The White Lotus season 2

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Love how Mike White randomly drops red pills in this season and last season. The British nephew giving some well needed perspective and context to rebuke Portia’s woke prattling about the world falling apart is a prime example.

Yes telling a woke millennial that the quality and safety of life - for all- is at all-time human history highs in 2022 was awesome perspective.

wait i didn't catch this part - what happened / what did he say?

I think they’re outside and he’s drunk and suddenly says this. He’s talking about Roman ages, nailing people to crosses to fry in the sun, Barbarians, burning witches— how far humans have come. And her she is complaining that the world is ending because of people.

Yes, the old "things were worse in the past, so therefore you can't complain about or try to change anything about the present!" A close cousin of "you think there's sexism in the West? Why don't you go live in Saudi Arabia then! Women have it great!"

Exactly this.

No, not at all because Portia was saying the world as a whole is worse than it ever was, which is an absurd statement by any metric (poverty, mortality, wealth, life span, injustice, racism, etc)

She said no such thing. She said the world was a f'd up place to which Jack replied "what's wrong with it?" and she said, "are you joking? everything is falling apart." And then he says, "you would rather live in the middle ages then, would you?" and made a little speech that is a great world and talks about how people were hacking each other to bits in the middle ages. He doesn't even bring up poverty, mortality, life span, injustice, racism, etc.

All of which are vastly improved and continuing to. Even look at how many countries have moved from emerging market status and beyond and have middle classes. Amazing.

That’s not what she was saying. She was totally despondent about the world and said it was falling apart. Jack provided some well needed context: that we live in the best time in human history. By every measurable statistic that is a true statement.

Except that, as PP said, we are in a period of mass extinction and if we don't engage in difficult collective action life as we know it is about to become worse in ways we can't even really conceive of. But we do have Netflix and good food. I think day to day our lives are pretty great - but we have major existential threats hanging over us that many of us (and Portia and Harper) spend time thinking and worrying about, and others (Jack, Daphne) do not.

There have ALWAYS been major existential threats. There has always been ways to look at the world with grim certainty at our coming end or believing in the possibility of survival. We are a collection of consciousness' living on a rock in space with no escape route. And no knowledge of what, if anything, comes next. We can choose to face that uncertainty with existential dread, or with gratitude for what we've been given. Try to leave the world better than we found it, or suck it of its resources. Be kind of the people around us or be selfish. Use our individual power for good and happiness, to further our interests at all costs, or choose not to use it at all because we are swimming in hopeless ennui. What is the meaning of life? How do you find your own meaning when you realize there really isn't meaning? Hard questions. And someone will be there to skewer you no matter what you chose for one reason or another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing I like about this show is how much empathy it has for its characters. I think a lot of the commentary on here simply reflects the ways in which viewers have less empathy than the show itself does:

Does Portia complain a lot while doing nothing to change her circumstances? Yes. Is this an incredibly common predicament? Also yes. Are some of the crises we face as a society right now (environmental collapse, the rise of right-wing fascism, the way technology and social media is impacting social connections and how people derive meaning from their lives) making it particularly easy for young people to fall into this trap? Yes, yes, yes. I am an old person but I understand Portia's outlook, even if I can also agree that it's unproductive and ultimately harmful to her. She's someone from a working or middle class background (tells Albie she went to Chico State, for instance) who is pretty middle-of-the-road intellectually, looks wise, etc. She's "very online" as most young people today are, but she has pretty minimal tools available to her (either internal tools or external tools) to do much of anything to about the Big problems in the world.

What Portia doesn't realize, but I think might by the end of the next episode, is that it is not up to her to fix any of these problems. The task that faces her is to find a way to live within the world as it is, with the resources at her disposal, in a way that is meaningful and rewarding to her. She has to navigate her own relationship with the world, and not simply allow it to be mediated by social media or what others tell her she should do. And you can do that even if you aren't a genius or aren't rich. Anyone can do this. Portia has to recognize her own power. This is such a common coming-of-age story. I certainly went through it, and I'd bet most people on this thread did too. Some might have gone through it much younger (easier if you have great parenting and the right environment growing up) or later (nothing to be ashamed of, everyone comes to this in their own time) but it's part of growing up.

So when I see people complaining that Portia is "inert" or complains to much, I'm like "Yes, this is the whole point of her character." If Portia were not in this point in her life where she feels overwhelmed by the world and just kind of paralyzed by the perceived expectations of how she's supposed to live, she would not be working for Tanya and staying at the White Lotus, which is like a very fancy retreat for people struggling with the shortcomings of their lives, personalities, and relationships. It's weird to get mad about it because that's what this show is all about.

I am the poster who called her inert and basically agree with everything you are saying. A lot of the Portia pushback has been against a specific poster who seems to think Portia's worldview is...I don't know, but they aren't giving the nuance you are giving. I agree this is very common and its something she can work through and I think that is what the show is saying. I think pp was saying 'well really her life DOES such so stop being so hard on her' and that is what made other posters bristle.

There are a lot of REALLY simplistic black/white reads on the characters in this thread and its honestly eye opening to me about the whole world that there is such a drive to put these characters into neat boxes.

It's hard to imagine enjoying this particular show with such a black and white worldview!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back in episode one, when Lucia and her friend are first shown, they’re walking down the street and pass by Alessio. Lucia says hi to him in a pretty normal/friendly way. Not sure why I’m sharing this, but there you go.

Sure, but now she is short Cameron and Albie’s money.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Very interesting interview with Aubrey Plaza on the Still Watching podcast today.

She says that Harper is not attracted to Cameron at all, he represents pretty much everything she hates, and the more she learns about him the more she dislikes him.

She says that a lot of Harper’s anger at Ethan about the night with Cameron is about how he is behaving so differently with Cameron than he does around her. Like with her he is withdrawn, unadventurous. He won’t even break his routines to have sex with her, he seems so disinterested in her. But with Cameron he’s doing molly and staying up all night? Contrast this with Harper’s night in Noto where, despite taking an edible she remains 100% the same person and is focused on getting home and communicating with Ethan.

Also says she thinks of the show like a 7 hour movie because of how she read the scripts (all at once) and that she is “scared” of the finale.

I agree I think she does see him flirting with her and it just disgusts her further. I think what other people have read as 'flirting back' is more like incredulity that he's giving her eyes in front of Daphne. I see no version of events where they hooked up. But it is telling that in Noto Harper says that Ethan won't cheat on her and is right and even when faced with evidence he did she is skeptical and does seek out his version and I think does believe him although she's angry about the general events that DID happen. In contrast Ethan is faced with this minor moment of her absence and goes full paranoid psycho even though it would be ENTIRELY out of her character to get with Cameron on multiple levels. It just confirms what Harper is already mad about, that Ethan is all about Cameron. He is viewing the entire trip through Cameron's viewpoint not Harper. She is an incidental character in his vacation story. Something she has picked up on but he has not.

The preview for next week makes it seem like something definitely happened.

It's so infuriating that Ethan denies Harper physical affection of any kind yet gets insanely jealous of a hint of Cameron flirting. Harper is the pawn and it's about time she made a move.

Their relationship is dead, do not resuscitate. In the end, the contrast with Daphne and Cameron's highly problematic but also affectionate and loving relationship is instructive and will help her make the necessary break. If he doesn't end up dead first.

She won’t, remember last season when that wife just decided to sacrifice all her happiness and fulfillment and stay with the jerk? Yep.

I don't think that relationship is comparable to Harper and Ethan, if for no other reasons than

1) Harper is gainfully employed and can walk away and maintain a good life
2) Ethan is complicated and has darkness but he is not the petulant man child that Shane is/was
3) Harper is both more comfortable in and simultaneously a lot less attached to opulent wealth than Rachel was

H/E are a lot more adult than S/R for whatever that is worth.

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that Harper was already married to Ethan when the wealth arrived. She wasn't in it for the money, and if anything she sees it causing problems for them.

So, I don't think Harper decides to suck it up for the comfortable lifestyle. I think they either reconcile (maybe as they try to hide Cameron's body after Ethan kills him semi-accidentally) or Harper leaves him.

I am kind of finding myself rooting for Ethan and Harper to make it now

I think Ethan accidentally drowns next week.

Ugh I was so nervous when he went running solo/swimming. That'd kind of be a less satisfying death though? We're expecting a big fight between Harper/Cameron and it's a pure accident on his own?

I mean, it's just a guess! We'll see what happens. My predictions are:
- ethan
- quentin
- jack
-greg

Mine are

- Lucia
- Quentin

I think:
- Nonno
- Greg

I was very worried for Nonno at that crazy house of women!

We haven't talked about that - what was up with that? I have to admit that I thought it was hugely cringey to just drive up to this random house and expect the family to be thrilled to see their very distant relatives that immigrated to the US generations ago. I felt bad for Nonno, but I also thought the whole idea was questionable. Maybe with Lucia to translate, but even then.

It shows Nonno's arrogance. The reunion he had in his mind was not based on any reality and normal people know that and wouldn't do what they did. He is so wrapped up in himself and his own world - think about his belief that his wife was not bothered by his affairs, that he didn't approach this in any reasonable way.

This is a whole thing in the Italian American community -- going to Italy to trace your roots and look for living relatives. But I think the Di Grassos experience is actually very common. Especially when the family you find are pretty rural, and you don't speak any Italian.* It absolutely is arrogant and these people do not think through what it must be like to just be living your life and then have a group of foreigners who don't even speak your language show up AT YOUR HOME and demand not only your time but expect to fulfill their emotional needs. It's an extremely weird expectation and very entitled.

* Showing up not only without a translator (and keep in mind that they didn't put much effort into locating a translator), but with almost no Italian language skills at all was the part that was most offensive to me. My Italian is middling at best, but I would have been able to handle that situation a million times better. My experience is that Italians tend to be pretty grateful towards efforts to speak their language, and that even if you can't fully converse in Italian, having all your greetings, common sayings, and then key vocabulary in the language goes a looooong way to getting along well with Italians, even in more rural areas. Also, if you have Italian heritage, learning that amount of Italian would not even be hard or time consuming because there is so much random Italian floating around. Like if you grew up with an Italian mother or grandmother, you don't know how to say mille grazie or mi dispiaci, just sort of intuitively? Come on. Albie I'll forgive because he's three generations removed and he's young, but it is a joke to me that Bert and Dom didn't have any Italian and couldn't even be bothered to listen to a few Duo Lingo courses on the plane.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Love how Mike White randomly drops red pills in this season and last season. The British nephew giving some well needed perspective and context to rebuke Portia’s woke prattling about the world falling apart is a prime example.

Yes telling a woke millennial that the quality and safety of life - for all- is at all-time human history highs in 2022 was awesome perspective.

wait i didn't catch this part - what happened / what did he say?

I think they’re outside and he’s drunk and suddenly says this. He’s talking about Roman ages, nailing people to crosses to fry in the sun, Barbarians, burning witches— how far humans have come. And her she is complaining that the world is ending because of people.

Yes, the old "things were worse in the past, so therefore you can't complain about or try to change anything about the present!" A close cousin of "you think there's sexism in the West? Why don't you go live in Saudi Arabia then! Women have it great!"

Exactly this.

No, not at all because Portia was saying the world as a whole is worse than it ever was, which is an absurd statement by any metric (poverty, mortality, wealth, life span, injustice, racism, etc)

She said no such thing. She said the world was a f'd up place to which Jack replied "what's wrong with it?" and she said, "are you joking? everything is falling apart." And then he says, "you would rather live in the middle ages then, would you?" and made a little speech that is a great world and talks about how people were hacking each other to bits in the middle ages. He doesn't even bring up poverty, mortality, life span, injustice, racism, etc.

All of which are vastly improved and continuing to. Even look at how many countries have moved from emerging market status and beyond and have middle classes. Amazing.

That’s not what she was saying. She was totally despondent about the world and said it was falling apart. Jack provided some well needed context: that we live in the best time in human history. By every measurable statistic that is a true statement.

Except that, as PP said, we are in a period of mass extinction and if we don't engage in difficult collective action life as we know it is about to become worse in ways we can't even really conceive of. But we do have Netflix and good food. I think day to day our lives are pretty great - but we have major existential threats hanging over us that many of us (and Portia and Harper) spend time thinking and worrying about, and others (Jack, Daphne) do not.

There have ALWAYS been major existential threats. There has always been ways to look at the world with grim certainty at our coming end or believing in the possibility of survival. We are a collection of consciousness' living on a rock in space with no escape route. And no knowledge of what, if anything, comes next. We can choose to face that uncertainty with existential dread, or with gratitude for what we've been given. Try to leave the world better than we found it, or suck it of its resources. Be kind of the people around us or be selfish. Use our individual power for good and happiness, to further our interests at all costs, or choose not to use it at all because we are swimming in hopeless ennui. What is the meaning of life? How do you find your own meaning when you realize there really isn't meaning? Hard questions. And someone will be there to skewer you no matter what you chose for one reason or another.

I mean sure. I grew up in the 80s convinced that we were going to die in a nuclear holocaust next Tuesday at noon. And for many people, these existential threats are very hard to escape. It's wonderful you have all the answers for yourself, but many people struggle under these threats - and I'm not sure how it helps people, or helps tell a story, to pretend that they aren't a part of many people's psyches. It wouldn't be a very interesting show if everyone were well adjusted, understood exactly how to behave in ways that mitigate their neuroses, insecurities, depressions, confusions, etc, and always did and said the right thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very interesting interview with Aubrey Plaza on the Still Watching podcast today.

She says that Harper is not attracted to Cameron at all, he represents pretty much everything she hates, and the more she learns about him the more she dislikes him.

She says that a lot of Harper’s anger at Ethan about the night with Cameron is about how he is behaving so differently with Cameron than he does around her. Like with her he is withdrawn, unadventurous. He won’t even break his routines to have sex with her, he seems so disinterested in her. But with Cameron he’s doing molly and staying up all night? Contrast this with Harper’s night in Noto where, despite taking an edible she remains 100% the same person and is focused on getting home and communicating with Ethan.

Also says she thinks of the show like a 7 hour movie because of how she read the scripts (all at once) and that she is “scared” of the finale.

I agree I think she does see him flirting with her and it just disgusts her further. I think what other people have read as 'flirting back' is more like incredulity that he's giving her eyes in front of Daphne. I see no version of events where they hooked up. But it is telling that in Noto Harper says that Ethan won't cheat on her and is right and even when faced with evidence he did she is skeptical and does seek out his version and I think does believe him although she's angry about the general events that DID happen. In contrast Ethan is faced with this minor moment of her absence and goes full paranoid psycho even though it would be ENTIRELY out of her character to get with Cameron on multiple levels. It just confirms what Harper is already mad about, that Ethan is all about Cameron. He is viewing the entire trip through Cameron's viewpoint not Harper. She is an incidental character in his vacation story. Something she has picked up on but he has not.

The preview for next week makes it seem like something definitely happened.

It's so infuriating that Ethan denies Harper physical affection of any kind yet gets insanely jealous of a hint of Cameron flirting. Harper is the pawn and it's about time she made a move.

Their relationship is dead, do not resuscitate. In the end, the contrast with Daphne and Cameron's highly problematic but also affectionate and loving relationship is instructive and will help her make the necessary break. If he doesn't end up dead first.

She won’t, remember last season when that wife just decided to sacrifice all her happiness and fulfillment and stay with the jerk? Yep.

I don't think that relationship is comparable to Harper and Ethan, if for no other reasons than

1) Harper is gainfully employed and can walk away and maintain a good life
2) Ethan is complicated and has darkness but he is not the petulant man child that Shane is/was
3) Harper is both more comfortable in and simultaneously a lot less attached to opulent wealth than Rachel was

H/E are a lot more adult than S/R for whatever that is worth.

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that Harper was already married to Ethan when the wealth arrived. She wasn't in it for the money, and if anything she sees it causing problems for them.

So, I don't think Harper decides to suck it up for the comfortable lifestyle. I think they either reconcile (maybe as they try to hide Cameron's body after Ethan kills him semi-accidentally) or Harper leaves him.

I am kind of finding myself rooting for Ethan and Harper to make it now

I think Ethan accidentally drowns next week.

Ugh I was so nervous when he went running solo/swimming. That'd kind of be a less satisfying death though? We're expecting a big fight between Harper/Cameron and it's a pure accident on his own?

I mean, it's just a guess! We'll see what happens. My predictions are:
- ethan
- quentin
- jack
-greg

Mine are

- Lucia
- Quentin

I think:
- Nonno
- Greg

I was very worried for Nonno at that crazy house of women!

We haven't talked about that - what was up with that? I have to admit that I thought it was hugely cringey to just drive up to this random house and expect the family to be thrilled to see their very distant relatives that immigrated to the US generations ago. I felt bad for Nonno, but I also thought the whole idea was questionable. Maybe with Lucia to translate, but even then.

It shows Nonno's arrogance. The reunion he had in his mind was not based on any reality and normal people know that and wouldn't do what they did. He is so wrapped up in himself and his own world - think about his belief that his wife was not bothered by his affairs, that he didn't approach this in any reasonable way.

This is a whole thing in the Italian American community -- going to Italy to trace your roots and look for living relatives. But I think the Di Grassos experience is actually very common. Especially when the family you find are pretty rural, and you don't speak any Italian.* It absolutely is arrogant and these people do not think through what it must be like to just be living your life and then have a group of foreigners who don't even speak your language show up AT YOUR HOME and demand not only your time but expect to fulfill their emotional needs. It's an extremely weird expectation and very entitled.

* Showing up not only without a translator (and keep in mind that they didn't put much effort into locating a translator), but with almost no Italian language skills at all was the part that was most offensive to me. My Italian is middling at best, but I would have been able to handle that situation a million times better. My experience is that Italians tend to be pretty grateful towards efforts to speak their language, and that even if you can't fully converse in Italian, having all your greetings, common sayings, and then key vocabulary in the language goes a looooong way to getting along well with Italians, even in more rural areas. Also, if you have Italian heritage, learning that amount of Italian would not even be hard or time consuming because there is so much random Italian floating around. Like if you grew up with an Italian mother or grandmother, you don't know how to say mille grazie or mi dispiaci, just sort of intuitively? Come on. Albie I'll forgive because he's three generations removed and he's young, but it is a joke to me that Bert and Dom didn't have any Italian and couldn't even be bothered to listen to a few Duo Lingo courses on the plane.

Totally the fact that they didn't even google how to say 'we are the Di Grassos from American our grandparents lived here and we wanted to say hello' was insane. Like did they look up BONJOURNO!? They knew nothing, it was embarassing.

That said I think that the bolded is a pretty unkind take on it. Plenty of people love getting access to a piece of their history and plenty of people don't. But this movement towards people suppressing all efforts to communicate with others at the risk of offending is just going to turn the whole world into Wall-E. They showed up, they were asked to leave, they did! No harm no foul. They made arrogant decisions that set themselves up for failure but the inherent idea I do not think is bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love how Mike White randomly drops red pills in this season and last season. The British nephew giving some well needed perspective and context to rebuke Portia’s woke prattling about the world falling apart is a prime example.

Yes telling a woke millennial that the quality and safety of life - for all- is at all-time human history highs in 2022 was awesome perspective.

wait i didn't catch this part - what happened / what did he say?

I think they’re outside and he’s drunk and suddenly says this. He’s talking about Roman ages, nailing people to crosses to fry in the sun, Barbarians, burning witches— how far humans have come. And her she is complaining that the world is ending because of people.

Yes, the old "things were worse in the past, so therefore you can't complain about or try to change anything about the present!" A close cousin of "you think there's sexism in the West? Why don't you go live in Saudi Arabia then! Women have it great!"

Exactly this.

No, not at all because Portia was saying the world as a whole is worse than it ever was, which is an absurd statement by any metric (poverty, mortality, wealth, life span, injustice, racism, etc)

She said no such thing. She said the world was a f'd up place to which Jack replied "what's wrong with it?" and she said, "are you joking? everything is falling apart." And then he says, "you would rather live in the middle ages then, would you?" and made a little speech that is a great world and talks about how people were hacking each other to bits in the middle ages. He doesn't even bring up poverty, mortality, life span, injustice, racism, etc.

All of which are vastly improved and continuing to. Even look at how many countries have moved from emerging market status and beyond and have middle classes. Amazing.

That’s not what she was saying. She was totally despondent about the world and said it was falling apart. Jack provided some well needed context: that we live in the best time in human history. By every measurable statistic that is a true statement.

Except that, as PP said, we are in a period of mass extinction and if we don't engage in difficult collective action life as we know it is about to become worse in ways we can't even really conceive of. But we do have Netflix and good food. I think day to day our lives are pretty great - but we have major existential threats hanging over us that many of us (and Portia and Harper) spend time thinking and worrying about, and others (Jack, Daphne) do not.

There have ALWAYS been major existential threats. There has always been ways to look at the world with grim certainty at our coming end or believing in the possibility of survival. We are a collection of consciousness' living on a rock in space with no escape route. And no knowledge of what, if anything, comes next. We can choose to face that uncertainty with existential dread, or with gratitude for what we've been given. Try to leave the world better than we found it, or suck it of its resources. Be kind of the people around us or be selfish. Use our individual power for good and happiness, to further our interests at all costs, or choose not to use it at all because we are swimming in hopeless ennui. What is the meaning of life? How do you find your own meaning when you realize there really isn't meaning? Hard questions. And someone will be there to skewer you no matter what you chose for one reason or another.

I mean sure. I grew up in the 80s convinced that we were going to die in a nuclear holocaust next Tuesday at noon. And for many people, these existential threats are very hard to escape. It's wonderful you have all the answers for yourself, but many people struggle under these threats - and I'm not sure how it helps people, or helps tell a story, to pretend that they aren't a part of many people's psyches. It wouldn't be a very interesting show if everyone were well adjusted, understood exactly how to behave in ways that mitigate their neuroses, insecurities, depressions, confusions, etc, and always did and said the right thing.

Of course to the bolded! I love the show and thinking about the characters! It would not be very interesting if they were all perfect. But isn't what we're doing here analyzing their issues?

I don't have all the answers, where did I say that? And like I said I love the show and it would be boring if they were all well adjusted. But I enjoy thinking about these things, and for me Portia's brand of behavior is particularly irritating. Certainly due to my own issues. I have personally had a life where I have never had to worry much about money (I'm not vacationing at White Lotuses, but I also don't have to pay attention to what I put in my cart at the grocery store), but have also endured great tragedy and neglect and abuse. And much of my identity now as an adult in a happy marriage is tied to the fact that I am a resilient person who pushed through those bad things (and the bad things in the world), who focused on what I had that so few others did not to choose to have a life not defined by my childhood. And I have people in my life who have this inert view on life, and I feel like they are wasting their lottery ticket by angsting about. Who want to spend every meal at a restaurant complaining about the world instead of tasting the butter on the bread. And you know, this is my issue, and I know that, none of us is perfect and all of us would benefit from having more empathy. Portia might do better with a hug and permission to vent then she would an unsympathetic kick in the butt telling her to cheer the eff up and smell the arancini. And all of these characters trigger different things in us. Evoke sympathy and disgust for different reasons, fair or unfair.

The White Lotus is a mirror, it reflects our own bad qualities back at us, highlighted and in sharp focus and asks us to examine them.

[Anonymous]

They also should have showed up with a gift. That might have made their long lost relatives more receptive to supposed good will.

[Anonymous]

The preview is pretty helpful: Tanya survives the night. Cameron is wrestled under the water. Harper is showing emotion. Ethan is paranoid. Albie wants to save Lucia. Can't wait til Sunday!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very interesting interview with Aubrey Plaza on the Still Watching podcast today.

She says that Harper is not attracted to Cameron at all, he represents pretty much everything she hates, and the more she learns about him the more she dislikes him.

She says that a lot of Harper’s anger at Ethan about the night with Cameron is about how he is behaving so differently with Cameron than he does around her. Like with her he is withdrawn, unadventurous. He won’t even break his routines to have sex with her, he seems so disinterested in her. But with Cameron he’s doing molly and staying up all night? Contrast this with Harper’s night in Noto where, despite taking an edible she remains 100% the same person and is focused on getting home and communicating with Ethan.

Also says she thinks of the show like a 7 hour movie because of how she read the scripts (all at once) and that she is “scared” of the finale.

I agree I think she does see him flirting with her and it just disgusts her further. I think what other people have read as 'flirting back' is more like incredulity that he's giving her eyes in front of Daphne. I see no version of events where they hooked up. But it is telling that in Noto Harper says that Ethan won't cheat on her and is right and even when faced with evidence he did she is skeptical and does seek out his version and I think does believe him although she's angry about the general events that DID happen. In contrast Ethan is faced with this minor moment of her absence and goes full paranoid psycho even though it would be ENTIRELY out of her character to get with Cameron on multiple levels. It just confirms what Harper is already mad about, that Ethan is all about Cameron. He is viewing the entire trip through Cameron's viewpoint not Harper. She is an incidental character in his vacation story. Something she has picked up on but he has not.

The preview for next week makes it seem like something definitely happened.

It's so infuriating that Ethan denies Harper physical affection of any kind yet gets insanely jealous of a hint of Cameron flirting. Harper is the pawn and it's about time she made a move.

Their relationship is dead, do not resuscitate. In the end, the contrast with Daphne and Cameron's highly problematic but also affectionate and loving relationship is instructive and will help her make the necessary break. If he doesn't end up dead first.

She won’t, remember last season when that wife just decided to sacrifice all her happiness and fulfillment and stay with the jerk? Yep.

I don't think that relationship is comparable to Harper and Ethan, if for no other reasons than

1) Harper is gainfully employed and can walk away and maintain a good life
2) Ethan is complicated and has darkness but he is not the petulant man child that Shane is/was
3) Harper is both more comfortable in and simultaneously a lot less attached to opulent wealth than Rachel was

H/E are a lot more adult than S/R for whatever that is worth.

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that Harper was already married to Ethan when the wealth arrived. She wasn't in it for the money, and if anything she sees it causing problems for them.

So, I don't think Harper decides to suck it up for the comfortable lifestyle. I think they either reconcile (maybe as they try to hide Cameron's body after Ethan kills him semi-accidentally) or Harper leaves him.

I am kind of finding myself rooting for Ethan and Harper to make it now

I think Ethan accidentally drowns next week.

Ugh I was so nervous when he went running solo/swimming. That'd kind of be a less satisfying death though? We're expecting a big fight between Harper/Cameron and it's a pure accident on his own?

I mean, it's just a guess! We'll see what happens. My predictions are:
- ethan
- quentin
- jack
-greg

Mine are

- Lucia
- Quentin

I think:
- Nonno
- Greg

I was very worried for Nonno at that crazy house of women!

We haven't talked about that - what was up with that? I have to admit that I thought it was hugely cringey to just drive up to this random house and expect the family to be thrilled to see their very distant relatives that immigrated to the US generations ago. I felt bad for Nonno, but I also thought the whole idea was questionable. Maybe with Lucia to translate, but even then.

It shows Nonno's arrogance. The reunion he had in his mind was not based on any reality and normal people know that and wouldn't do what they did. He is so wrapped up in himself and his own world - think about his belief that his wife was not bothered by his affairs, that he didn't approach this in any reasonable way.

This is a whole thing in the Italian American community -- going to Italy to trace your roots and look for living relatives. But I think the Di Grassos experience is actually very common. Especially when the family you find are pretty rural, and you don't speak any Italian.* It absolutely is arrogant and these people do not think through what it must be like to just be living your life and then have a group of foreigners who don't even speak your language show up AT YOUR HOME and demand not only your time but expect to fulfill their emotional needs. It's an extremely weird expectation and very entitled.

* Showing up not only without a translator (and keep in mind that they didn't put much effort into locating a translator), but with almost no Italian language skills at all was the part that was most offensive to me. My Italian is middling at best, but I would have been able to handle that situation a million times better. My experience is that Italians tend to be pretty grateful towards efforts to speak their language, and that even if you can't fully converse in Italian, having all your greetings, common sayings, and then key vocabulary in the language goes a looooong way to getting along well with Italians, even in more rural areas. Also, if you have Italian heritage, learning that amount of Italian would not even be hard or time consuming because there is so much random Italian floating around. Like if you grew up with an Italian mother or grandmother, you don't know how to say mille grazie or mi dispiaci, just sort of intuitively? Come on. Albie I'll forgive because he's three generations removed and he's young, but it is a joke to me that Bert and Dom didn't have any Italian and couldn't even be bothered to listen to a few Duo Lingo courses on the plane.

Totally the fact that they didn't even google how to say 'we are the Di Grassos from American our grandparents lived here and we wanted to say hello' was insane. Like did they look up BONJOURNO!? They knew nothing, it was embarassing.

That said I think that the bolded is a pretty unkind take on it. Plenty of people love getting access to a piece of their history and plenty of people don't. But this movement towards people suppressing all efforts to communicate with others at the risk of offending is just going to turn the whole world into Wall-E. They showed up, they were asked to leave, they did! No harm no foul. They made arrogant decisions that set themselves up for failure but the inherent idea I do not think is bad.

I wasn't saying it's a bad idea. I would love to find out more about my family's history and go visit the places where my great grandparents grew up. But I was specific talking about the arrogant choices they made which set them up for failure, and the fact that they had this very self-centered expectation of how it would go, without thinking at all about how the people they were trying to meet would interpret these interactions. I think there's a way to do it that is respectful and open-minded, and a way to do it that is frankly childish and rude. They chose the latter, as do, from what I understand, many people doing this kind of thing. I do think it comes off as American arrogance and entitlement, and depending on where you are going, like poverty tourism. People want to see the quaint little houses that feel like they are out of another century, and the peasants in their peasant clothes. Bert even said the thing in the car about how he knows unemployment is a very big problem in Sicily, but then it doesn't cross their minds that these people they are reaching out to with no warning might be dealing with hose same economic realities, and that might make them less than anxious to welcome strangers into their home in the middle of a weekday? Like they could have come with gifts or offerings of some kind. Anything. They only came to take, and they got what the deserved.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Very interesting interview with Aubrey Plaza on the Still Watching podcast today.

She says that Harper is not attracted to Cameron at all, he represents pretty much everything she hates, and the more she learns about him the more she dislikes him.

She says that a lot of Harper’s anger at Ethan about the night with Cameron is about how he is behaving so differently with Cameron than he does around her. Like with her he is withdrawn, unadventurous. He won’t even break his routines to have sex with her, he seems so disinterested in her. But with Cameron he’s doing molly and staying up all night? Contrast this with Harper’s night in Noto where, despite taking an edible she remains 100% the same person and is focused on getting home and communicating with Ethan.

Also says she thinks of the show like a 7 hour movie because of how she read the scripts (all at once) and that she is “scared” of the finale.

I agree I think she does see him flirting with her and it just disgusts her further. I think what other people have read as 'flirting back' is more like incredulity that he's giving her eyes in front of Daphne. I see no version of events where they hooked up. But it is telling that in Noto Harper says that Ethan won't cheat on her and is right and even when faced with evidence he did she is skeptical and does seek out his version and I think does believe him although she's angry about the general events that DID happen. In contrast Ethan is faced with this minor moment of her absence and goes full paranoid psycho even though it would be ENTIRELY out of her character to get with Cameron on multiple levels. It just confirms what Harper is already mad about, that Ethan is all about Cameron. He is viewing the entire trip through Cameron's viewpoint not Harper. She is an incidental character in his vacation story. Something she has picked up on but he has not.

The preview for next week makes it seem like something definitely happened.

It's so infuriating that Ethan denies Harper physical affection of any kind yet gets insanely jealous of a hint of Cameron flirting. Harper is the pawn and it's about time she made a move.

Their relationship is dead, do not resuscitate. In the end, the contrast with Daphne and Cameron's highly problematic but also affectionate and loving relationship is instructive and will help her make the necessary break. If he doesn't end up dead first.

She won’t, remember last season when that wife just decided to sacrifice all her happiness and fulfillment and stay with the jerk? Yep.

I don't think that relationship is comparable to Harper and Ethan, if for no other reasons than

1) Harper is gainfully employed and can walk away and maintain a good life
2) Ethan is complicated and has darkness but he is not the petulant man child that Shane is/was
3) Harper is both more comfortable in and simultaneously a lot less attached to opulent wealth than Rachel was

H/E are a lot more adult than S/R for whatever that is worth.

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that Harper was already married to Ethan when the wealth arrived. She wasn't in it for the money, and if anything she sees it causing problems for them.

So, I don't think Harper decides to suck it up for the comfortable lifestyle. I think they either reconcile (maybe as they try to hide Cameron's body after Ethan kills him semi-accidentally) or Harper leaves him.

I am kind of finding myself rooting for Ethan and Harper to make it now

I think Ethan accidentally drowns next week.

Ugh I was so nervous when he went running solo/swimming. That'd kind of be a less satisfying death though? We're expecting a big fight between Harper/Cameron and it's a pure accident on his own?

I mean, it's just a guess! We'll see what happens. My predictions are:
- ethan
- quentin
- jack
-greg

Mine are

- Lucia
- Quentin

I think:
- Nonno
- Greg

I was very worried for Nonno at that crazy house of women!

We haven't talked about that - what was up with that? I have to admit that I thought it was hugely cringey to just drive up to this random house and expect the family to be thrilled to see their very distant relatives that immigrated to the US generations ago. I felt bad for Nonno, but I also thought the whole idea was questionable. Maybe with Lucia to translate, but even then.

It shows Nonno's arrogance. The reunion he had in his mind was not based on any reality and normal people know that and wouldn't do what they did. He is so wrapped up in himself and his own world - think about his belief that his wife was not bothered by his affairs, that he didn't approach this in any reasonable way.

This is a whole thing in the Italian American community -- going to Italy to trace your roots and look for living relatives. But I think the Di Grassos experience is actually very common. Especially when the family you find are pretty rural, and you don't speak any Italian.* It absolutely is arrogant and these people do not think through what it must be like to just be living your life and then have a group of foreigners who don't even speak your language show up AT YOUR HOME and demand not only your time but expect to fulfill their emotional needs. It's an extremely weird expectation and very entitled.

* Showing up not only without a translator (and keep in mind that they didn't put much effort into locating a translator), but with almost no Italian language skills at all was the part that was most offensive to me. My Italian is middling at best, but I would have been able to handle that situation a million times better. My experience is that Italians tend to be pretty grateful towards efforts to speak their language, and that even if you can't fully converse in Italian, having all your greetings, common sayings, and then key vocabulary in the language goes a looooong way to getting along well with Italians, even in more rural areas. Also, if you have Italian heritage, learning that amount of Italian would not even be hard or time consuming because there is so much random Italian floating around. Like if you grew up with an Italian mother or grandmother, you don't know how to say mille grazie or mi dispiaci, just sort of intuitively? Come on. Albie I'll forgive because he's three generations removed and he's young, but it is a joke to me that Bert and Dom didn't have any Italian and couldn't even be bothered to listen to a few Duo Lingo courses on the plane.

Totally the fact that they didn't even google how to say 'we are the Di Grassos from American our grandparents lived here and we wanted to say hello' was insane. Like did they look up BONJOURNO!? They knew nothing, it was embarassing.

That said I think that the bolded is a pretty unkind take on it. Plenty of people love getting access to a piece of their history and plenty of people don't. But this movement towards people suppressing all efforts to communicate with others at the risk of offending is just going to turn the whole world into Wall-E. They showed up, they were asked to leave, they did! No harm no foul. They made arrogant decisions that set themselves up for failure but the inherent idea I do not think is bad.

And maybe you should have looked up how to spell BUONGIORNO before you posted

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Love how Mike White randomly drops red pills in this season and last season. The British nephew giving some well needed perspective and context to rebuke Portia’s woke prattling about the world falling apart is a prime example.

Yes telling a woke millennial that the quality and safety of life - for all- is at all-time human history highs in 2022 was awesome perspective.

wait i didn't catch this part - what happened / what did he say?

I think they’re outside and he’s drunk and suddenly says this. He’s talking about Roman ages, nailing people to crosses to fry in the sun, Barbarians, burning witches— how far humans have come. And her she is complaining that the world is ending because of people.

Yes, the old "things were worse in the past, so therefore you can't complain about or try to change anything about the present!" A close cousin of "you think there's sexism in the West? Why don't you go live in Saudi Arabia then! Women have it great!"

Exactly this.

No, not at all because Portia was saying the world as a whole is worse than it ever was, which is an absurd statement by any metric (poverty, mortality, wealth, life span, injustice, racism, etc)

She said no such thing. She said the world was a f'd up place to which Jack replied "what's wrong with it?" and she said, "are you joking? everything is falling apart." And then he says, "you would rather live in the middle ages then, would you?" and made a little speech that is a great world and talks about how people were hacking each other to bits in the middle ages. He doesn't even bring up poverty, mortality, life span, injustice, racism, etc.

All of which are vastly improved and continuing to. Even look at how many countries have moved from emerging market status and beyond and have middle classes. Amazing.

That’s not what she was saying. She was totally despondent about the world and said it was falling apart. Jack provided some well needed context: that we live in the best time in human history. By every measurable statistic that is a true statement.

Except that, as PP said, we are in a period of mass extinction and if we don't engage in difficult collective action life as we know it is about to become worse in ways we can't even really conceive of. But we do have Netflix and good food. I think day to day our lives are pretty great - but we have major existential threats hanging over us that many of us (and Portia and Harper) spend time thinking and worrying about, and others (Jack, Daphne) do not.

There have ALWAYS been major existential threats. There has always been ways to look at the world with grim certainty at our coming end or believing in the possibility of survival. We are a collection of consciousness' living on a rock in space with no escape route. And no knowledge of what, if anything, comes next. We can choose to face that uncertainty with existential dread, or with gratitude for what we've been given. Try to leave the world better than we found it, or suck it of its resources. Be kind of the people around us or be selfish. Use our individual power for good and happiness, to further our interests at all costs, or choose not to use it at all because we are swimming in hopeless ennui. What is the meaning of life? How do you find your own meaning when you realize there really isn't meaning? Hard questions. And someone will be there to skewer you no matter what you chose for one reason or another.

I mean sure. I grew up in the 80s convinced that we were going to die in a nuclear holocaust next Tuesday at noon. And for many people, these existential threats are very hard to escape. It's wonderful you have all the answers for yourself, but many people struggle under these threats - and I'm not sure how it helps people, or helps tell a story, to pretend that they aren't a part of many people's psyches. It wouldn't be a very interesting show if everyone were well adjusted, understood exactly how to behave in ways that mitigate their neuroses, insecurities, depressions, confusions, etc, and always did and said the right thing.

Of course to the bolded! I love the show and thinking about the characters! It would not be very interesting if they were all perfect. But isn't what we're doing here analyzing their issues?

I don't have all the answers, where did I say that? And like I said I love the show and it would be boring if they were all well adjusted. But I enjoy thinking about these things, and for me Portia's brand of behavior is particularly irritating. Certainly due to my own issues. I have personally had a life where I have never had to worry much about money (I'm not vacationing at White Lotuses, but I also don't have to pay attention to what I put in my cart at the grocery store), but have also endured great tragedy and neglect and abuse. And much of my identity now as an adult in a happy marriage is tied to the fact that I am a resilient person who pushed through those bad things (and the bad things in the world), who focused on what I had that so few others did not to choose to have a life not defined by my childhood. And I have people in my life who have this inert view on life, and I feel like they are wasting their lottery ticket by angsting about. Who want to spend every meal at a restaurant complaining about the world instead of tasting the butter on the bread. And you know, this is my issue, and I know that, none of us is perfect and all of us would benefit from having more empathy. Portia might do better with a hug and permission to vent then she would an unsympathetic kick in the butt telling her to cheer the eff up and smell the arancini. And all of these characters trigger different things in us. Evoke sympathy and disgust for different reasons, fair or unfair.

The White Lotus is a mirror, it reflects our own bad qualities back at us, highlighted and in sharp focus and asks us to examine them.

She is exactly the age to have grown up with a climate crisis that exactly no one is doing a d**n thing about, while all you hear - every single day - is that it is going to be catastrophic to ever living creature on earth. Can you blame her - a neurotic personality type (me, too!) - but having internalized some of this, especially because she feels like she's also wasting the good time she does have here? Even Tanya calls her out on it - how she's squandering her youth and her life. She certainly feels that way, and I think the pressing existential threats all around are contributing to that for her.

I thought Tanya was very wise in this last episode, even if it might have been unwise to get coked up and have a thing with that well-hung Italian.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Very interesting interview with Aubrey Plaza on the Still Watching podcast today.

She says that Harper is not attracted to Cameron at all, he represents pretty much everything she hates, and the more she learns about him the more she dislikes him.

She says that a lot of Harper’s anger at Ethan about the night with Cameron is about how he is behaving so differently with Cameron than he does around her. Like with her he is withdrawn, unadventurous. He won’t even break his routines to have sex with her, he seems so disinterested in her. But with Cameron he’s doing molly and staying up all night? Contrast this with Harper’s night in Noto where, despite taking an edible she remains 100% the same person and is focused on getting home and communicating with Ethan.

Also says she thinks of the show like a 7 hour movie because of how she read the scripts (all at once) and that she is “scared” of the finale.

I agree I think she does see him flirting with her and it just disgusts her further. I think what other people have read as 'flirting back' is more like incredulity that he's giving her eyes in front of Daphne. I see no version of events where they hooked up. But it is telling that in Noto Harper says that Ethan won't cheat on her and is right and even when faced with evidence he did she is skeptical and does seek out his version and I think does believe him although she's angry about the general events that DID happen. In contrast Ethan is faced with this minor moment of her absence and goes full paranoid psycho even though it would be ENTIRELY out of her character to get with Cameron on multiple levels. It just confirms what Harper is already mad about, that Ethan is all about Cameron. He is viewing the entire trip through Cameron's viewpoint not Harper. She is an incidental character in his vacation story. Something she has picked up on but he has not.

The preview for next week makes it seem like something definitely happened.

It's so infuriating that Ethan denies Harper physical affection of any kind yet gets insanely jealous of a hint of Cameron flirting. Harper is the pawn and it's about time she made a move.

Their relationship is dead, do not resuscitate. In the end, the contrast with Daphne and Cameron's highly problematic but also affectionate and loving relationship is instructive and will help her make the necessary break. If he doesn't end up dead first.

She won’t, remember last season when that wife just decided to sacrifice all her happiness and fulfillment and stay with the jerk? Yep.

I don't think that relationship is comparable to Harper and Ethan, if for no other reasons than

1) Harper is gainfully employed and can walk away and maintain a good life
2) Ethan is complicated and has darkness but he is not the petulant man child that Shane is/was
3) Harper is both more comfortable in and simultaneously a lot less attached to opulent wealth than Rachel was

H/E are a lot more adult than S/R for whatever that is worth.

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that Harper was already married to Ethan when the wealth arrived. She wasn't in it for the money, and if anything she sees it causing problems for them.

So, I don't think Harper decides to suck it up for the comfortable lifestyle. I think they either reconcile (maybe as they try to hide Cameron's body after Ethan kills him semi-accidentally) or Harper leaves him.

I am kind of finding myself rooting for Ethan and Harper to make it now

I think Ethan accidentally drowns next week.

Ugh I was so nervous when he went running solo/swimming. That'd kind of be a less satisfying death though? We're expecting a big fight between Harper/Cameron and it's a pure accident on his own?

I mean, it's just a guess! We'll see what happens. My predictions are:
- ethan
- quentin
- jack
-greg

Mine are

- Lucia
- Quentin

I think:
- Nonno
- Greg

I was very worried for Nonno at that crazy house of women!

We haven't talked about that - what was up with that? I have to admit that I thought it was hugely cringey to just drive up to this random house and expect the family to be thrilled to see their very distant relatives that immigrated to the US generations ago. I felt bad for Nonno, but I also thought the whole idea was questionable. Maybe with Lucia to translate, but even then.

It shows Nonno's arrogance. The reunion he had in his mind was not based on any reality and normal people know that and wouldn't do what they did. He is so wrapped up in himself and his own world - think about his belief that his wife was not bothered by his affairs, that he didn't approach this in any reasonable way.

Good take. I didn't want to be critical of Nonno because he's so sad at dinner, but this is spot on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In episode 1 those disembodied heads seem to bother Ethan and Tanya the most. It’s like the heads are observing the hotel guests in judgment. Ethan periodically glares back, and Tanya straight up said she had a dream that Greg was evil and had eyes like a shark. The heads are supposed to serve as a warning that evil is afoot. So it seems that voodoo is working on Ethan and Tanya particularly hard.

All I know is I think someone is getting beaten with one of those heads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does Tanya like this coked up lion-looking Italian with the elephant trunk penis? Didn’t even get to see her boobs

I thought he was gorgeous

I thought he was sleazy.