Jennifer Coolidge returns alongside a new cast of gorgeously miserable one-percenters.
So many romantic triangles it’s more like a pentagram.
And friends who hate each other discuss the apocalypse at their first nice meal.
Aubrey Plaza, Will Sharpe, Theo James, and Meghann Fahy on ‘The White Lotus’.Fabio Lovino/HBO
Expect more everything asThe White Lotustransforms from an acclaimed limited event into an ongoing series.
Season 2 of HBO’s grim-bright comedy premieres Sunday with a very familiar mystery-teasing flashforward.
“How many dead guests are there?”
asks brusque resort manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore).
So this new installment is too much right away, and not as special as the much-awarded Hawaiian season.
It’s breezier entertainment, though, practically a door-slam farce.
Anyone might sleep with everyone, and someone could kill them all.
Once again, the arrival boat imports three separate tense ensembles.
Lawyer Harper (Aubrey Plaza) travels with her husband Ethan (Will Sharpe).
(Don’t make him say where!)
Once again we meet Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), season 1’s pouty breakout trainwreck.
The vacation groups were mostly separate in season 1, but this time the subplots cross over.
All theWhite Lotustropes are on display and are, suddenly, tropes.
The luxuriant underwater cinematography still teases ambiguous threats on sumptuous coastlines.
Each episode still roughly moves from early morning to very late at night.
And all TV anthologies are, immediately or eventually, bad TV anthologies.
(For everyAmerican Horror Story: Asylum, there is most everyAmerican Horror Storysince.)
So I thought moreWhite Lotuswas a mistake and was nervous to see White wedge new characters into old roles.
The Italian gal pals are Gen Z analogues to last year’s Nietzsche-loving coeds.
Imperioli’s an expansion pack ofSteve Zahn’s flailing dad, now with more infidelity.
That means none of the bubble-burst poignance that Bartlett and Natasha Rothwell brought as the servant-victims of getaway decadence.
I like this season, though.
It’s a hoot!
Coming offthe travesty ofThe Time Traveler’s Wife, James looks unleashed as a roving-eyed investor jerk.
And Meghann Fahy is flat-out incredible as an Instagram-perfect megamom whose shallow outward serenity masks a complex inward serenity.
(Imagine if Sansa Stark was also the Queen of Thorns.)
She finds herself orbiting closer to Albie.
How you feel about him may sum up your feelings about the season.
I calledWhite Lotusa satire when it debuted, and I wonder if I was wrong about that.
That word implies a comedic attack.
That complicates any easy burn-the-rich reading.
But both performers make a serious impression as romantic strivers.
it’s possible for you to graph season 2’s progress on Coolidge’s performance.
It’s a typicalWhite Lotusline, at once oblivious and honest.
Sicily looks lovely, but the tension is palpable.
Are you looking at a postcard or a crime scene?Grade: B
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