Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Season 2 of The White Lotus.
“These gays, they’re trying to murder me!” Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) whispers, no help in sight. Leave it to The White Lotus to make this line be as funny as it is terrifying. Director and writer Mike White makes it work so well because of what comes before it all.
The show establishes its characters aren’t perfect. If the music by Cristobal Tapia de Veer and Kim Neundorf isn’t making you anxious, the characters will do it. And the queer characters get as much to do, story and character-wise, as their straight counterparts. Meaning, they make plenty of mistakes. At the top of the resort hierarchy, are the high-strung managers, one less successful in dealing with the stressful environment.
Lotus-Eaters and Crushed Pills
Mahalo! In Season 1, Armond (Murray Bartlett) looks well-put together, all smiles and waves to approaching guests, while whispering strict know-hows to his employees. “You know you don’t wanna be too specific as a presence, as an identity,” he tells one. “You wanna be more generic.” Except, generic does not suit Armond. Five years of sobriety get chipped away thanks to man-baby guest Shane (Jake Lacy). Within one week, Armond’s “generic” attitude turns petty and personal. “Sometimes, just watching them eat every night makes me wanna gouge my eyes out,” he mutters about the guests. A bag in lost-and-found is the worst discovery for him, various pills in orange canisters are like little toxic treasures to him. Five years of being sober have effectively ended. Persisting whining from Shane is a crucial factor in Armond's relapse, but many poor choices are his own doing. Tanya wishes to take a boat ride to toss her mother’s ashes into the sea. Armond thinks Shane and his new wife should be on the same vessel. A sunset, romantic boat ride is upended with the sobbing mess that is Tanya, who is unable to “feed her mom to the fishes.” To say Shane is pissed is an understatement.
Then the sex scene comes in, a jarring moment. Not in the right state of mind, Armond invites his employee Dillon (Lukas Gage) into the office. A new sense of (drugged) confidence lets Armond be honest. He wants sex, so if he gives his employee flexibility over the work schedule, can it happen? Not long after, Armond is rimming Dillon when Belinda and Shane walk in. The fuse to the battle of wills between Armond and Shane is not only lit, but it's also dangerously close to exploding. His boss never finds out about the sex-on-the-job incident, yet Armond is fired for his lack of providing the best services. He knows to blame Shane. “This fucking douchebag fucker fucked me!” Armond speaks it like it’s Shakespeare. There’s a reason Bartlett won his first Emmy for the role. Played by an out actor, this manager is a great example of a dynamic older gay character. All the good stuff can’t be for the younger actors. More smartly, Armond’s sexuality is not part of his main conflict. To launch his downfall, Armond’s last drugged-fuel binger is to set fire to the ship. Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” plays, adding to the delirium. He sneaks into Shane’s room to defecate into a suitcase, except he doesn’t leave quick enough. Shane grabs a knife to protect himself, fatally stabbing the luckless, self-destructive Armond. Here’s hoping he haunts Shane.
Sail into Season 2 and arrive at the dock to Sicily’s branch of the resort. Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) seems to have her shit together as the manager. Unlike Armond’s careful words, how Valentina speaks to the guests is uninhibited. She calls Bert (F. Murray Abraham) “very old”, seemingly astonished he survived the long journey. Cameron (Theo James) reveals his luggage got misplaced and Valentina isn’t surprised. “Fiumicino always loses bags,” she says. “If your bag will ever arrive, we’ll let you know right away. If you believe in miracles.” She also can’t stand her employees chatting it up in the front lobby, namely Rocco (Federico Ferrante) to Isabella (Eleonora Romandini). She banishes him to the beach club -- with an ulterior motive behind the decision. She’s closed herself off from social interaction. A solitude lunch outside with stray kittens is more to her liking. And she’s in the closet, locking that door up with a key she’s thought she tossed far away. Isabella causes a spark to light up in Valentina.
They Can Have (Un)Healthy Sex Lives Too
Impacciatore talked about the relationships around her in a Variety inteview: “When she gets attention from men, she gets very aggressive, but when she gets attention from Isabella, her heart starts to melt. She has a huge conflict inside — she doesn’t know herself, until something happens and she cannot escape anymore.” She gifts the employee with a starfish brooch. But the moment she gently pushes the pin in isn’t the start of the love story Valentina might wish for. Isabella wants to be with Rocco again because the two are not only dating, they’re engaged. It takes Mia (Beatrice Grannò) to open up Valentina, the younger woman seeing right through the glass closet. If Mia can be the new lounge singer, they can spend a night together. Valentina, never having been with a woman, agrees. Unlike Season 1, it’s Mia who gives the proposition. And she communicates well enough that while she enjoys time with Valentina, it isn’t long-term. In another difference to Armond and Dillon’s scene, Mia and Valentina have a quieter, intimate night. The camera framing and how long it lingers are not gratuitous at all. A scandalous sex scene, an integral piece of White Lotus, isn’t for the resort manager this time around.
How can the series upstage Armond rimming Dillon, all seen in a full-body shot? Tanya walks in on new friend Quentin (Tom Hollander) having sex with a young man who is said to be his nephew. This isn’t Game of Thrones, so incest put aside, White knows exactly what he was doing. He specifically wanted to get a shocked reaction from audiences. White did a Variety interview, saying, “There’s a pleasure to me as a guy who is gay-ish to make gay sex transgressive again. It’s dirty — men are having sex and you have this Psycho music underneath. It just amuses me.” He certainly doesn’t sanitize his queer characters.
While mainstream media is getting better at knowing queer characters can have a sex life, it’s still a work in progress. Prime Video is accused of censoring two key sex scenes in God’s Own Country (2017). There are conflicted male gaze aspects to Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013) and The Handmaiden (2016). In Pose, its first season showed respectful tenderness to a trans woman. Sex between LGBTQ characters can also be too sensitively portrayed. Carol (2015) and Call Me By Your Name (2017) pan the camera away as their main leads drop into bed. The White Lotus hardly considers its camera pan, it goes all in for shocks and an unflinching view. Startling and awkward, like its established characters.
Many rich people are terrible on this show. Having an entourage of “high-end gays” join them only makes sense. Hollander can now add Quentin as another gay character to his resume, going all the way back to Bedrooms and Hallways (1988). On the villainous side, there’s his flamboyant hitman in Hanna (2011) who is violent and ruthless. Quentin’s villainy is without question, however, his menace is far more subtle. He is a sly devil. He captures Tanya’s attention by complimenting on her colorful outfits, pulling her into his orbit. Having him invite Tanya to his villa is another level of wickedness. He needs to get her isolated, doing so by welcoming her into the place he plans to keep by means of her death. In another monologue from Quentin, it holds a revelation: “Other than the cowboy, love’s never been my Achilles heel. It was always beauty.” As to who the cowboy is, that would be Tanya’s husband Greg (Jon Gries). He conveniently made her take this trip to Sicily, only to abandon her. This cowboy still has a strong hold on Quentin, but beautiful things do attract Quentin too. He’s willing to be complicit in a murder plot for it. By Quentin leaving behind an old framed photo of him and his cowboy in full view, it's another example to his demented attitude. A way for him to flaunt the image. Whose eyes fall on it twice, but Tanya. The woman who knew too much -- and the woman who didn’t piece it all together in time.
Jennifer Goes Overboard and Over the Rainbow
“If you’re looking for a friend, gay guys really are the best.” This dialogue is how it begins. “Well, he was kinda fucking his uncle.” That is how it ends. To add to this building queer representation, look no further than Coolidge, whose gay icon status puts a target on Tanya’s back. This Season 2 arc is like a dark joke. The "high-end gays" shower her with flattery, hiding their devious plans to take her money. If that's one big, dark joke, the punchline is her wildly shooting her way to safety, hitting each one with expert, assassin wounds, only to die by slipping on her heels she would have been complimented on. At least in Tanya's final moments are all about her. Seeing Quentin, a bloody splotch around his heart and blood dripping down his mouth, she can only think of one thing. “Is Greg having an affair?”
Netflix’s gay rom-com Single All the Way (2021) is a recent project that recognized how beloved the actress is. Coolidge's character gets to say, “The gays just know how to do stuff. And for some reason, they’re always obsessed with me.” She also wears Glinda the Good Witch’s magnificent gown, awfully similar to the fluffy “amazing symphony of salmon,” Quentin exclaims about at one point. In keeping up a connection to the land of Oz, Coolidge’s arc in Season 2 puts a spin on a key scene from Judy (2019). In the biopic about the grand queen of gay icons, Judy Garland (Renée Zellweger), the famous singer invites herself into an older gay couple’s home. They are overjoyed, once the shock subsides. In their apartment, Judy learns how her music is used by this couple to find peace among the painful discrimination they face. The interaction is fictional, created to honor Judy’s gay fan base. Back on The White Lotus end of things, Mike White did his own version of a gay icon meeting her gay fans, except there's no welcoming party on Quentin’s yacht. Tanya is flattered, filled up with white wine, the impending arrival of a handsome Mafia hitman signaling her character’s death knell.
Let’s all remember Tanya fondly — when she’s violently choking on a Vespa, a bug stuck in her throat. She could use a splash of Moscato to wash it down. Her end, plus Armond's, will not mean an end to an electric bunch of queer characters and themes. Valentina survives to ideally live a happier life, after all. One can wonder how Season 3 will expand on what has been set. White is going to have to figure out yet another gay sex scene to continue his love for “transgressive” moments. Before the next boat sails out, let's see more of the LGBTQ community. Trans characters and talent should get their visit to the wretched, lavish resort too. Welcome to the White Lotus, where the queer representation is complex, scary, and hilarious.