Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/HBO
The White Lotus is back, baby. And just like last time, a group of guests have arrived at the resort with a lot of baggage: affairs, sex addiction, unhappy marriages and, of course, a mystery dead body. This time, the show is set in Sicily, with no-nonsense hotel manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) and her subordinate Rocco (Federico Ferrante) trying to (and failing) avoid disaster at every turn.
Who is the real star of The White Lotus? With the exception of Jennifer Coolidge, who has returned as neurotic millionaire Tanya McQuoid, the cast of the show changes each season. So far, we’ve seen cameos from Theo James’s (probably prosthetic) penis, Laura Dern’s voice screaming down the phone and Will Sharpe’s so-ripped-they-look-photoshopped abs. But the most important of them all is The White Lotus hotel itself. No matter the location, it’s a place where wealth, beauty, and misery go hand-in-hand, where there is the lingering feeling that all is not what it seems and that something terrible is waiting right around the corner—maybe even in the next room.
Hotels are having a moment on the small screen. In July, The Resort—a dark comedy mystery series exploring an unsolved crime with the backdrop of a fancy resort in the Mayan Riviera—dropped on Peacock. In 2021, Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers—starring yoga retreat leader-turned-drug-pusher Nicole Kidman and a very questionable Russian accent—received mixed reviews. Previously, Lady Gaga made her TV debut in American Horror Story: Hotel, where she played “The Countess” (no, not Countess Luann de Lesseps), featuring another barely placeable accent. And who could forget about Schitt’s Creek? The sitcom followed a formerly rich family living in a rundown hotel in a forgotten town, capturing hearts and minds in the process.