all to Harper which makes her (and us as well) sneer although Cameron and Daphne missed that.
Harper’s morning gets further dampened when she finds Ethan in his room masturbating to internet porn. He doesn’t try to hide it, indicating this couple truly shares everything with each other. However, when Harper tries to make sexual advances Ethan rebuffs it as he is a “morning person” and Harper is clearly not into morning sex. This is followed by an argument between the couple regarding Harper disliking Cameron and Daphne as she is “probably” threatened by them, according to Ethan.
Later at the beach, the couples find themselves in a sort of argument regarding being rich and “not being materialistic” where Harper takes a subtle dig at the other couple. But she doesn’t prolong the argument and goes for a swim as Ethan chooses to lie around on the beach. Cameron surprises her in the water and says how he doesn’t want her to dislike them, in a rather strange manner.
The White Lotus (Season 2), Episode 2 Ending, Explained:
Tanya’s “perfect day” gets ruined
Greg gets back to his season 2 asshole mode when it is revealed that his “nice guy” act is only to compensate Tanya as he really has to leave for Denver for some “work-related issues” the next morning.
Tanya gets mad and the two have a huge fight which was clearly in motion ever since the start of the season. Portia, who is dining with Albie in the same restaurant sees a crying Tanya leaving from afar and feels bad for her.
Mia seems to be a truly wonderful person
Lucia and Mia are found in the hotel bar in the evening, after having quite a “blast” of a day. Upon seeing the lounge singer, Giuseppe, with whom she had a very unpleasant encounter the previous night which rightfully ended with Mia throwing her drink in his face, Mia decides to go forward and talk to him to resolve the issue. Mia makes it clear that she is not a prostitute but a singer to Giuseppe (and everyone) when she dazzles the audience with a serene rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “The best things in life are free”.
And so is Harper, right?
In the evening, while having dinner Cameron and Daphne talk about the birth of their child which was a really traumatizing event for them. The otherwise shallow couple seems genuine and real for a moment, which we see through Harper’s eyes. The couple also seems to take an interest in Harper’s Puertorican roots.
At night, Harper starts to feel bad about how she is running the trip for Ethan and promises to be “fun”. She makes another attempt of conjuring something sexual but Ethan refuses yet again as he feels really “fried”. Seriously, what is up with Ethan?
In the other room, we see Cameron talking about his dislike for Harper and eventually; proceeding towards a night full of a passionate sexual romp with his dutiful wife. What a douche of a guy, really.
Dom has a conscience, but..
After having a rather mature talk with Birt, Dom kind of has a conscience and when Lucia comes to his room at night he tries to not engage with her and asks her to leave. But a persistent Lucia and Mia manage to convince Dom to change his mind without much effort and the inevitable happens.
As Dom has the night of his life with booze and beautiful women, Birt overhears snippets of it from the adjacent room and sighs.
Small things, but it might matter of eventually
Albie and Portia have a nice evening and like a true gentleman, Albie leaves Portia in her room and kisses her goodbye. Throughout the evening, he keeps talking about trying to be a nice guy and how he never wants to become like his father (clearly hinting at Dom’s cheating).
While that deserves applause, his extreme “niceness” also seems very in-your-face problematic especially because he ignores Portia’s conviction about what she wants.
Also, the conversation about Birt and Dom makes it clear that Dom indeed cheated on his wife but Birt seems madder at his son for being sloppy instead of the actual thing.
Tanya and Harper have a small exchange of pleasantries during breakfast when Tanya is dealing with her usual clumsiness while taking the food and Harper reassures her that it is alright and the hotel staff is supposed to help her.
At the Greek theatre, Bert was talking about the infamous Greek mythology of Hades raping Persephone and whatever Dom has done can’t be as bad as him.
Last but not the least, Valentina was clearly prolonging the conversation with Dom intentionally to show her disapproval over whatever it is that he is doing.
And of course, Greg is officially a piece of shit.
The episode ends with Tanya finding out Greg is talking to someone about her being completely naive and not knowing anything, and he will be home soon. This clearly implies that Greg is up to no good for sure and he probably has another family and his intention for Tanya was never real.
We will definitely get back to Tanya to check how she is doing after this, next week.
And like last week, here we are doing it again:
Victim(s): Can be anybody but both Greg and Tanya have huge potential. We have already cleared Daphne, Valentina, and Rocco so we are gonna stop mentioning them from next week.
Killer: For Tanya’s sake, we hope it is not her. And less said about Greg is better.
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THE WHITE LOTUS (SEASON 2) SHOW LINK: IMDB
THE WHITE LOTUS (SEASON 2) SHOW CAST: Jennifer Coolidge, Jon Gries, Sabrina Impacciatore, Haley Lu Richardson, Aubrey Plaza, Will Sharpe, Theo James, Meghann Fahy
