Anyone White Lotusing can now sit back and take stock. Television series The White Lotus Season 2 was different in many ways from its Season 1 ancestor. Where we could binge on Season 1, watching back-to-back episodes in one go, Season 2 could only be watched in weekly instalments, driving anxiety levels and drawing out the suspense.
The cast is a new one, taking forward only Jennifer Coolidge, the scatty heiress Tanya. The venue is different; while it was Hawaii last season, this time we go to Sicily. And with a new set of guests at the hotel, emotions run high in highly individualistic ways. But at heart this comedy drama is based on the complexities and inanities of human behaviour just like the last time, and hopefully, the next time.
The second season has also set into motion tourism expectations – every country will want an episode in its brochure. The camera lingers and exploits, magnifies and beatifies every nook and cranny of the places on display. Close-ups of actors are juxtaposed with close-ups of the location until the place is an important character too, lending menace or magic as the moment requires. Blue-green waters sparkle achingly in many frames until they unwittingly become the repository of horror. In fact, the story sets off with corpses floating up. This is The White Lotus, it starts with a body count.
Every performance counts, just like the last time. Though, in my opinion, the startling turn by hotel manager Armond, essayed by Murray Bartlett, in the first outing has no equivalent here.
Sabrina Impacciatore as Valentina may be gay like Armond, but her coming out of the closet is more of a celebration than her frustrations that get the better of her. She is redeemed by her inner strength and sudden generosities while Armond just let loose… in every way.
Perhaps the delicious anti-elitism of the previous version would have gone missing from the storyline if not for the financial dreams coming true for two of the non-guests, Lucia (Simona Tabasco) and Mia (Beatrice Grannò). Their hand in hand skipping about at the end makes up for all the hustling and hoodwinking they had to do.
Coolidge, of course, remains a traditional favourite. With on-screen new husband deserting her at the start of the vacation, she is at a loose end and falls into what can only be called bad company. She is her own hero though and her own downfall. In the actual climax of the film, she is a goddess of guns, trigger-happy.
The two couples who seem to be here almost in a therapy session, with their strained laughs and personal attitudes towards sexuality and fidelity, have the last laugh. Their marriages are recharged and everything is hunky dory again – oh, but the price paid and the games played. As Daphne (Meghann Fahy) sums it up: ‘You just do whatever you have to do not to feel like a victim of life.’
In what can be viewed as a contemporary Jane Austen look at social foibles, this latest season of The White Lotus zooms in on the glue that holds our world together.
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