‘The White Lotus’ Season 2 Finale Review: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

“These violent delights have violent ends.” ~ William Shakespeare

In its second season, The White Lotus has given us something that is altogether too rare these days: A genuine surprise.

The first six episodes of Season 2 all built slowly toward the explosive ending in last night’s finale, but no matter how many twists and turns the show took—and no matter how much it toyed with our expectations—it was impossible to predict how it would all end. Who would die? Who would be the killer?

That’s a question I asked in my prediction piece this weekend, and like the Sicilian mastermind Vizzini from The Princess Bride, I found myself going back and forth on every guess.

Still, I should note that my best guess was about as close to the final outcome as possible. I wrote:

My best guess is that the deaths all occur in the Tanya/Portia/Quentin/Jack storyline. We have to remember Chekov’s Gun, after all. The idea that if there’s a gun introduced in the first act, it has to be fired by the third. In Season 1, Shane gets the pineapple knife and tells Rachel that they’ll use it for self-defense if the burglar shows up in their room. Later, he uses it to kill Armond.

I was right on both counts, though short on specifics. The deaths all occurred in the Tanya storyline (Tanya and ‘These Gays’) and the gun we saw in last week’s episode was responsible for the majority of the killings. But how the whole thing went down defied every possible expectation.

Tanya’s Got A Gun

Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) has been the mark in a long-con that presumably began back in Season 1 without any of us realizing. Greg (Jon Gries) married her, signed a prenuptial agreement, and then set to work with his old pal Quentin (Tom Hollander) on a plan to kill the heiress and inherit her money. They had to make it look like an accident, and the whole thing needed to go down in Sicily, not only because Quentin’s home-base was there, but because of his ties to the mafia. Greg left before the deed was carried out so that he’d have an airtight alibi.

Only, everything went horribly wrong, and now it’s all but certain that the authorities will quickly tie the entire thing back to Greg. He may have dodged a (literal) bullet, but he’s not going to get away with it. I get the feeling that Mario (the Italian man who stayed back at the villa and cried tears of remorse as he said farewell to Tanya—he looks like Mario from the games) will cooperate with the investigation.

Tanya had been growing suspicious of her newfound friends, The Gays, ever since she saw Jack (Leo Woodall) getting down and dirty with his “Uncle” though she didn’t get suspicious enough and didn’t “have the heart” to tell her assistant, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) about what she’d seen—a revelation that might have saved her life in the end. The photograph of Quentin and Greg she finds also doesn’t tip her off entirely, though you can see she’s close to dragging two and two together as she boards Quentin’s yacht and heads back to the White Lotus.

Meanwhile, Portia has “lost” her phone. It’s pretty obvious that Jack has taken it. She knows he has but doesn’t feel safe outright accusing him, and I’m not sure he’s bright enough to realize that she knows or if he just doesn’t care. At one point he heads off to take a crap and leaves his phone on the table. She uses it to call Tanya and tells her what Jack told her in his drunken stupor: That Quentin is broke but is about to come into a windfall. Portia says she gets the feeling that something bad is about to happen. The lightbulb finally goes off above Tanya’s head. Greg can’t get her money—unless she’s dead.

What follows on the yacht is at once hilarious and disturbing, a sequence of comical moments that ends in one of the best guns-blazing scenes of the year. Eat your heart out, John Wick.

Tanya panics and tries hard not to let it show. She wants to go back to the resort but they insist she has dinner with them on the yacht. Niccolò (Stefano Gianino) will take her on the small boat after dinner. In the dark. Just the two of them. She tries to make a phone call (after trying to play it cool and then running to the ship’s prow in plain view of her captors through the windows) but drops her phone into the sea.

Tanya may not be the brightest bulb in the building but she knows what comes next. After dinner, and after extending it with more wine, she makes an excuse to go to the powder room and runs and grabs the black back that Niccolò brought with him onto the yacht. She makes a run for a nearby bedroom, locks the door, and unzips the bag. To her horror, all her fears are confirmed. Inside there’s rope, duct tape, the gun. It’s a kill bag, no doubt about it. It’s also a chance at freedom.

She grabs the gun as Niccolò bangs on the door. He burst through. Squinting, crying, desperate she pulls the trigger. BANG BANG. Thud. Niccolò hits the ground. She moves forward, wailing, her face a mess of tears, and blind fires as she goes. BANG BANG. Thud. BANG BANG. Thud.

When she finally opens her eyes, she’s greeted with a grim scene. She didn’t miss a shot, it appears. Bodies sprawl out before her. Quentin, face down in a couch, turns to face her, a bloody wound in his chest. Tanya—because she is Tanya—demands that he tell her if Greg was having an affair. “I know you know!” she whines, as Quentin stares back, a look of incredulity on his face not dissimilar to when she asked if a woman at the opera was the Queen of Sicily (which was the first time he blatantly lied to her also). He opens his mouth, but only blood comes out. The only one of The Gays Tanya didn’t kill (besides the captain) leaps up at this point and leaps into the sea. The captain (who earlier revealed to Tanya that he is also one of The Gays) freaks out and hides.

And Tanya, safe at last, victorious and unharmed, heads to the little boat at the back of the yacht. At this point, because she is Tanya, she does none of the following:

• She does not take off her awkward platform shoes. TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES TANYA, we all shout at her, collectively, while watching.
• She does not search for a phone to call the authorities and ask for help.
• She does not go to the back of the yacht where there’s a ladder to climb down to get onto the boat.
• She does not wait for help to arrive, shoot a flare gun, or do anything else that might help usher her to safety.

Instead, Tanya says “You got this” and climbs over the railing and slips and falls and smacks her head on the boat below before cartwheeling into the briny depths. The next day, her floating corpse will be found by none other than Daphne (Meghann Fahy) on her final dip into the Mediterranean Sea before heading back to her life of happy lies.

It is, one must admit, the perfect death for Tanya.

This entire sequence was not impossible to predict (I called the gun, the group where all the deaths would occur) but how it went down? Pure genius. The White Lotus creator, Mike White, has outdone himself here. He even went so far as to cast Jennifer Coolidge in Season 3 of the show—and then killed off her character. Talk about misdirection! (Unless, of course, it’s a prequel season, though I hope not. This was a perfect farewell to Tanya and another season might run the risk of feeling gimmicky).

White called the death a “derp” death when discussing the finale after it aired. But she went out guns blazing—or at least, had a badass moment before her ticket was punched.

Dysfunctional People

In the Spiller v Sullivan storyline, Ethan (Will Sharpe) confronts Harper (Aubrey Plaza) about what went down between her and Cameron (Theo James) and she lies to him. And he knows it.

He continues to push. She cracks a little, but still withholds the full truth. And he knows it. She can’t bring herself to tell him the whole truth, but she deflects and—rightly, I might add—tells him that the real problem is that he’s not attracted to her anymore. They don’t have sex anymore.

Ethan doesn’t want to hear it so he storms off, down to the beach where he finds Cameron and accuses him of trying to sleep with his wife. A fight ensues and it definitely looks like Ethan is trying to drown his old college roommate. Of course, we know it can’t end in one or both of their deaths. It’s too soon. The bodies aren’t found until the next day, and if either of them kicks the bucket right there it’ll be obvious to everyone on the beach. The fight is broken up and Ethan storms off, angry, while Cameron laughs in the waves.

Daphne spots Ethan on the beach and waves him over. She asks him what the matter is and he finally tells her. It’s at this point where Meghann Fahy’s acting chops really shine. Her smile is washed away as if a wave just passed over her freckled face. For a moment, all her happiness is washed out to sea. And then the wave comes crashing back and she brightens up.

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” she says. “I mean, we never really know what goes on in peoples’ minds or what they do. You spend every second with somebody and there’s still this part that’s a mystery, you know? You don’t have to know everything to love someone. A little mystery, it’s kinda sexy. I’m a mystery to myself. Honestly, I surprise myself all the time. I think you just…you just do whatever you have to do not to feel like a victim of life, you know? You just use your imagination,” she says, giving him a look.

Then she asks if he’s ever been over to the island. She really wants to go. And she stands up and starts walking and beckons him to follow.

And he follows.

There are many revelations in the season 2 finale of The White Lotus but one thing we never learn beyond a shadow of a doubt is whether Cameron and Harper, or Ethan and Daphne, actually end up sleeping together. But it’s heavily implied that they do, and the result of all this adultery is . . . just as surprising as the rest of the story.

Later, at dinner the two couples toast. Cameron even says that it was great to finally get to know Harper properly (oh boy, Cameron). That night, Ethan and Harper finally have sex, his attraction to her finally rekindled. Go figure. In the airport the next day, both couples cuddle on the airport chairs, soft and content.

You have to do what you have to do to not be the victim of life, after all.

The Mark

Greg and Quentin’s long-con may not have worked, but it’s not the only con going down at the White Lotus resort. Lucia (Simona Tabasco) found her mark and honed in almost immediately. Albie (Adam DiMarco) played right into her hands, an easy sucker with a rich dad. And despite Dominic (Michael Imperioli) telling him he’s not sure how he’ll make it in life if he’s this big of a mark, he agrees to help his son out in exchange for Albie’s help. A good word on Dominic’s behalf with his mom is apparently worth 50,000 Euros when you’re filthy, stinking rich.

And so Albie is played, though he takes it like a champ.

Instead of taking Portia home, Jack drops her off near the airport where she runs into Albie the next day. They chat and she tells him that Jack turned out to be deranged. Albie tells her that he was played. They both smile and laugh about the whole thing. When Albie reveals that a guest was found drowned off the beach and a bunch of other dead people on a yacht, Portia glides right past the news and asks him for his number.

Life goes on, I suppose. She never liked Tanya much to begin with. In the end, maybe they were just too much alike.

The other DiGrasso boys end their trip happily enough. Dominic calls his estranged wife and she actually answers, though I get the distinct impression the reason she couldn’t talk right then is because she was with another man. Good for her.

Meanwhile, Bert (F. Murray Abraham) uses his head injury to brush off their encounter with unfriendly relatives as a bad dream. He’s a master at living his own lie—whether that’s about he and his late wife having a perfect marriage or that he was a sterling example of fatherhood.

He continues to have some of the best lines—in the finale, he describes the male genitalia as man’s true Achilles heel. In one of the most hilarious shots in the episode, all three men gawk at a beautiful young woman as she walks by at the airport, proving that no matter their attested values and beliefs, Bert’s words ring true across generations.

Happy Endings

In the end, the workers make out quite a lot better than the rich folk this time around. In Season 1, Armond was left stabbed to death. Paula’s fling was imprisoned. And the spa manager Tanya clung to, Belinda—until she found Greg—was left with her dreams shattered. This time around, while the season was darker and more ominous, the working class makes it out on top:

• Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) is finally able to make peace with her own sexuality and is on the threshold of a sexual awakening thanks to her budding friendship with Mia (Beatrice Granno).
• Mia has a new job singing and playing piano at The White Lotus and while she used sex (twice) to get there, it’s her undeniable talent that ensures she keeps it. She gives Bert a big hug for his vote of confidence (“When that girl hugged me, I was aroused,” he confesses to his son and grandson later). Giuseppe (Federico Scribani) who was clearly attempting to use Mia for sex on the false promise of helping spark her career, was cast aside (after nearly dying).
• Dominic’s money may have been just a drop in the bucket for him, but for Lucia it’s a huge victory. She felt a little bad tricking Albie, but she knows he’ll be fine. And he was dumb enough to think she really wanted to leave her comfortable life in Sicily to emigrate to Los Angeles, of all the godforsaken places she could go.
• Rocco (Federico Ferrante) is returned to the front desk to work alongside his girlfriend, Isabella (Eleonora Romandini) now that Valentina is no longer a prisoner of her jealousy and desire.

Meanwhile, other than Tanya, the guests are all doing fine as well. The two couples are closer than ever despite all the scandalous behavior. The DiGrasso boys have had an adventure and Albie seems okay with having spent a few days in the arms of a beautiful woman—it wasn’t his money lost, after all. Portia had a harrowing experience, but at least she wasn’t on that yacht. And besides, Jack gave her phone back in the end.

Only Tanya and her would-be killers didn’t make it. It’s fitting, I suppose. Tanya tried to cast her mother’s ashes into the ocean in Season 1. Now she, too, ends up swimming with the fishes.

P.S. There was a great Easter Egg to clue everyone in to Tanya’s death that I certainly didn’t pick up on. When the DiGrassos were touring Sicily they came across a Godfather museum including a dummy of Michael Corleone’s wife Apollonia in the car where she was ultimately blown to smithereens. In the trailer for Episode 7 you could see that Tanya was wearing the exact same dress, a pretty massive clue as to her impending demise. I didn’t catch it, but others did:

All told, this was a terrific season from start to finish. It lacked the wacky chaos of Season 1 and wasn’t always quite as funny, but in many ways it was more subtle and cleverly written, and the rising sense of doom cast an ominous pall over the entire season. Just brilliant stuff. Complex characters who never stop surprising you. A magnificent twist at the end that pretty much nobody saw coming. It makes me extremely happy to know that a Season 3 has already been greenlit by HBO.

This is easily at Top 5 show for me in 2022. Look for my Best TV Shows of the Year list coming soon here on this blog (don’t forget to follow!). What did you think dear readers?

Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.