“The White Lotus” Is Overrated

Which, sure. As Portia keeps reminding everyone, Tanya apparently has “half a billion dollars.” But considering how neatly laid the actual plot points of the murder are — Greg coaxes Tanya to Sicily, acts strange, leaves suddenly, sends some “high-class gays” to comfort her while she’s down, then springs his trap — the reasoning is barely there.

The climactic scene itself though is, once again, excellent. Tanya weeping her way through a three-man shootout, fumblingly plotting her escape, then bonking herself in the head during a sudden flop off a yacht: chef’s kiss. Coolidge’s haplessness is hilarious, White’s comedic timing impeccable. But again, the various storylines feel like a mashup of what could have been separate, better shows. Give me 10 full hours of Meghann Fahy making a knowing wife’s ambivalent face. Give me 10 full hours of Jennifer Coolidge yelling frantic nonsense at an old, gay Italian yacht captain. Combining them was efficient, I guess, but it gave me whiplash, and now I need a neck massage.

As for my last grudge, well, I just wish Season 2 hadn’t abandoned its attempts at class critique. The way this season’s characters orient their lives around money is so straightforward. Lucia (Simona Tabasco) wants it, Greg wants it, Quentin wants it. Cameron loves it, Ethan just got it, the Di Grassos have it and spend it. Season 1 was more interested in wealthy people’s self-indulgent isolation from the rest of the world, and the way money ceases to be enough for them. Instead, the characters chase the aesthetics of pious progressivism (see liberal arts phonies Paula, played by Brittany O’Grady, and Sydney Sweeney’s Olivia), or of labor as identity (see Rachel’s insistence that she is a journalist!), or of philanthropic mentorship (see Tanya’s abandoned plans to help Belinda open a spa).

I thought the first season didn’t go far enough in its class critique, that it reveled in shameless, changeless wealthy people without much interest in the people who worked for them. But it makes sense that the second season moved away from that kind of class analysis entirely. It’s thornier and harder to pull off. It doesn’t earn as many adoring tweets or GIFable punchlines. Given how much The White Lotus already has to juggle, and how thin it stretches itself across two genres, it doesn’t make sense to squeeze more into seven hours of television. At the very least, drizzling in some class critique would probably cut into all the beloved butt scenes.

I know I’m on the doomed side of public opinion. The White Lotus is gorgeous, and it’s sensational, and the community that has rallied around it week after week to theorize about what comes next is always having so much fun. Even during my grumpy contrarian research for this piece, I was glad I knew enough to laugh along with this ranking of who most deserves to die. And whatever my complaints about its failed genre fusion, The White Lotus is undoubtedly a more memorable show because of its enormous ambition. But I’m still holding out for the show I wanted The White Lotus to be. I want a show that’s just as witty and pretty and biting, but which doesn’t feel beholden to the murder formula, tasked with killing people because it said it would, rather than ensuring that the stakes make sense. ●