The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The White Lotus' Season 2, Episode 2 Recap

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Bill and Joanna get together to talk about the second episode of the new season of 'The White Lotus' and they begin by exploring the character dynamics between the son/father/grandfather trio of Albie, Dominic, and Bert. They then juxtapose Michael Imperioli and Jennifer Coolidge's famous on-screen personas to their 'White Lotus' performances before dissecting their favorite scenes and Mike White's writing style.(12:01) After the break, they pick their winners and losers of the episode and and make their predictions for the rest of the season.(27:18) Hosts: Bill Simmons and Joanna Robinson Associate Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about the albums you love with Dissect, a music analysis podcast hosted by me, Cole Kushna, a lifelong musician and composer. Each season of Dissect dives deep into a single album, forensically dissecting the music, lyrics, and meaning of one song per episode. Our newest season is covering Tyler the creator's Igor, a beautifully honest album in which Tyler explores love, communication, masculinity, and truth. Listen to Dissect today only on Spotify, because great art deserves more than a swipe. It's a prestige TV podcast.

My name is Bill Simmons here with Joanna Robinson. We recapped White Lotus episode one last week, talked some big picture stuff. We're going to dive into episode two of an increasingly sex crazed White Lotus. I hope your mom is having the best time. My mom is over the moon. It's not like episode one wasn't a little sex crazed. It ended with our guy Chris from Maltesanti with the lady of the night. it had Jennifer Coolidge having sex with Greg and then getting freaked out by all the faces around her.

It had the swimsuit change. So sex is in the air for this season. Episode two, we have Harvey Plaza's character catching her husband jerking off. We have Maltesante adding hookers to the room, bold move. You can only have one extra key to the room? Well, can you put the other one? dad's room, so we have that. And we have a sex convo at dinner with our favorite couples about morning sex, night sex, Aubrey Paz's character Harper, clearly sensitive about the perception

that she might not have a good sex life. So doing the, oh, yeah, we haven't. She having crazy sex and just so much going on. Where do you want to start? What jumped out on this episode for you? I think I want to start with the three generations, because we didn't talk about them that much in episode one. Good. And I think we get some more information about Al be the youngest that helps me better understand, I think, what Mike White wants to do with these three. All right, let's hear it. Like when he's at dinner, you know, on the surface, I'm like, oh, he seems so nice. We like Portia.

Sure, let's have a nice little sweet burgeoning romance as part of it. of this story, these two nice characters. Let's put them together. And then he says the thing at dinner where he calls himself a nice guy and he's like, girls don't want a nice guy. And then she asks what kind of women he's attracted to and he said, pretty broken birds. And I was like, uh-uh, no, no. So I think what we're doing is these three generations of like masculine shittiness and how it manifests. And with his generation, it's like the nice guy trope. Nobody wants a nice guy. I'm just a nice guy sort of thing.

And like, he does seem nice. I just wish she hadn't said pretty broken birds is the kind of women he's attracted to. I was like, oh, no, not you too. Okay. Yeah, he trashes the godfather. He has the, he asks for, what did he say? The godfather?

The patriarchy. Yeah. It's some patriarchy comment about the godfather, like negative. That's what he lost you, right? Yeah. He starts trashed the godfather. father, you're like, I'm done. When you trash your godfather, I'm out. It's just I'm blind out. There's no coming back. Then he, he went over the top asking for the consent for the kiss

at the end, which is like, oh, you're doing this. You did it that way because you're expected to do it that way. But I'm not sold you're a nice guy, Alby. You can play the part. I don't trust you. I usually don't use the words over the top and consent together. But I will say like in the first episode. She, Portia says on the phone, I just want to be like thrown around by an Italian guy. Like she's looking for like the passionate Italian fantasy, you know, and Albi's like timidity. But it seemed like intentional timidity to me. That's why I didn't trust it.

Yeah. I felt like he was doing it because it was what he was supposed to do in the situation and he was trying to present a certain side of himself. But this guy has the same DNA as the other two guys. Right. Well, he says a thing about like. I just don't want to be my dad, right? And again, I think Mike White is really interested in those cycles that you don't escape, even if the audience is rooting for you to escape them. You don't

escape them. To me, we're going to, and we've only seen the first two, but it's going to be revealed. He's way more like the dad and the grandfather than he's letting on. I don't trust any of it. No, I wanted to ask you a quick Michael Imperially question. Why do you think he hasn't had a bigger post-sopranos career? I'm excited for this role for him. Like, you know, at HBO prestige and like he hasn't had roles like this that you would expect because as you know Bill I haven't seen The Sopranos and I know that Michael Imperioly is like great on that show and deserves more so what you know you're not seeing the Sopranos is one of the great distressing things in my life right now um he so it could go one of two ways one is he just caught the perfect character at the

perfect time. Christopher was an unbelievable character, totally indelible, hard to even imagine him not as Christopher. That's how good the character was. And I think a lot of the people from that show had trouble breaking out of it. The same way, like, the wire was like that too, where you saw Michael K. Williams, and it was just hard not to think of Omar. You know, you saw Jamie Hector. It's like, you just see Marlowe. And Christopher was so indelible. I remember Zoe and I were on like a soccer trip, maybe like 2016, 17, something like that. We rented that Halliberry movie that where her kid gets stolen. It's called like Kidnapped, something like that.

Her kid gets stolen a playground and she chases and she's looking for the guy. And at some point during the movie, Michael O'Pere really shows up for like 15 minutes. He's like a passerby and it's just like this bit part. And I remember thinking like, what the fuck happened here? How is he in the bit part of a Halliberry action movie that's like basically a straight-to-video. This should have been better. So I was psyched that he was in this. I guess I'm like, I mean, we want to get back in the episode,

but I guess I will just say the fact that I know that his character is Christopher Maltesanti without having seen the Sopranos. Right. Speak to your point of like, I think I just hear people call him that rather than Michael Imperiali. They call him by his character name, meaning they haven't been able to separate him as a performer. Anyway, I think he's great in this, and I'm really glad he's here. Very distinctive features.

There's something about him. that I think really worked with Christopher and works with this guy where seemingly put together distinct look, very Italian, but there's like some real damage that you can kind of see when you're looking at him. And maybe that, you know, like I do feel like he could have easily been the lead of a CSI, something like that. Like he's kind of in that Caruso lane to me where Caruso had these very distinct qualities that worked on certain shows or movies.

But he wasn't, you know, he's great and proof of life. I love Caruso. So he was, NYPD Blue season one is one of the best start to finish seasons. I think any TV actor has had. Yeah. He's had that whole CSI run where he basically became a parody of himself. But for the most part, he always felt like Caruso and it always overpowered whoever he was. And maybe that's the same thing with Imperioly, where he just fit.

I just feel like he's Michael Imperiali. I can't see him as a character. He has the great, I've seen some shit face. Yes. But also maybe what will help separate him from. Moltesanti is the fact that like now he's got this like beautiful iron gray sort of like quaff of hair and sort of like, you know, time has passed. Yeah.

Let's see him as someone else now and what's going on with him. Yeah, he's seen some shit. And then F. Murray Abraham as the grandfather, like, legendary actor. This guy was, guy was Omar and Scarface, you know, he was going all the way through. What was he in the Amadeus? Yeah, Salieri. That's what he won the Oscar for. Yeah.

Just has been around and had some real weight. He was kind of in that Ben Kingsley area where he couldn't be like the star of a movie, but if he was one of the three or four stars, it felt like a big movie, great dramatic actor, and just had real weight and whatever he did. So it was like a natural for somebody like that to be on the show. But I think there was a period of time. I've talked to F. Murray, Abraham, about this. Because Salieri, his character, Nomadeus that he won an Oscar for,

was such a massive cultural, phenomenon at the time. He had trouble for years getting people to see him as anything other than Salieri. And it wasn't until, like, a little later with, like, Homeland and Grand Budapest Hotel and a few other things that, like, he, you know, and Mythic Quest, you know, a show that I really loved, that I think people started to see him as something else. But he talked about exactly the Michael O'Perioli problem we were talking about, which is, like, an iconic character that you can't get people to see you as something else.

But, like, he's really well cast here. Him talking, you know, I'm talking about Greek mythological rape and saying the word rape several times in the Greek theater scene in this episode. And he's like, you know, if Demeter could forgive Hades for that. Yeah. In front of someone they don't know. And if Demeter can forgive Hades for raping your daughter, surely your wife, you know, can forgive you for whatever it is you did.

Wild, wild scene. And Abby's pretending to be horrific. but he's not 100% horrified, which is why we don't trust Albi. I don't trust him. He's like, no, no, you can't say that, but he's not, I don't feel like he's, anyway, we don't trust Albi. To go back to like meeting Albi, when she says she's, when Portia says she's from San Francisco, and he's like, oh, I love San Francisco.

I went to school near there and immediately I was like, Stanford. And he just doesn't want to say, but he kind of wants her to ask. And so that he says, like, oh, I went to Stanford. he was so douchy about it. I'll be sucks. I can't stand him. He was like, where'd you go? Chico State?

He's like, cool, cool. You douche. You just wanted like the power. This is why I don't trust a single thing he does. We didn't mention Dominic, the imperial character, clearly did some terrible stuff to his wife to the point that he calls the wife in episode one

and she's screaming at him in a way like, you know, there is no coming back with us. It is over. The daughter was supposed to him on the trip. She didn't come either. So he's basically lost all the woman in his life, right? And in this movie, quickly gravitates to the hookers.

He had like prearranged. Prearranged locals are in place. This assignation with Lucia, but like Second episode, it goes to another level. To say the least. Put some on the room. Yeah. Put some on the room. There's a threesome that he's trying to pretend the threesome isn't in play

and it's like, come on, dude, you're going to break. Then it happens. Right, but I think he genuinely thought for a second that he, like he meant to not break. Oh, come on. We know he's going to break. Yeah, that's the thing. He's a broken guy. He's going to break.

Yeah. He just can't help himself. So in that sense, a little like Tony Soprano, actually. Like, Tony could just never turn it down. You've never seen the Sopranos, so you don't know. But Tony could, Tony could never turn down a lady. Yeah, could never turn it down. All right.

So we have them. they were probably, I would say the second most interesting people on the show this episode. We'll save the couples to the end. Tanya and Greg are unraveling. The local girls? Unraveling. And I mean, Tanya, I'm still undecided whether she should have been in season two and whether I've had it with Jennifer Coolidge. So let's have that conversation quickly.

It's been a lot of Jennifer Coolidge because she's in the watcher in a really big way too. And I think I like her, but I think she's just. is Jennifer Coolidge and everything. I don't, she's playing herself. I don't feel like she's really necessarily acting. Do you? I mean, her comedic timing, I think, is really good. So I don't want to take, I don't want to take that from her.

But I think similar to what we were saying about Aubrey Plaza in episode one, that there's like an Aubrey Plaza type that she often plays. And I haven't seen Jennifer Coolidge ever do anything that breaks that type. But sometimes it's more interesting than it is in other places. And I think in White Lotus season one was sort of the ideal. like this is the ideal Aubrey Plaza character. That was the ideal Jennifer Coolidge character. I agree.

But again, I kind of agree that like maybe we don't need her in season two or certainly in this episode, there are things that I love. But then there's moments like the bug on the vest... The bug in her mouth in the Vespa that feels like a little broader than I would expect the White Lotus comedy to go.

You know what I mean? She's trying to like... Yeah, like her on the Vespa with Greg. Yeah. It's pretty easy joke. At the same time, it was kind of funny when she's trying to take all these different pictures. That was, I liked that.

And when she was like, I'm Monica Viti. And I do want to talk about Valentina, the manager. Who seems like she hates everybody. But so what I love is like the Armand character, the manager character in season one, also hated everyone. Yeah. But he just like slathered it over with this sort of unctious flattery, all that sort of stuff where all this shit was boiling beneath the surface with him. I love that Valentina is just like genuinely rude to. every single one of her guests.

Don't you feel like this is a European thing? I feel like you could get away with this in the foreign countries. Yeah, if you're Italian. And she's like, I'm surprised you're here. You're very old. Yeah. Is what she says to Emory Abraham? He's like,

what do you mean you're surprised? Well, you're very old. Yeah, that's just a long trip. Brutal comment. Yeah. Or like the runaround she gives Michael Imperiali's character when he's trying to like add the hookers. And she's just like, oh, it's an extra chart.

Do you need a roll away caught? like, you know, like all of that shit she's giving him is so wonderful. So when, yeah, when Jennifer Coolidge dressed all in pink is like, who do I look like? And she says, Peppa, pig. And she's like, no, I'm Monica Viti, like this Italian bombshell, you know, and it's like Valentina, a real piece of work, real piece of work. Yeah, that's that's another one where when you watch the show the second time, the Valentina and Dominic trying to get people on the rooms. all the subtle shit in there and the way she's playing it. And he's getting madder and madder,

but trying not to get mad. Because ultimately, it's going to land in, hey, I'm paying $5,000 a night. Put these fucking people in my room, but he doesn't want to do it. And she's kind of pushing him to try to do it. And it's just like a little cat and mouse game. There's a lot of cat and mouse in the show, which I like.

Just things building underlying stuff and people kind of testing each other without overtly testing each other. Tanya loses it at dinner. And we know the great thing's going badly. We know he's having secret calls, which is always the, oh, he's got to be cheating on her. We know, as you said earlier, like she's a handful. I wouldn't want to be married to Tanya. And Greg now is doing that.

I got to go back. I wouldn't want to be married to her, but I want, I want someone to want to want to be ready to her. It's not me. But like, I would like someone to find all of her shit. endearing. I mean, she's such a narcissist. I would say, I would say it's probably hard for her to connect with somebody else in a real way. So we know, we know Greg's headed for the door and then at the end of the episode. How did you interpret that? Him on the phone being like, I'll be home soon. I love

you too. And it's like, my wife interpreted it as, this guy has a second family? Did he have a second family the whole time? Is the cancer thing? Was that all ruse? Because, you know, And now he's figuring I can get in on Tanya's money, but I'll keep this other family I have. It is interesting that he's like, you made me sign a pre-up. Like that's, you know. Right. Why did you say that? When a show where dead bodies show up, you may, you know, like in episode one, we didn't talk about it.

But in episode one, Daphne is talking about how much she loves watching Dateline and how all these men murder their wives on vacation. You know what I mean? Like, that's in the water here. Literally. But I, yeah. But I think that, again, I don't know. I'm so overly suspicious of a clever writer like Mike White trying to fool me that I'm like, does he have a secret family? I was trying to figure out a way in which this

could possibly still be about his health. But like when he says, I love you. I'm like, well, he's talking to a woman. It's just, is he married to her? Is it a mistress? What is it? As a woman on the side? I don't know. And he has clear contempt for Tanya. Like there's a one thing she wakes up and he's just sitting upright on the bed, like just looking sadly. He looked at Kevin Duran on the Nets. But what I like about this episode is she's like, she says, she's like, you don't even like me. Yeah.

I've got my eye on you. You don't even like me. And then he comes back with very valid criticism of her. You drop your friends. You fire people on a dime. How many since have you been through? You discard people. And we saw her do exactly that to that woman and who works in the spa in season one after sort of

pumping her up with all these promises of like, I'm going to go into business with you, right? So Tanya is not an angel by any stretch of the imagination. But he's got valid critiques of her. But she's like, I can tell you don't like me. You're full of shit. And yeah, like, why is he pretending? You know? Why?

Because he likes the lifestyle. For the money, I guess. He gets to go to Sicily, I guess. Yeah, I mean, he's not wrong. Everybody in her life is transactional. Yeah, but like I think she would like them not to be. Yeah. She would like them not to be, but she's not going to be able to stay out of their own way.

Yeah. So I don't know how that plays up. with Greg, but Greg became a lot more interesting in episode two. He seemed a little way more than just guy who's married to the rich lady so he can go on vacations. It was like, all right, more stuff's going on here. Yeah. Then we have our girl Aubrey Plaza walks in on, so Ethan goes on a run. She goes to get a croissant with her book. And the happy couple are like, hey, Harper over here. And she pauses for a split second. with the fuck, I just wanted to eat my croissant and read my book.

Now I have to talk to these idiots again. Can I just tell you that I've had that moment? Everybody has. What's going on your head is you're like, can I get away with saying, I just want to sit here with my book? And then you're like, nope. I can't. Too rude even for her.

Yeah, I can't do it. So he's got to do that. The Ethan, who's on his morning jog, as one of the hostitutes is leaving, goes back and decides his endorphins are, going out of it. He's just going to whack one in the hotel room. Not really planning for the whole Aubrey Plaza is going to show back up. And she catches him. And it's one of the weirdest white lotus scenes, I think, ever. Where he's like, what are you doing? Why do you have a boner? I was just jerking off, you know, the endorphins from my run.

And then she says, want me to help you out? And he's like, no, I'm just going to shower. It's like, what's going on with these two? This seems like deep-rooted weirdness. So to me, it's all leading toward her having sex with the happy guy. Probably. Or him using her lack of sexual activity as, again, some sort of power play over her. But I think that, like, I thought it was really interesting how that whole conversation boils down to, like, he likes have sex in the morning and she likes to have sex. Because she asks about sex at night. Yeah.

You know, yeah. And it's sort of like. But I also really love. the conversation they have when he's in the shower where he's talking to her. She's like, did you know? And she's just like almost changing the subject. Right, but he calls her out for being critical of them.

And he talks about how it's a way for her to feel more comfortable with herself. I thought that was a really interesting well-written scene. Yeah. Because like I maybe recognize myself in the Aubrey Plaza character in that moment and it makes me feel uncomfortable, which is like... It sounds like you're really seen in the. mayor with Aubrey. Yeah, maybe. I think I'm a little nicer, but maybe some things are there. But I think that, um, well, he says that made thing. He says, yeah, you don't talk about our

made like this because you, you feel like you're in the driver's superior to her. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, but my favorite moment is when she sits down, uh, and she's like, I bet they're talking shit about me right now and it cuts to them and they're just having like a fashion try on montage. and they're just like blissfully enjoying themselves. And it reminded me, reminded my favorite Mad Men moment when Dodd Draper says, I don't think about you at all, right?

To Ginsburg. And that's something that I have to think about all. Like, I don't think about you at all. Like, you know, you get inside your head that you think people like hate you or have some opinion of you when really they're just trying it on clothes in an Italian boutique and enjoying their holidays.

And that's what's going on. So, yeah. Great stuff. And then Aubrey goes for a little swim. happy guy follows her out there. And this is after there's been like a little weirdness. I mean, every interaction they have as a for some end up being weird in some way. He swims underwater, pretends it's a shark attack, a little flirty.

And again, she's got a little light in her eye. Like she's kind of mad at him, but she's also like definitely intrigued. So they are now laying breadcrumbs. And I like the way that that was shot. You know, it's like the Jaws Cam, the underwater Jaws Cam is there. But also it just like what it does is it just shows us like her body and his body underwater. And it's just sort of like this is what's going on underneath. Like we're talking up here, but here's what's going on underneath.

I hope your mom loved that scene. Well, then he does the kind of the eight-year-old move where he's like, you don't like me. Yeah. You know, and she's like, no, I like you. And he's just, you know, he's not a rocket scientist. And she's obviously very smart. And she kind of knows what's going on. but she kind of likes it.

So season one had a lot of the racial dynamics of what was going on in that season. This one, again, we've already dubbed this as sex season. But like I really thought that comment she made about the fact that like she and her husband who are not white but white passing, she's like, you know, we're their token not white friends essentially. And when they were talking about Puerto Rico and Daphne is like, what is this? it's not a state, is it a territory, you know, like all this sort of stuff. So it's like that dynamic.

It's a territory. Like she's definitely pissed off about it. Yeah. She's like, you can come stay with my family in Puerto Rico if you want to. And it's just sort of like, it's an interesting element in this dynamic. Because like when the happy couple, as we're calling them, when they talk about we don't, we don't engage with the news, why would you do that? Oh, the world's not ending. Why would you do that?

Well, they're like two white, rich, happy people, right? You know what I mean? And like, Aubrey Plaza and her husband who are like only newly wealthy and like not white and are like going through the world and having a very different experience. And I think that's an interesting like sort of theme that he's sifting into this season. You know, it was interesting. When I heard they're doing season two, I thought for sure that they would have either a black couple or a black family because the first season for the most part was pretty white, right?

and I thought he would experiment on that road, and he didn't. I think he decided to make this the sex craze season. But if I had to do this show differently, I probably would have dumped Tanya. And I would have had a couple or a family that was a little different. I just don't feel like I needed to ride the Tanya train again. Maybe she'll come back for season three. I would have just gone to all new characters if I was the GM of the show. Well, I mean, on the one hand, yeah, but on the other hand, if he's, like, kind of trying to franchise, like, this is a really interesting thing that they're doing here because they're calling it a quote-unquote anthology show.

Yeah. Rather than, like, a series so that when they submit to the Emmys, they can still put it in limited series the way that Brian Murphy always put American Horror Story or whatever. But when you brand an anthology, you do want to have some connective tissue. And since, like, Jennifer Cool is just the breakout and won the Emmy, I understand, like, yeah. why she's here, but I agree with you. Like if they do a season three, which I'm, if this season is at all popular and Mike White wants to go on another adventure, like a vacation somewhere, I'm sure he will do a season three.

I would hope that he spends off a different character than, then Jennifer Coolidge's character. I love Jennifer Coolidge, but it's like in limited doses, right? Well, I wonder if part of it is, I mean, one of the fascinating TV things about this show, like just TV industry things. it's just him. There's no writer's room. Yeah. Yeah.

So I wonder if he was worried, like if he had had a black family or a black couple, but there's no writer's room, it's just him writing it, that that would have become a thing. And I think that was some of the criticism of season one. Like, season one was broadly white, but there were a couple of black characters that, and he was like trying to engage in it. Yeah. And I think there was some criticism of season one where they were like, this felt like a superficial treatment of this particular dynamic.

and so I think maybe in season two he's sticking. But the no writer's room thing, the no writer's room thing in a weird way is a little liberating for him because then it's just like, hey, I'm the one writing this show. This is coming out of my brain. That's the way it goes. Versus if you had like 10 people in the room and then it's still like a pretty white show told from a way perspective. Maybe that gets a little dicey.

Yeah, but he's injecting. I think there's some really personal stuff in here. when Aubrey Plaza's character is talking about, is this what happens when you become super rich? Do you are all of your friends just these like vapid assholes? Is this like what we can look forward to? And so my question is like I don't know enough about Mike White biographically, but I don't think that he came from a ton of money before he had huge success in Hollywood.

So I think he thinks of himself as like an Aubrey Plaza or maybe Haley Lou Richardson character, like an outside observer of wealth and privilege. I think he cares about the class dynamics and poking fun in a really unusually fun way of the wealthy. Yeah. And their relationship to kind of the common people. Seems to be the goals. Who won the episode for you? I'm going to give it to, because we didn't talk about it, so I want to talk about it.

the actress is Beatrice Grano, who plays Mia, who's like the non, you know, sex work. Because she has that, like, beautiful musical moment where she actually, like, crushes it on the piano and shows that, like, the guy she threw the drink in his face last week, Giuseppe, the, like, completely mediocre piano bar singer guy, like, what it really means to have talent. And I really liked that moment. So, yeah. Yeah, I liked it. You know, I think the show's trying to make us like her, which means she's definitely dead in the last episode. No, no. I'm rooting for her.

I'm already built her gravestone. She's done. I'm rooting for her as a girls, the local girls. I like them. No, they have. That's what this show does. They're going to, one of them's going to die. You're right.

Well, I don't know if definitely one of them is going to die, but you're right that the person who paid the most in season one was not the privileged guest. at, you know, it was Armand, right? So like, the lesson is not going to be the privileged people get any kind of comeuppance at the end of this season, probably, you know? All right, so predictions going forward. We have not, we have intentionally only watched the first two. Yeah. Predictions going forward.

If Greg leaves, that puts Porsche together with, with Tanya, probably in more scenes. So maybe they go down that road. I think Dominic is unraveling, and I think that probably gets worse. Yeah, the montage at the end felt a little, like it reminds us of Armand who like went down a drug spiral in season of one. He's going to unravel. That's happening. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if his wife didn't show up at some point this season.

Yeah, I forgot to look at the credits, but her voice sounded familiar to me. So like, I don't know. Yeah, I feel like that's a real actress. Yeah. I'm a mate, you're like a great voice sleuth. I know. What was the one in yellow jackets? You figured out who the yellow jackets lady was?

No, I think it was the old jackets. The old man. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot to check the credits to see if that, yeah. But she sounded familiar to me. I think that wife shows up. I think she's someone will see.

The big thing I think to watch in third episode is a happy guy in Aubrey Plaza. I think that's got a, they have now set everything up, for episode three with them. And maybe they go to Sicily and they get split up the two couples. Oh, I've always wanted to go over there. Oh, you guys go that way and something's going to happen. I like that you call him Happy Guy and I've started to do it too, but definitely in my notes, he's bogus claims douchebag.

So, you know. Happy guy slash bogus claims douchebag. He's all those things. I really like, I like that actor and I really like Daphting. I think Daphting is excellent because that's kind of a nothing part. Yeah. She's just supposed to be dumb and happy, but she's good at it. Everything she does, when she starts talking about how she, like, goes on spending sprees when she's wine drunk.

There's also a, there's a running thing about her missing her kids that I think is kind of interesting, right? She keeps wanting to, like, FaceTime with her kids. So I don't know if that's something to, like, keep an eye on. But I'm keeping, as we've said, I'm keeping an eye on Albi. I don't trust him. I'm waiting for his, like, a capital N, nice, capital G guy. stuff to unfurl for us. So, yeah.

Yeah, she was doing some internet sleuthing on them, which I thought was interesting, because maybe there's going to be some more internet sleuthing and maybe something unearthed as she continues to internet sleuth. I have as the winner of the episode, and I hate to do this, I think Jennifer Coolidge actually won the episode. You just spent the whole time saying you didn't want her here.

I know. I wish she wasn't there, but I thought she had the most to do. and I thought her story was weirdly the most compelling out of everybody. But I mean, I love the couples the most. I'm in on that storyline

all the way through. I don't love the actor who plays Ethan. I think one thing we didn't forget to mention was this show is so extraordinarily well cast. I think that was a huge part of why season one worked and I think this season's same thing. But the Ethan character,

I'm not sure I'm there with him. And I don't really know the background of other stuff he's been in, but I'd give him like a B minus. I haven't seen him before and I had a similar thing where I was trying to figure out what was going on. And I looked him up and he's British. And I almost wonder if it's like one of those things where like he's focusing so hard on doing the American accent that it's getting in the way of him, you know, being able to fully give us a. It feels like somebody dropped out, somebody dropped out 11th hour.

By the way, of course he was British. We don't make American actors anymore. I don't think we have an American actor under 30 that we could have cast. Alby's probably from freaking Ireland. Speaking of British actors, though, Tom Hollander, an actor I love, is in the cast and is supposed to be a guest on the show. And I don't know when he shows up, but I'm waiting for him. So, like, they're going to introduce more guests, I guess, to come. But he's in the opening, like, his name's in the opening credits.

So he's like a main character. We just haven't seen him yet. So, yeah. So maybe that's episode three? I mean, it's got to be soon because it's a short season. So, you know. Because it's not like the love boat where you're going. go on a cruise and you meet everybody at the beginning of the cruise and then you go off for a week.

Like people check in hotels every day. So it makes sense that some new character would come in. Maybe it's the third roommate of the two guys. Could be possible. I mean, Tom Hollander is much older. He didn't, like an older British actor, but like. Oh, maybe not. Like Molly Shannon's character didn't show up until a couple episodes into season one of White Lotus, right?

Jake Lacey's mom. So like, yeah. Chris for Moldie's on. Maltesante's brother? Well, again, I think he's supposed to be British. Well, we'll see. You know, maybe they're having him play American, but like... You can't say supposed to be British.

These British dudes play American people. You're right. You're right. You're right. But like, yeah, I'm on the lookout for Tom Hollander, and I'm on the lookout for Maltesanti's wife, whoever she might be. You know, so we'll see.

And that could be, I mean, there's a lot of possibilities for Maltek's because that's probably a good part. So that, I mean, you could... She came through on the other side of the... phone call. Like on the other side of that phone call, I was like, this is a good performance. You know, like it was good, I thought. It won't be Laura Linney, but it could be somebody in that kind of stratosphere because they

like a Hope Davis. There's not like giant stars in season two, you know? Yeah. Who did you suggest? Hope Davis. Hope Davis. I don't know. That's interesting.

If you say Laura Linney, but not Laura Linney, my first thought is Hope Davis. That's where my brain goes. But maybe she's supposed to be Italian. I don't know, because it's a very Italian family. So, yeah, we'll see. I'm so glad this show's back. Me too. I missed it.

I feel like we're getting at least five seasons of it. We just keep moving different locations until the White Lotus property goes bankrupt from all the dead bodies. Seems like we can get five seasons out of this show. Joina, great to see you. This was produced by Isaiah Blakely. Thank you, Isaiah. And we'll be back next week for episode three. We'll see if my prediction is right about Happy Guy.

and Harper. Something. Something's going to happen. We will see. See you next week.