The White Lotus season 2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It is interesting how so many viewers think Harper is just another Aubrey Plaza sarcastic witty character they love no matter what, so they refuse to consider any ulterior motives. She's just a low-key ball breaking corporate lawyer from Puerto Rican poverty, who just randomly met a rich Yale boy who founded a multi-billion (?) tech company. She is not at all attracted to prestige or money! She's above that! And she totally doesn't fear her billionaire net worth (or at least hundreds of millions) husband whom she has no children with and she doesn't have sex with could leave her like presumably the dozens of other starter marriages she's seen fail around her in the last 10 or so years. Harper is a good person!

She.is.not.a.corporate.lawyer.

She is, actually.

Tell me you aren't a lawyer without telling me you aren't a lawyer

Lie and claim you're some white shoe attorney when you're typing away about a dumb TV show at 11AM EST on a workday.

I spent a decade in biglaw and even got promoted to nonequity partner but then my husband made partner so I quit and have all the time in the world to tell you that you’re wrong about law and also White Lotus. Hope that helps!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the connection next season will be Albie and Portia going on vacation together as a dating couple.

I don’t think Greg will be the connection because I don’t think that character is interesting or charismatic enough to make people want to watch again. He only came along this season because of Tanya.

I like the idea of Portia coming back because she’s not rich herself, so I think watching her navigate being privileged by proxy would be interesting. Also, if the theme is religion/spirituality, I really like the idea of having the through line be the Gen Z characters because I’m really curious how they would think about those things.

I hope it’s some kind of super fancy spiritual retreat/spa in Southeast Asia. I think this would enable them to return to a theme from season one (how these places exploit local cultureand people for their rich patrons) that I’d like to see more of.

It’s be more interesting if it was set in Japan like people have speculated, where people are more racist, classist than America and the Americans get treated like less than exotic characters and have to deal with a bunch of entrenched far right attitudes. Mike White has a habit of going against the grain and turning narrative conventions on their heads, which is what makes this show such a refreshing breath of fresh air.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ethan was a bigger mark than Albie.

Harper played him like a fiddle with psychological manipulation to get what she wanted — her filthy rich weirdo husband wrapped around her finger and impregnating her.

Cameron and his wife orbited him to corrupt him and bring them all closer, so when they get back Ethan will wire a boatload of money to Cam to “manage”. Asset management is just a scam to milk to money for management fees forever.

Nobody likes Ethan. People just want his money, even the snarky conniving lawyer he’s married to.

I don’t agree with this at all. Harper was not manipulative. She doesn’t seem to care about the money at all and is mostly concerned that it’s going to mess up their marriage (which it does). At the end she is kind of manipulative I guess, when they both ended up playing Daphne/Cameron games with each other, but that’s a result of everything that went down on the trip. She was not like that to start

Totally agree. I also don't get the sense that Harper is anywhere near as enthralled with having the "big" money they now have. It sounds like she grew up working class in Puerto Rico and is still very tight with her family there (if they spent their honeymoon there). She's now a lawyer at a large firm which gives her financial security plus plenty of the nice things in life -- cute clothes, vacations. I think Harper would be happy with her UMC lifestyle and nothing more.

But the thing about Daphne/Cameron that did provoke jealousy was how affectionate they are and how much fun they seem to be having. I do actually think that Harper was right about them in some ways. We see at different times that to some degree, that is a show they put on for themselves and others. We know that Daphne definitely has some strong negative feelings about the cheating and also just how absent her husband sometimes is, but she finds different ways to bury them down deep and enjoy the good stuff about her marriage. And that scene with Cam flossing indicates that he's got some of his own issues that he does a very good job of glossing over.

My personal opinion is that this will work out for a Daphne/Cam couple for a while but that eventually it won't anymore. My experience in life is that at some point you have to deal with the stuff underneath, no matter how good you get at shoving it down. It will happen when you are no longer quite so young and hot and you don't command the same attention you used to, or when your career takes an unfortunate left turn, or when your kids get older and need you less, or when your parents die, or when you get sick or injured and have to confront your own mortality. I've seen it happen many times. Cam and Daphne have worked something out. For now.

Haha! Harper is an attorney, you can't trust attorneys from the get-go. Spare me her practicing specialty, she knows most of those workplace lawsuits are bullsh*t shake downs. Harper admits to giving her husband's money to her family. Harper admits she wants to launch a non-profit foundation. How do you make a splash in the foundation world? Big money. Her ~ $300k law firm income isn't big money. Late 30s Harper is also yearning for a baby before she's barren. Tick-tock. Harper and Ethan are not attracted to each other, they're just using each other out of convenience. He's an autistic loner, addicted to porn, and deeply weird around women; she needs a deep-pocketed meek husband who can fund her foundation desires and lift her extended family out of poverty and impregnate her to set her for life. She is fully aware at this point without kids, this could be a starter marriage the rich husband could immediately walk away from. And then she's just another rapidly aging, increasingly infertile single lawyer approaching 40. But it's humorous how most viewers are so drawn to Aubrey Plaza, the actress, they don't see what a conniving shyster lawyer she is. She's Megan Markle and Lauren Sanchez with a law degree.

Wow, what female attorney hurt you. This is insane and has no basis in the show

So Harper is just an altruistic corporate lawyer? Imagine believing this nonsense. She's a corporate shake-down artist. She's in a sexless marriage with an autistic weirdo because HE'S FILTHY RICH, period.

1) she’s a plaintiff side employment lawyer. That’s the opposite of a corporate lawyer. 2) She was with him before she sold the company. Divorcing and taking her half would make a lot of sense for her but she wants to save her marriage.

I’m sorry that you hate women but the creators of this show don’t, which is why you’re so completely out to lunch on these interpretations.

Harper didn't hang a shingle. There was a line in episode 1 or 2 that "Harper's a star at her firm." Large corporate firms have talent with niche focuses including labour, employment; discrimination, sexual harassment, whistleblowing. These can be multi-million settlements, if not sometimes class action status reaching into the eight figures.

No, Plaintiff's side employment firms are generally not big corporate firms. It's a totally different business model (contingency vs hourly rate) plus they would be conflicted off a ton of cases because of their corporate clients. But anyway, this line of argument is ridiculous and even if Harper was indeed a "corporate lawyer" (the horror!) that does not mean she was running some elaborate scam on Ethan.

Nobody said it was elaborate, it's just human nature. You're being a dork muddying up a thread seizing on whether or not she worked for a large law firm or the degree of prestige of said law firm—when she in fact does work at an apparently sizable "firm" where she's a rising "star". The point is this isn't some altruistic innocent babe in the woods. She's a working class striver who became a successful lawyer and married a Yale entrepreneur. That's not all by coincidence or because she doesn't care about money and status. She vocalized a desire to have a baby, then used the defense mechanism that they were wishy-washy about it because of how bad the world is. She doesn't have a baby because they're in a sexless marriage. A sexless marriage with a newly filthy rich husband has an expiration date. She clearly was manipulating her husband to lure him back into the fold. There was even focus on her belly in the last scene to demonstrate she got what she wanted. Save the marriage with a baby, so her rich husband can't walk away from the starter marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ethan was a bigger mark than Albie.

Harper played him like a fiddle with psychological manipulation to get what she wanted — her filthy rich weirdo husband wrapped around her finger and impregnating her.

Cameron and his wife orbited him to corrupt him and bring them all closer, so when they get back Ethan will wire a boatload of money to Cam to “manage”. Asset management is just a scam to milk to money for management fees forever.

Nobody likes Ethan. People just want his money, even the snarky conniving lawyer he’s married to.

I don’t agree with this at all. Harper was not manipulative. She doesn’t seem to care about the money at all and is mostly concerned that it’s going to mess up their marriage (which it does). At the end she is kind of manipulative I guess, when they both ended up playing Daphne/Cameron games with each other, but that’s a result of everything that went down on the trip. She was not like that to start

Totally agree. I also don't get the sense that Harper is anywhere near as enthralled with having the "big" money they now have. It sounds like she grew up working class in Puerto Rico and is still very tight with her family there (if they spent their honeymoon there). She's now a lawyer at a large firm which gives her financial security plus plenty of the nice things in life -- cute clothes, vacations. I think Harper would be happy with her UMC lifestyle and nothing more.

But the thing about Daphne/Cameron that did provoke jealousy was how affectionate they are and how much fun they seem to be having. I do actually think that Harper was right about them in some ways. We see at different times that to some degree, that is a show they put on for themselves and others. We know that Daphne definitely has some strong negative feelings about the cheating and also just how absent her husband sometimes is, but she finds different ways to bury them down deep and enjoy the good stuff about her marriage. And that scene with Cam flossing indicates that he's got some of his own issues that he does a very good job of glossing over.

My personal opinion is that this will work out for a Daphne/Cam couple for a while but that eventually it won't anymore. My experience in life is that at some point you have to deal with the stuff underneath, no matter how good you get at shoving it down. It will happen when you are no longer quite so young and hot and you don't command the same attention you used to, or when your career takes an unfortunate left turn, or when your kids get older and need you less, or when your parents die, or when you get sick or injured and have to confront your own mortality. I've seen it happen many times. Cam and Daphne have worked something out. For now.

Haha! Harper is an attorney, you can't trust attorneys from the get-go. Spare me her practicing specialty, she knows most of those workplace lawsuits are bullsh*t shake downs. Harper admits to giving her husband's money to her family. Harper admits she wants to launch a non-profit foundation. How do you make a splash in the foundation world? Big money. Her ~ $300k law firm income isn't big money. Late 30s Harper is also yearning for a baby before she's barren. Tick-tock. Harper and Ethan are not attracted to each other, they're just using each other out of convenience. He's an autistic loner, addicted to porn, and deeply weird around women; she needs a deep-pocketed meek husband who can fund her foundation desires and lift her extended family out of poverty and impregnate her to set her for life. She is fully aware at this point without kids, this could be a starter marriage the rich husband could immediately walk away from. And then she's just another rapidly aging, increasingly infertile single lawyer approaching 40. But it's humorous how most viewers are so drawn to Aubrey Plaza, the actress, they don't see what a conniving shyster lawyer she is. She's Megan Markle and Lauren Sanchez with a law degree.

Wow, what female attorney hurt you. This is insane and has no basis in the show

So Harper is just an altruistic corporate lawyer? Imagine believing this nonsense. She's a corporate shake-down artist. She's in a sexless marriage with an autistic weirdo because HE'S FILTHY RICH, period.

1) she’s a plaintiff side employment lawyer. That’s the opposite of a corporate lawyer. 2) She was with him before she sold the company. Divorcing and taking her half would make a lot of sense for her but she wants to save her marriage.

I’m sorry that you hate women but the creators of this show don’t, which is why you’re so completely out to lunch on these interpretations.

Yeah this person clearly has a negative view of women and is trying to project that onto Harper. There's no basis to think she a scam artist and Ethan was a "mark." There is every indication that they had a pretty normal marriage

"How are you going to make it in life if you're this big a mark?"

Dominic calls his son a mark for falling for the prostitute's cliche shake-down.

The lounge singer and hotel manager were easy marks for the other prostitute.

Tonya was a mark to Greg and the gays.

Ethan was a mark to Cameron and Daphne, and also, to his wife Harper.

Duplicitous connivers targeting marks for money and favor was quite literally the theme of the season.

The lounge singer was a mark?!? men who say a woman must f' them to get assistance in their career are now the victims?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It was fishy from the beginning that someone who looked like Jack would show interest in Portia. That scene in the pool when they met was out of place for a reason.

Albie and Portia are both naive suckers and I’m glad Mike White drove that point home at the end so we don’t have to rehash the conversation about how deluded and naive Portia’s worldview is relative to Jack’s.

Another point about Jack is that in this whole thread no one mentions he’s a victim when he clearly is either a victim of a predatory older, privileged man or a victim of child abuse or both. A lot of untold demons in his closet that he’s trying to drink away.

It’s funny that the only true friendship in the show is between Lucia and the piano player. Cameron and Daphne seem like they actually like each other but their friendship is too twisted.

The “you f your uncle?!” and Tanya telling the captain the gays were trying to kill her in vain were hilariously cringe.

Great ending to a great season. This is the best show of the past 10-15 years.

Who looked like him? He was gross and a drunk! No thank you!

Now we’re going to act like this guy isn’t attractive? He looks like a young, more athletic Damon Albarn. No one who looks like Portia is going to pull someone who looks like a 1990s Calvin Klein model in the real world. Please.

Uh no, he was not attractive to me at all.

+1 The actor might be, but that character? Run.

+1 million. He was so gross and unattractive to me as the character. The fact that he can clean up well and is otherwise handsome is immaterial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harper's character is not a "good" person...like everyone in White Lotus. Her flaws are that she sees the world as too black and white. She started the season believing fully that she and Ethan were superior and that their love was better. She ended the season succumbing to the same games and lies as those she judged. Think about the first episode when they talk about the news. She couldn't believe Cameron and Daphne don't watch the news, that they just ignore it. Ultimately, that's what she did with any notions of Ethan cheating (and possibly her own). Even her willingness to turn a blind eye to Cameron's inappropriate advances stands in direct contrast with her job and her overall position on harassment.


She is just like everyone else -- complex, flawed, and somewhat unlikeable. That's what makes this show great.

Agreed, but I don't think many people here are arguing that Harper is perfect or had no flaws. It's that some people are pointing out that she's not a total villain with no redeeming qualities and that (1) she might actually love her husband, and (2) she might have some positive qualities that make him love her. And there is one person on here who has decided that we're all idiots who are obsessed with Aubrey Plaza because obviously Harper is a vicious and manipulative harpy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ethan was a bigger mark than Albie.

Harper played him like a fiddle with psychological manipulation to get what she wanted — her filthy rich weirdo husband wrapped around her finger and impregnating her.

Cameron and his wife orbited him to corrupt him and bring them all closer, so when they get back Ethan will wire a boatload of money to Cam to “manage”. Asset management is just a scam to milk to money for management fees forever.

Nobody likes Ethan. People just want his money, even the snarky conniving lawyer he’s married to.

I don’t agree with this at all. Harper was not manipulative. She doesn’t seem to care about the money at all and is mostly concerned that it’s going to mess up their marriage (which it does). At the end she is kind of manipulative I guess, when they both ended up playing Daphne/Cameron games with each other, but that’s a result of everything that went down on the trip. She was not like that to start

Totally agree. I also don't get the sense that Harper is anywhere near as enthralled with having the "big" money they now have. It sounds like she grew up working class in Puerto Rico and is still very tight with her family there (if they spent their honeymoon there). She's now a lawyer at a large firm which gives her financial security plus plenty of the nice things in life -- cute clothes, vacations. I think Harper would be happy with her UMC lifestyle and nothing more.

But the thing about Daphne/Cameron that did provoke jealousy was how affectionate they are and how much fun they seem to be having. I do actually think that Harper was right about them in some ways. We see at different times that to some degree, that is a show they put on for themselves and others. We know that Daphne definitely has some strong negative feelings about the cheating and also just how absent her husband sometimes is, but she finds different ways to bury them down deep and enjoy the good stuff about her marriage. And that scene with Cam flossing indicates that he's got some of his own issues that he does a very good job of glossing over.

My personal opinion is that this will work out for a Daphne/Cam couple for a while but that eventually it won't anymore. My experience in life is that at some point you have to deal with the stuff underneath, no matter how good you get at shoving it down. It will happen when you are no longer quite so young and hot and you don't command the same attention you used to, or when your career takes an unfortunate left turn, or when your kids get older and need you less, or when your parents die, or when you get sick or injured and have to confront your own mortality. I've seen it happen many times. Cam and Daphne have worked something out. For now.

Haha! Harper is an attorney, you can't trust attorneys from the get-go. Spare me her practicing specialty, she knows most of those workplace lawsuits are bullsh*t shake downs. Harper admits to giving her husband's money to her family. Harper admits she wants to launch a non-profit foundation. How do you make a splash in the foundation world? Big money. Her ~ $300k law firm income isn't big money. Late 30s Harper is also yearning for a baby before she's barren. Tick-tock. Harper and Ethan are not attracted to each other, they're just using each other out of convenience. He's an autistic loner, addicted to porn, and deeply weird around women; she needs a deep-pocketed meek husband who can fund her foundation desires and lift her extended family out of poverty and impregnate her to set her for life. She is fully aware at this point without kids, this could be a starter marriage the rich husband could immediately walk away from. And then she's just another rapidly aging, increasingly infertile single lawyer approaching 40. But it's humorous how most viewers are so drawn to Aubrey Plaza, the actress, they don't see what a conniving shyster lawyer she is. She's Megan Markle and Lauren Sanchez with a law degree.

Wow, what female attorney hurt you. This is insane and has no basis in the show

So Harper is just an altruistic corporate lawyer? Imagine believing this nonsense. She's a corporate shake-down artist. She's in a sexless marriage with an autistic weirdo because HE'S FILTHY RICH, period.

1) she’s a plaintiff side employment lawyer. That’s the opposite of a corporate lawyer. 2) She was with him before she sold the company. Divorcing and taking her half would make a lot of sense for her but she wants to save her marriage.

I’m sorry that you hate women but the creators of this show don’t, which is why you’re so completely out to lunch on these interpretations.

Harper didn't hang a shingle. There was a line in episode 1 or 2 that "Harper's a star at her firm." Large corporate firms have talent with niche focuses including labour, employment; discrimination, sexual harassment, whistleblowing. These can be multi-million settlements, if not sometimes class action status reaching into the eight figures.

No, Plaintiff's side employment firms are generally not big corporate firms. It's a totally different business model (contingency vs hourly rate) plus they would be conflicted off a ton of cases because of their corporate clients. But anyway, this line of argument is ridiculous and even if Harper was indeed a "corporate lawyer" (the horror!) that does not mean she was running some elaborate scam on Ethan.

Nobody said it was elaborate, it's just human nature. You're being a dork muddying up a thread seizing on whether or not she worked for a large law firm or the degree of prestige of said law firm—when she in fact does work at an apparently sizable "firm" where she's a rising "star". The point is this isn't some altruistic innocent babe in the woods. She's a working class striver who became a successful lawyer and married a Yale entrepreneur. That's not all by coincidence or because she doesn't care about money and status. She vocalized a desire to have a baby, then used the defense mechanism that they were wishy-washy about it because of how bad the world is. She doesn't have a baby because they're in a sexless marriage. A sexless marriage with a newly filthy rich husband has an expiration date. She clearly was manipulating her husband to lure him back into the fold. There was even focus on her belly in the last scene to demonstrate she got what she wanted. Save the marriage with a baby, so her rich husband can't walk away from the starter marriage.

You don’t get it. Harper’s lottery ticket already paid out. His assets are (half) her assets. She’s McKenzie Bezos. The only reason she has for wanting to save her marriage is wanting to save her marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting how so many viewers think Harper is just another Aubrey Plaza sarcastic witty character they love no matter what, so they refuse to consider any ulterior motives. She's just a low-key ball breaking corporate lawyer from Puerto Rican poverty, who just randomly met a rich Yale boy who founded a multi-billion (?) tech company. She is not at all attracted to prestige or money! She's above that! And she totally doesn't fear her billionaire net worth (or at least hundreds of millions) husband whom she has no children with and she doesn't have sex with could leave her like presumably the dozens of other starter marriages she's seen fail around her in the last 10 or so years. Harper is a good person!

She.is.not.a.corporate.lawyer.

She is, actually.

Tell me you aren't a lawyer without telling me you aren't a lawyer

Lie and claim you're some white shoe attorney when you're typing away about a dumb TV show at 11AM EST on a workday.

DCUM is full of exactly those people in fact

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Jack saved Portia’s life. He was probably supposed to kill her

He didn't strike me as a killer, just a hustler.

This. His "job" was to keep her busy and out of the way. As to whether he was attractive, his styling got worse and worse. He looked attractive in the beginning but by the end he was sweaty and greasy, made to drunk or hungover.

Then why didn’t he just say ok get out of the car, this is where I’m dropping you off. Why get out of the car, smoke a cigarette, look like he was conflicted, and say your smart don’t go back to the hotel, go straight to the airport and leave.

Because he's supposed to kill her or deliver her to be killed. And if she shows up on TV after talking to the police he's going to have to explain himself to people he is afraid of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It could be Tanya who dies. The last scene with her getting it in with that hot drug dealer, they are playing opera music. Earlier in the show, Portia asks her how was the opera and she said she died at the end.

I think the gays will blackmail her to give them money so they don’t tell her husband about the cheating but accidentally she’ll fall into the ocean like the woman did.

Gosh I am a genius. I made this post it a few weeks ago. I got everything right but the cheating part. I also asked multiple times on this thread, the only one who asked, where is Greg? He was supposed to return in only two days and he was gone all week.

There were many of us who thought the gays were in cahoots with Greg running a scam. That said, I give you props on falling into the ocean

Yes I was the only one who connected the opera "she dies at the end" to Tanya, and it playing the opera music when Tanya was on screen. It was probably glossed over because this thread is incredibly active and you can't keep up. I have given up on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ethan was a bigger mark than Albie.

Harper played him like a fiddle with psychological manipulation to get what she wanted — her filthy rich weirdo husband wrapped around her finger and impregnating her.

Cameron and his wife orbited him to corrupt him and bring them all closer, so when they get back Ethan will wire a boatload of money to Cam to “manage”. Asset management is just a scam to milk to money for management fees forever.

Nobody likes Ethan. People just want his money, even the snarky conniving lawyer he’s married to.

I don’t agree with this at all. Harper was not manipulative. She doesn’t seem to care about the money at all and is mostly concerned that it’s going to mess up their marriage (which it does). At the end she is kind of manipulative I guess, when they both ended up playing Daphne/Cameron games with each other, but that’s a result of everything that went down on the trip. She was not like that to start

Totally agree. I also don't get the sense that Harper is anywhere near as enthralled with having the "big" money they now have. It sounds like she grew up working class in Puerto Rico and is still very tight with her family there (if they spent their honeymoon there). She's now a lawyer at a large firm which gives her financial security plus plenty of the nice things in life -- cute clothes, vacations. I think Harper would be happy with her UMC lifestyle and nothing more.

But the thing about Daphne/Cameron that did provoke jealousy was how affectionate they are and how much fun they seem to be having. I do actually think that Harper was right about them in some ways. We see at different times that to some degree, that is a show they put on for themselves and others. We know that Daphne definitely has some strong negative feelings about the cheating and also just how absent her husband sometimes is, but she finds different ways to bury them down deep and enjoy the good stuff about her marriage. And that scene with Cam flossing indicates that he's got some of his own issues that he does a very good job of glossing over.

My personal opinion is that this will work out for a Daphne/Cam couple for a while but that eventually it won't anymore. My experience in life is that at some point you have to deal with the stuff underneath, no matter how good you get at shoving it down. It will happen when you are no longer quite so young and hot and you don't command the same attention you used to, or when your career takes an unfortunate left turn, or when your kids get older and need you less, or when your parents die, or when you get sick or injured and have to confront your own mortality. I've seen it happen many times. Cam and Daphne have worked something out. For now.

Haha! Harper is an attorney, you can't trust attorneys from the get-go. Spare me her practicing specialty, she knows most of those workplace lawsuits are bullsh*t shake downs. Harper admits to giving her husband's money to her family. Harper admits she wants to launch a non-profit foundation. How do you make a splash in the foundation world? Big money. Her ~ $300k law firm income isn't big money. Late 30s Harper is also yearning for a baby before she's barren. Tick-tock. Harper and Ethan are not attracted to each other, they're just using each other out of convenience. He's an autistic loner, addicted to porn, and deeply weird around women; she needs a deep-pocketed meek husband who can fund her foundation desires and lift her extended family out of poverty and impregnate her to set her for life. She is fully aware at this point without kids, this could be a starter marriage the rich husband could immediately walk away from. And then she's just another rapidly aging, increasingly infertile single lawyer approaching 40. But it's humorous how most viewers are so drawn to Aubrey Plaza, the actress, they don't see what a conniving shyster lawyer she is. She's Megan Markle and Lauren Sanchez with a law degree.

Wow, what female attorney hurt you. This is insane and has no basis in the show

So Harper is just an altruistic corporate lawyer? Imagine believing this nonsense. She's a corporate shake-down artist. She's in a sexless marriage with an autistic weirdo because HE'S FILTHY RICH, period.

1) she’s a plaintiff side employment lawyer. That’s the opposite of a corporate lawyer. 2) She was with him before she sold the company. Divorcing and taking her half would make a lot of sense for her but she wants to save her marriage.

I’m sorry that you hate women but the creators of this show don’t, which is why you’re so completely out to lunch on these interpretations.

Harper didn't hang a shingle. There was a line in episode 1 or 2 that "Harper's a star at her firm." Large corporate firms have talent with niche focuses including labour, employment; discrimination, sexual harassment, whistleblowing. These can be multi-million settlements, if not sometimes class action status reaching into the eight figures.

No, Plaintiff's side employment firms are generally not big corporate firms. It's a totally different business model (contingency vs hourly rate) plus they would be conflicted off a ton of cases because of their corporate clients. But anyway, this line of argument is ridiculous and even if Harper was indeed a "corporate lawyer" (the horror!) that does not mean she was running some elaborate scam on Ethan.

Nobody said it was elaborate, it's just human nature. You're being a dork muddying up a thread seizing on whether or not she worked for a large law firm or the degree of prestige of said law firm—when she in fact does work at an apparently sizable "firm" where she's a rising "star". The point is this isn't some altruistic innocent babe in the woods. She's a working class striver who became a successful lawyer and married a Yale entrepreneur. That's not all by coincidence or because she doesn't care about money and status. She vocalized a desire to have a baby, then used the defense mechanism that they were wishy-washy about it because of how bad the world is. She doesn't have a baby because they're in a sexless marriage. A sexless marriage with a newly filthy rich husband has an expiration date. She clearly was manipulating her husband to lure him back into the fold. There was even focus on her belly in the last scene to demonstrate she got what she wanted. Save the marriage with a baby, so her rich husband can't walk away from the starter marriage.

You don’t get it. Harper’s lottery ticket already paid out. His assets are (half) her assets. She’s McKenzie Bezos. The only reason she has for wanting to save her marriage is wanting to save her marriage.

You're assuming an awful lot about his business and when they met and married. Jeff was married to McKenzie when he first founded Amazon. You're also neglecting Harper's age. She's late 30s and baby hungry, she wants a baby with this rich shmuck a-sap. Not some random guy she meets after divorce, if she's even still fertile by then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
Some great analysis about the show and characters. I was in the camp that found the characters hard to warm to in the beginning but they gradually few on me.

Generally satisfied with the ending and the way they resolved tensions and plot twists.

However the two young hookers playing Alvie to get $50k euros , playing Valentina to get piano gig, beinf best friends with the hotel
Doorman who pretended to be an abusive pimp and being best friends with each other is not credible.

Sex trafficking of teen girls is a huge world wide problem and no less so here in the DMV. Not really comfortable with showing the young hookers as getting out of all their exploits with zero complications or actual dangers.

Mike White said he conceived of that plot line as basically Laverne & Shirley, with these two girls trying to con their way into parties to which they were not invited, and you route for them because they are funny and good hearted and have a good attitude. And that's basically what they were.

I think my favorite storyline wound up being Mia and Valentina, and I wish we could have seen Mia taking Valentina out to the clubs to meet her hot lesbian friends. I really liked that the season starts out with Valentina angrily trying to throw the girls out of the hotel and only reluctantly letting them stay when Dom intervenes, only for them to ultimately be exactly what Valentina needs to change her life for the better.

I also think people got too hung up on the "rules" of season one, which was more explicitly about class, and assumed that all the rich people would again get away with everything and the hotel staff or low SES characters would pay the prices, as in the first season. But this season was about sex, and the power of sex, and while in the long run Mia and Portia are unlikely to come out ahead, this season did show how being young and beautiful and willing to exploit sex for your own gains can pay off. For now.

That definitely made me get most of my predictions wrong. I did not think Tanya would die, and I definitely did not think things were going to work out perfectly for Mia/Valentina

It is definitely a very sunny portrayal of prostitution. Not saying prostitution is always terrible, but a situation like that (happy, independent, well-adjusted women getting what they need by manipulating men) is probably one in a million. That storyline reminded me that this show was written by a man

Agree. And the whole view of cheating was a take by a man too. When women cheat it's emotional and a cry for help, usually. When men cheat it's hormones. Not in this show. Whereas my real life observations don't go along with this. In this show the women are like the men in terms of their sexuality. And that's just not reality.

Nice reductive, sexist take!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Ethan was a bigger mark than Albie.

Harper played him like a fiddle with psychological manipulation to get what she wanted — her filthy rich weirdo husband wrapped around her finger and impregnating her.

Cameron and his wife orbited him to corrupt him and bring them all closer, so when they get back Ethan will wire a boatload of money to Cam to “manage”. Asset management is just a scam to milk to money for management fees forever.

Nobody likes Ethan. People just want his money, even the snarky conniving lawyer he’s married to.

I don’t agree with this at all. Harper was not manipulative. She doesn’t seem to care about the money at all and is mostly concerned that it’s going to mess up their marriage (which it does). At the end she is kind of manipulative I guess, when they both ended up playing Daphne/Cameron games with each other, but that’s a result of everything that went down on the trip. She was not like that to start

Totally agree. I also don't get the sense that Harper is anywhere near as enthralled with having the "big" money they now have. It sounds like she grew up working class in Puerto Rico and is still very tight with her family there (if they spent their honeymoon there). She's now a lawyer at a large firm which gives her financial security plus plenty of the nice things in life -- cute clothes, vacations. I think Harper would be happy with her UMC lifestyle and nothing more.

But the thing about Daphne/Cameron that did provoke jealousy was how affectionate they are and how much fun they seem to be having. I do actually think that Harper was right about them in some ways. We see at different times that to some degree, that is a show they put on for themselves and others. We know that Daphne definitely has some strong negative feelings about the cheating and also just how absent her husband sometimes is, but she finds different ways to bury them down deep and enjoy the good stuff about her marriage. And that scene with Cam flossing indicates that he's got some of his own issues that he does a very good job of glossing over.

My personal opinion is that this will work out for a Daphne/Cam couple for a while but that eventually it won't anymore. My experience in life is that at some point you have to deal with the stuff underneath, no matter how good you get at shoving it down. It will happen when you are no longer quite so young and hot and you don't command the same attention you used to, or when your career takes an unfortunate left turn, or when your kids get older and need you less, or when your parents die, or when you get sick or injured and have to confront your own mortality. I've seen it happen many times. Cam and Daphne have worked something out. For now.

Haha! Harper is an attorney, you can't trust attorneys from the get-go. Spare me her practicing specialty, she knows most of those workplace lawsuits are bullsh*t shake downs. Harper admits to giving her husband's money to her family. Harper admits she wants to launch a non-profit foundation. How do you make a splash in the foundation world? Big money. Her ~ $300k law firm income isn't big money. Late 30s Harper is also yearning for a baby before she's barren. Tick-tock. Harper and Ethan are not attracted to each other, they're just using each other out of convenience. He's an autistic loner, addicted to porn, and deeply weird around women; she needs a deep-pocketed meek husband who can fund her foundation desires and lift her extended family out of poverty and impregnate her to set her for life. She is fully aware at this point without kids, this could be a starter marriage the rich husband could immediately walk away from. And then she's just another rapidly aging, increasingly infertile single lawyer approaching 40. But it's humorous how most viewers are so drawn to Aubrey Plaza, the actress, they don't see what a conniving shyster lawyer she is. She's Megan Markle and Lauren Sanchez with a law degree.

Wow, what female attorney hurt you. This is insane and has no basis in the show

So Harper is just an altruistic corporate lawyer? Imagine believing this nonsense. She's a corporate shake-down artist. She's in a sexless marriage with an autistic weirdo because HE'S FILTHY RICH, period.

1) she’s a plaintiff side employment lawyer. That’s the opposite of a corporate lawyer. 2) She was with him before she sold the company. Divorcing and taking her half would make a lot of sense for her but she wants to save her marriage.

I’m sorry that you hate women but the creators of this show don’t, which is why you’re so completely out to lunch on these interpretations.

Harper didn't hang a shingle. There was a line in episode 1 or 2 that "Harper's a star at her firm." Large corporate firms have talent with niche focuses including labour, employment; discrimination, sexual harassment, whistleblowing. These can be multi-million settlements, if not sometimes class action status reaching into the eight figures.

No, Plaintiff's side employment firms are generally not big corporate firms. It's a totally different business model (contingency vs hourly rate) plus they would be conflicted off a ton of cases because of their corporate clients. But anyway, this line of argument is ridiculous and even if Harper was indeed a "corporate lawyer" (the horror!) that does not mean she was running some elaborate scam on Ethan.

Nobody said it was elaborate, it's just human nature. You're being a dork muddying up a thread seizing on whether or not she worked for a large law firm or the degree of prestige of said law firm—when she in fact does work at an apparently sizable "firm" where she's a rising "star". The point is this isn't some altruistic innocent babe in the woods. She's a working class striver who became a successful lawyer and married a Yale entrepreneur. That's not all by coincidence or because she doesn't care about money and status. She vocalized a desire to have a baby, then used the defense mechanism that they were wishy-washy about it because of how bad the world is. She doesn't have a baby because they're in a sexless marriage. A sexless marriage with a newly filthy rich husband has an expiration date. She clearly was manipulating her husband to lure him back into the fold. There was even focus on her belly in the last scene to demonstrate she got what she wanted. Save the marriage with a baby, so her rich husband can't walk away from the starter marriage.

You don’t get it. Harper’s lottery ticket already paid out. His assets are (half) her assets. She’s McKenzie Bezos. The only reason she has for wanting to save her marriage is wanting to save her marriage.

You're assuming an awful lot about his business and when they met and married. Jeff was married to McKenzie when he first founded Amazon. You're also neglecting Harper's age. She's late 30s and baby hungry, she wants a baby with this rich shmuck a-sap. Not some random guy she meets after divorce, if she's even still fertile by then.

It’s not an assumption, it’s the whole premise of the show: how does a married couple striking it rich change the dynamic of the marriage.

She isn’t baby hungry at all. She’s baby ambivalent. She has no interest in Daphne’s kids or anyone else’s kids and isn’t sure she should have kids on the brink of climate catastrophe.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It could be Tanya who dies. The last scene with her getting it in with that hot drug dealer, they are playing opera music. Earlier in the show, Portia asks her how was the opera and she said she died at the end.

I think the gays will blackmail her to give them money so they don’t tell her husband about the cheating but accidentally she’ll fall into the ocean like the woman did.

Gosh I am a genius. I made this post it a few weeks ago. I got everything right but the cheating part. I also asked multiple times on this thread, the only one who asked, where is Greg? He was supposed to return in only two days and he was gone all week.

There were many of us who thought the gays were in cahoots with Greg running a scam. That said, I give you props on falling into the ocean

Yes I was the only one who connected the opera "she dies at the end" to Tanya, and it playing the opera music when Tanya was on screen. It was probably glossed over because this thread is incredibly active and you can't keep up. I have given up on it.

There was a ton of foreshadowing of various deaths, much of it conflicting (all the frescoes in the credits, the story about the woman getting pushed off the island by the mafia, Quentin "would you die for beauty," Daphne's lines about killing Cameron, etc). I'm sorry but you are not smarter than everyone else bc you posted about one particular piece of it.

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Agreed, but I don't think many people here are arguing that Harper is perfect or had no flaws. It's that some people are pointing out that she's not a total villain with no redeeming qualities and that (1) she might actually love her husband, and (2) she might have some positive qualities that make him love her. And there is one person on here who has decided that we're all idiots who are obsessed with Aubrey Plaza because obviously Harper is a vicious and manipulative harpy.

That is true though. Plaza is the most famous character, especially to all the millennials obsessed with White Lotus. Young people are captivated by her and think she's so witty and funny and totally them, so you don't want to acknowledge even the possibility that she's just as much of a ruthless striver, manipulator and conniver as everyone else on the show. To me, the only pure leading character was Bert.