Check-out time: Did we enjoy our stay at The White Lotus?

This article contains major spoilers for The White Lotus season two finale.

The last day of holidays is always a time of mixed emotions. There’s a sense of melancholy that your time away is over, coupled with a secret desire for the finish line and the familiar comfort of home.

A snapshot from happier times.Credit: HBO/Binge

And so it is with our stay at The White Lotus: check-out time feels both too soon and not soon enough. The season two finale served as a reminder that while one of the year’s most event-worthy shows has sadly ended, had it gone on any longer the series risked overstaying its welcome.

As with season one, The White Lotus is best enjoyed as a study of how people live rather than how they die. But series creator Mike White seems wedded to his ‘begin with a body’ approach, forcing the finale into a frenzied tying up of loose ends.

So, where to begin? Well, it was foreshadowed in episode two (via a scene from The Godfather) that “in Sicily, women are more dangerous than guns”. And it’s hard not to reflect on that throwaway line, given how things worked out for the women of The White Lotus.

Let’s start with Tanya, who proved to be both dangerous and a danger to herself. After figuring out Quentin and his posse planned to knock her off on the boat back to Taormina (as she so eloquently put it: “these gays are trying to murder me”), Tanya used Niccolo’s gun to pick them off one by one.

It turns out Tanya is a terrific shot. It’s just a shame she isn’t so accurate when watching her step. While escaping from the boat, Tanya slipped and fell, cracking her head and drowning while one of Puccini’s famous arias plays in the background.

As far as deaths go, it’s a very Mike White moment. Tanya is defined by her perceived bad luck so of course she would thwart a plan to kill her, only to die by accident moments later.

Talk about a last supper. Soon most of these people will be dead.Credit: HBO / Binge

White was smart to contain the deaths to one group, and Tanya’s story had probably stretched as far as it could. After two seasons I don’t know what else we could learn about Tanya, except perhaps how high up the hotel’s Blossom Circle rewards program she could rise.

Moving on to Lucia, there are no prizes for those who guessed she was playing Albie this whole time. Despite repeated warnings from his father and grandfather, Albie couldn’t help but cast himself as Lucia’s saviour.

He convinces his dad to transfer €50,000 ($77,600) to fund Lucia’s “freedom”, framing it as “a karmic payment for all the s--t you’ve done”.

Albie wanted to save Lucia. She just wanted his savings.Credit: HBO / Binge

To sweeten the deal, Albie offers to help Dominic get back on good terms with his mother. In many ways, it’s the most unnerving transaction of the entire series (which is saying something) because Albie is putting his self-interests before his mother’s.

Needless to say, Lucia does a runner on Good Sweet Albie. She’s last seen dancing down the street, planting a friendly kiss on the man we once believed to be her pimp. He’s wearing a hotel name tag and standing outside a White Lotus-style resort.

Clearly, this is a well-worked racket; the rich come to use Sicily, so Sicily uses them back.

Albie learnt a very expensive lesson on this season of The White Lotus. Credit: HBO / Binge

The last time we see the Di Grasso men, they are at the airport. Dominic is all smiles, hopeful of a reconciliation with his wife. But as he checks in for the flight, a beautiful Sicilian girl strolls past him, and he can’t help but stop and stare. All three generations drink her in as she walks by – like grandfather, like father, like son.

But what to make of the danger posed by the two women driving this season’s most gripping narrative: Daphne and Harper?

Even as White resorted to subplots that felt like filler (cc: Valentina and Mia), the unpredictability of the couples’ holiday kept us enamoured. With Sicily’s Mount Etna looming in the background each week it felt as if something seismic shifted in this foursome, and it became a race to see who would erupt first.

Ethan was on edge last week, but Harper tipped him over in the finale after he bullied a confession out of her. The latched door wasn’t as innocent as it seemed, with Harper admitting Cameron kissed her.

“He kissed me for like two seconds. I am not attracted to him anyway. He’s disgusting,” says Harper. “The real issue is you don’t want to have sex with me; that is the problem.”

It’s unclear if Harper’s admission is genuine or a tactic pulled from Daphne’s “I’m not a victim” playbook. Either way, it has the desired result. Ethan confronts Cameron, leading to a memorable clash in the ocean featuring numerous abs and a single punch.

Ethan and Cameron were either going to get it on or punch on. Sadly, they chose the latter.Credit: HBO / Binge

Later on the beach, Ethan tells Daphne that something happened between Harper and Cameron and, not for the first time, she’s unfazed. “You don’t have to know everything to love someone,” says Daphne before inviting Ethan to come and explore a nearby island.

It could be construed as a proposition – a way for Daphne and Ethan to even the score – but as Ethan follows her, it’s not totally clear if he will play the game.

The group share one final dinner, a last supper of sorts, allowing Cameron to do what he always does: pretend everything is fine.

“To friendship, to travel, to good times,” he declares, but Harper and Ethan barely listen. They escape to their room and finally, mercifully, have sex, smashing the statute of Testa di Moro in the process. Oh yes, revenge sex with a side of symbolism.

Ultimately, their mutual disdain for the couple they prefer not to be is the guiding force that reignites what they once were.

Did she or didn’t she? Harper and Ethan found their way back to one another, but question marks about her kiss with Cameron remain.Credit: HBO/Binge

If the first season of The White Lotus taught us there is no hiding who we truly are, whether at home or in Hawaii, this series offered a more cynical lesson. In life and love, in sex and Sicily, everyone is working an angle.

For the second year running, Mike White has whisked us away to a beautiful location and shown us how ugly people can be. And while the time is right to check out of The White Lotus, we’re counting down the days until we can return.

The White Lotus is on Fox Showcase, Binge and Foxtel on Demand.

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