Season 1 of “The White Lotus” took merciless aim at a group of wealthy tourists who cross paths at a Hawaiian resort, tackling issues of greed, white privilege and colonization. But in the second installment of the HBO dark comedy, creator Mike White narrows in on masculinity, and specifically on sex — “the kind you yearn for, the kind you tolerate, the kind you pay for, the kind you use to get what you want,” as Variety’s chief TV critic Caroline Framke wrote in her review.
In various interviews with Variety, the cast teased how this season differs from the first, and what will surprise people most when they’re launched back into the glimmering world of “The White Lotus.”
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Simona Tabasco, who plays devious sex worker Lucía, hinted at the “level of stress” viewers will feel and described the Sicily-set Season 2 as “tantalizing, sexual and funny.”
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“I think that Season 2 is a lot sexier, and it’s a little bit more sinister right off the bat,” added Meghann Fahy, who plays sunny housewife Daphne. “It’s really action-packed, actually — I think people are gonna be surprised.”
While much has changed this season of “The White Lotus” — a new location and a (mostly) new cast — one key element remains the same: opening with a dead body. “It just felt like everything is different — the cast is different, location is different, the vibe is different — so I felt like there needs to be something that seems the same,” White said. “It felt like starting in the same kind of way that we did in the first season, it’ll hook people in and show them that it’s the same show.”
“And there may be more than one,” teased Theo James, who plays manipulative finance bro, Cameron.
Other newcomers to “The White Lotus” praised White’s writing, which abandons the idea of heroes and villains, instead embracing the messiness of human morality.
“His vision for the show is that it’s morally very complex, and you as an audience might find yourself lining with one character at one point, and then — against your instincts — siding with a different character two episodes later,” said Will Sharpe, whose newly rich character Ethan is on a couples vacation with his college roommate. “I think that grey area is really fertile.”
Added F. Murray Abraham, whose Bert Di Grasso travels to Sicily with his son and grandson to get in touch with their Italian roots: “People are chaotic, they’re not all good and they’re not all bad. That’s one of the things that makes Mike’s writing so good — because we do see ourselves in these people.”