The White Lotus dissects the ways men try (and fail) to understand the women around them

“In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.” So we’re told in The Godfather. It’s the throwaway line we get to hear from the TV in one of the beautifully stylized rooms at the White Lotus: Sicily, the kind that plays like a highlighted leitmotif of what’s turning out to be quite the sexy second season of Mike White’s Emmy-winning series.

We hear the line as two Sicilian girls have seduced themselves into a midlife crisis’ed American’s room. Or rather, that’s the way Dominic (Micheal Imperioli) would have us read the scene, with two sirens having leveraged his lust for their own purposes. They may be as dangerous as shotguns. But someone still has to fire those weapons. Indeed, as much as The Godfather line would have us begin to wonder who of these women (not just the Sicilian girls but also the girls visiting Sicily) are to be feared because of their danger, The White Lotus seems just as intent to have us examine the reasons why men would frame the women in their lives with such rhetoric.

Take Cameron (Theo James, having the time of his life with this douche bro of a role). The only way he can understand his college friend’s marriage is by drumming up one of the most tired sexist tropes around: Harper (Aubrey Plaza) must clearly have cut up Ethan’s (Wil Sharpe) balls. It’s a narrative his dutiful and beautiful wife Daphne (Meghann Fahy) wholly endorses, agreeing with him that she’s baffled by women who cut off their husband’s balls only to then complain (as Harper may have inadvertently done at dinner) that their husbands don’t want to fuck them. It’s something she’d never do to Cameron. Even though she could.

In a way, that kind of dynamic echoes what we see with Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) and her prenup signing beau Greg (Jon Gries), who may or may not be having an affair all while losing his patience with his new wife. If in season one, he approached Tanya and offered her the vacation fling-cum-romance she’d always wanted, here he’s reduced to being constantly frustrated with her whims and her desires. Yes, he mollifies her; he gives her the Sicilian afternoon of her dreams! But he’s still testy (see: that Vespa ride!) and ends up creating a bigger wedge between them that may or may not be due to the fact that his billionaire wife would leave him with nothing if they don’t work out.

Indeed, the entire episode seemed to hinge on the various ways men try (and fail) to understand the women around them. Yes, even Albie (Adam DiMarco) who espouses the theory of the “nice guy” (all girls bemoan they want one; none of them actually do) as he coyly hits on Portia (Haley Lu Richardson)—and maybe even outright ignores what she’s sharing with him? His choice to not be like his cheating dad seems to be a great one, but was I the only one who found his nice-guy shtick just a tad, well, hollow? But maybe I’m just proving his point. I’ve been taught not to trust or want nice guys.

And at the crux of all of this warring of the sexes and the need to imagine codified ways of how men relate to women (don’t get Bert started on what Dominic did wrong; it wasn’t the cheating, it was being sloppy while at it!) is, of course, desire. This is a hot and steamy episode that opens with a porn-fueled masturbation scene (and an attendant boner in boxer briefs), includes a very (wink) convincing line about a couple’s sex life (“No, the sex is amazing,” Harper protests), and ends in a sinful threeway—not to mention a presumably compromising overhead phone call. Yet at every turn these moments feel like fissures rather than bonding moments, as if what we’re witnessing is a series of moments where these intimacies will risk undoing those who most indulge in them.

How all of these unruly desires will unfurl in the next few episodes—and how they’ll likely unravel many of these characters’ lives—is no doubt what’ll keep us coming back week in and week out as we live out another week at the White Lotus: Sicily.

Stray observations

• “This is such a beautiful view. I wonder if anyone’s ever jumped from here.” Are lines like these laying the threat of death and violence a tad too thick this time around? Perhaps, but Coolidge’s delivery can make any blunt piece of dialogue sing anyway. (See also: Persephone’s story as recounted by F. Murray Abraham’s Bert: how many other foreshadowy metaphors and fables will we get before we finally see which guest[s] drowned…?)
• We’re only on episode two, but I wish we were getting more from the hotel’s staff. Part of the joy of season one was watching Armond’s story unfold in parallel to that of his guests, and I’m missing that same kind of symmetry. But maybe I’m just being selfish: I want more of Sabrina Impacciatore, whose exasperation as Valentina when dealing with clueless Americans renting Vespas or asking for, ahem, “friends” to be added to rooms in the hotel is a delight to watch.
• Even as this episode (and maybe the season as a whole?) may not have worked wholly (we’re still in set-up mode, I guess), you have to thank Mike White for gifting the entire Tanya/Vespa sequence. Just as in season one, perhaps, The White Lotus works best when understood as a vehicle for Jennifer Coolidge’s many talents—all of which are displayed not just in that hilarious sequence (“I have a bug…”) but in the dinner sequence that follows. (Her slurping on her Spaghetti alle vongole alone was divine.) In her hands, Tanya is both clueless and perceptive, wide-eyed and keen-eyed in equal measure; it’s a hat trick of a performance, really. Which, true to form, is also hilarious to watch.
• It may have been a throwaway moment in the episode but it was still welcome to hear a brief discussion about Puerto Rico paired with the usual vapid responses from the likes of Cameron and Daphne, who can expound for hours about Venice resorts but know oh so little about Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States. (“And it’s part of America but it’s not a state…?”)
• Is there a better sneerer on American television than Aubrey Plaza? Methinks not.