White Lotus

Cafe Society
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101

I agree with this.

It may be a sharp observation along the lines of “you never know about people–they are rarely what they seem to be at first” but I also think that if you want to write a character as complexly duplicitous you need to plant clues that this is so from the beginning, not partways through a plot line.

102

Not sure it’s necessary to blur spoilers this long after the season finale but just in case, we actually don’t know what the Italian police are going to do. I think the scene of the hotel guests at the airport is either the same day as the bodies are discovered or the next day. I assume their investigation is just getting started. Certainly they may wonder at the connection between the drowned American tourist and the dead bodies on the yacht. As for the similarity in the two seasons with regard to the hotel managers, sure the Italian woman had never had a same-sex experience but my guess is that Armond, the recovering drug addict manager in Hawaii, was more experienced.

103

I assumed the police, no matter how inept, are going to investigate the husband and his pals when a rich American is killed, which is why i thought the murder plot in both the literary and the practical senses was not very carefully thought out.

104

Yeah, this was very strange. I believe on Battlestar Galactica back in 2004-2009, they had two complicated characters that ended up more or less being antagonists…who were both gay for no reason other than “look, gay people exist here”. For those who don’t know what I’m referencing, it was:

  1. Felix Gaeta, a complicated antagonist who began as a protagonist. Him being gay more or less coincided with his flip over to doing evil, which made it even weirder that they did this. No mention of his sexuality was made in the first three seasons, to my knowledge.
  2. The admiral(?) of the Pegasus, who was revealed to be quite the villain.
105

I can’t remember if I’ve posted my thoughts in this thread so I may be repeating myself, but I’ll offer some support here. I agree with both you and your wife to varying degrees. I enjoy beautifully shot and produced shows starring beautiful people, and The White Lotus was good enough at that to keep me watching for two seasons. It was… fine.

But overall it was dull. The argument that “Well duh, they’re not supposed to be likeable” doesn’t ring with me. There are lots of shows starring unlikeable characters that are nevertheless very entertaining, either through comedy or sheer spectacle. It’s Always Sunny and Seinfeld are huge examples of the former, Sopranos and Barry for the latter. I don’t need to like the characters to have a good time, but I do need to have a good time. And The White Lotus thinks that it’s enough to go through the motions.

I’ll probably watch S3 though.

106

I was surprised that highbrow magazines like the London Review of Books and the New Yorker were hailing this show as a sophisticated satire of materialism and capitalism.

Critiquing materialist values is easy. The real litmus test is: what values, and what behaviors, does the show actually champion?

And the answer is – not particularly enlightened ones, as Dr. Colossus has pointed out above:

107

I started this thread and that’s basically my take on it. It lost me after season 1.

108

Both seasons were darkly humorous enough to keep my attention but I am concerned about the sort of message it sends to the all too many untraveled Americans that might be watching it. It’s basically saying, “Don’t risk visiting exotic places with different customs (not even ones in the United States). The hosts hate you and no good will come of it even if you make it back alive.”

109

Are the doing third season of this?

110

Yes, I believe so.

111

3rd season ends tonight and Inna and I cannot wait.

112

I’m going to have to watch it tonight because there will be no way to avoid spoilers tomorrow.