The White Lotus
Italian dream
Season 2 Episode 2
Editor’s Rating 4 Stars ****
Photo Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO
Want to see episode 3 of The White Lotus before everyone else? Join us at the Vulture Festival in Los Angeles on November 12th for a screening followed by a live talk with Meghann Fahy – tickets are on sale now!
Last week we were introduced to the Sicilian legend “Teste di Moro” about a despised woman who beheaded her duplicitous lover. But this week the focus seems to be cutting off a different body part. “I think some women cut off their husband’s testicles and then wonder why they’re not more attracted to them,” says Daphne, speculating with her husband about the relationship dynamics of fellow travelers Harper and Ethan. This notion of emasculation – or, more broadly, who wields power in those relationships – runs like a red thread through “Italian Dream”. Who wears the (designer) trousers and what are the effects?
Our second day at White Lotus begins with our guests planning their itinerary at the breakfast buffet. The Di Grasso clan effectively adopts Portia and invites her to go to the Greek theater with them. A much friendlier Greg than we saw last week indulges Tanya in her fantasy day in Sicily – “Whatever you want; It’s your day to shine,” he tells her — though it’s unclear if that day includes the Oreo cookie cake she ordered for breakfast. Meanwhile, Harper finds himself alone while Ethan goes for an early morning jog until Daphne and Cameron wave them to their table. He ends up answering a call and yells into the phone about his missing luggage, but Daphne assures Harper that she’s never on the receiving end of that anger, telling her, “We never fight.”
Harper finds this absurd, and we can practically see her tucking that nugget away to happily report to Ethan around the room — but when she gets there, she finds him jerking off after the run. She is slightly offended that he not only waited for her so they could have sex, but only just because it seems like no secret that they are out of sync in that department. He prefers the morning; she prefers the night. They don’t seem in any rush to fix this (Ethan passes on her offer to quit the job), but maybe that will change after a week of comparing themselves to Cameron and Daphne.
Speaking of which, Harper quickly flips this conversation to bring up the “we don’t fight” revelation, thinking it’s a sign that her perfect life is really fake. “You always do that to certain people,” Ethan tells her, letting her joy fade. “You must find them somehow lacking in comparison to you.” Passing on sex was nothing compared to shutting down what really matters to Harper: her bullshit. She is hurt by the accusation that they are threatening her, but quickly defends herself, retorts, “Everyone does, Ethan. I’m sure they give a shit over there right now and say I’m a bitch or you could do better.”
And she’s right! This is essentially what Cameron and Daphne say later in their room, where Daphne lays out her aforementioned emasculation theory. While it’s debatable whether Harper is actually emasculating Ethan or whether it’s affecting her dubbed sex life, it’s clear that she’s the one wearing the pants in the relationship. Take the previous night, for example, when she practically told Ethan what he was going to order for dinner and tried to veto his selection of fishy whitefish.
Contrasted with Cameron and Daphne, one marriage that’s definitely at odds is that between Dominic and his absent wife Abby. Still, Bert can’t understand why Abby and her daughter Kara decided to skip the trip. What could Dominic possibly have done to make them so angry that they miss a trip to Italy? As they roam the Greek theater, Bert tells the story of the Rape of Persephone, set in Sicily, in which Hades kidnapped Demeter’s daughter Persephone and took her to the underworld. “Demeter forgave Hades and he raped her daughter. I mean whatever you did can’t be that bad,” he tells Dominic.
Thing is, Bert knows what his son did. “Your mistake was being sloppy,” he later tells him over dinner, saying that the actual offense wasn’t cheating, but being carelessly caught. Dominic balks at this, accusing his father of not being discreet with his own affairs – which Bert dismisses as “pecadillos”. But if Bert was aware of that, then why the constant false confusion about Abby and Kara’s absence? It seems that by asking why they’re not there, he really means why they’re so angry about what Bert sees as a non-event. So much so that he thinks it’s a completely solvable problem and urges his son to just fix it: “Just get yourselves together.” Apparently Bert couldn’t hear that call to Abby through the hotel wall.
Our dysfunctional pair of couples get together for another day of sitting at tables with Aperol Spritzes (mixing things up by also sitting on the beach), and like clockwork, Cameron and Daphne dole out plenty of material for Harper to judge . She collects each of these offending comments as if they were little souvenirs, and with each one we can practically see her becoming more affirmative, as if quietly saying, “See?” to Ethan. They detail the many five-star hotels they’ve stayed in, saying Puerto Rico, where Harper’s family is from, “was never really on our radar.” Cameron then addresses the elephant in the room and asks them how they like being nouveau riche. Not much has changed, they say, and Harper adds that they’re not exactly materialistic. Cameron returns to this comment after Daphne mentions her charitable donations. “Yeah, we’re not just materialistic pigs… no matter what you might think,” he says with playful hostility.
There have been many comparisons between Cameron and Jake Lacy’s Shane, last season’s financial brother. But an important difference this time is that Cameron has a worthy opponent in Harper. Just like Cameron, Harper is the alpha in their relationship and at his level when it comes to confidence and wealth. That equality was something Shane didn’t have in his conflicts with Armond and Rachel, and it adds a new dimension to this character archetype. That’s what makes them so entertaining to watch as they spar: they challenge each other more than their respective partners, and the mere idea of being challenged seems to catch them both off guard.
When Cameron dismisses her “materialistic” comment, we see Harper getting nervous for the first time, as if she hadn’t realized they’re competent enough to recognize their digs as digs. Something similar happens later when she hears about the traumatic birth of her baby and suddenly sees a different side of the couple, like, oh wait, these are real people.
Determined to make Tanya’s Italian dream a reality, she and Greg rent a Vespa, despite discouragement from a very nervous Valentina. “Who do I look like?” asks Tanya, showing off her pink Monica Vitti dress. “Peppa Pig,” replies Valentina before anxiously sending her on her bumpy ride across Sicily. Monica Vitti and Peppa Pig – two European icons.
We later find out why Greg was so intent on creating their perfect day when he drops the bombshell that a work emergency in Denver has him leaving their romantic journey early. (Is there a White Lotus in Denver? A free idea for season three here.) Tanya, a half-billion-dollar heiress, can’t understand why he can’t just quit. “I can not stop; I can’t afford to stop. You got me to sign a prenup. What if we don’t train?” he says, afraid he’ll become just one of many people Tanya rejects (*cough* Belinda *cough*).
This fight gives us some interesting context about the dynamics of their relationship, but it’s not entirely clear who is emasculating whom. On the one hand, we saw how Greg was horrible towards Tanya, he was disrespectful and walked in on her throughout last week’s episode, which even gave us reason to believe he was cheating on her. But now we know that when it comes to money, she has all the power and has him by the balls. He’s practically a toy at her disposal (not a very fun toy either – if you wind it up, it coughs and its only accessory is underwear). The question is, is his mistreatment of Tanya the result of this power imbalance or just an excuse for it?
While this fight is taking place, Portia and Albie get to know each other better across the restaurant over dinner, proving to be another case study in Daphne’s emasculation theory. Of course, no one emasculates the already mild-mannered Albie, but his “nice boys finish last” idea adds to the attractive part of Daphne’s thesis.
“Girls always complain that guys aren’t nice, but then when they find a nice guy, they’re not always interested,” he says, supporting Daphne’s claim that women aren’t attracted to emasculated men. Sadly, this claim could be true between Portia and Albie because as lovely as our sweet Albie seems to be, there seems to be some discrepancy when it comes to what they’re looking for. Finally, just yesterday, after being told to “get a cock,” Portia said her goal was “to get thrown around by a hot Italian guy.” Albie isn’t the throwing type. Albie is the guy who politely asks her for a kiss at the end of the night and then says, “Let’s hang out tomorrow!” Refusing to have a bad relationship with women, he breaks the generational cycle we see in the older Di See Grasso men who insist on having bad relationships with women.
In contrast, one of said older Di Grasso men, Albie’s father, hosts Lucia and Mia in his room for a threesome. The friendly gesture is a way of thanking Dominic for putting their names on his rooms (and therefore his bill), which he had to do to give them access to the hotel – something Valentina wasn’t about to give in to. So they pay him a visit after a day of Pretty Woman-style indulgence on Dominic’s dime. But Dominic, seemingly determined to follow his father’s advice and “fix” his marriage, tries to turn Lucia away. When Mia shows up, the three prove company, and Dominic folds and invites the women over.
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