Some viewers aren’t quite ready to check out of The White Lotus. Following the Sunday, December 11, finale, creator Mike White is addressing burning questions about how season 2 wrapped up.
As fans know — spoiler alert — Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya met her fate after discovering that her husband, Greg (Jon Gries), hired a group of gay men to kill her so he would inherit her money after signing a prenup.
“In the end of last season, Tanya is sitting with Greg in the last episode and he’s talking about his health issues and she says, ‘I’ve had every kind of treatment over the years, death is the last immersive experience I haven’t tried,’ and I was thinking, it’d be so fun to bring Tanya back because she’s such a great character, but maybe that’s the journey for her, the journey to death,” White said in HBO Max’s Unpacking S2 E7 featurette. “Not that I really wanted to kill Tanya because I love her as a character and obviously love Jennifer, but we’re going to Italy, she’s such a diva, a larger-than-life female archetype, it felt maybe we could devise our own operatic conclusion to her life and story.”
White wanted to make sure Tanya had her moment before she died, however.
“I just think her dying at the hands of someone else felt too tragic,” he continued. “It felt like she needed to give her best fight back and that she, in a way, had some kind of victory over whoever was conspiring to get rid of her. It just made me laugh to think, like, she would, like, take out this cabal of killers and after she successfully does that and she just dies this derpy death and that’s so Tanya.”
While many are reeling over Tanya’s death, other fans are still shocked that Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Daphne (Meghann Fahy) and Cameron (Theo James) are all leaving Italy with their marriages still intact.
“By the end you’re like, ‘Well, maybe what Ethan and Harper needed [was] just a small dash of what Cameron and Daphne have.’ It feels like Cameron, to me, is one of those guys that’s not really going to change,” White said. “Some of the unspoken things between them, you wonder if that’s going to ultimately catch up with them. It is somewhat of a happy ending although there’s dark clouds on the horizon too.”
As for whether Harper was telling the truth about only kissing Cameron, James thinks more went down. “I think she feels oddly attracted to this monster that is Cameron, but she’s also trying to use the incident to wake Ethan from his existential and sexual reverie,” the actor told Vulture. “In terms of what specifically happened, though, it was probably more than she let on by half. Maybe not the most extreme version of that scenario, but there was something else.”
Another theory going into the finale was that Cameron had financial issues, but viewers saw him pay his debt to Lucia (Simona Tabasco) on Sunday’s episode.
“It’s a deep insecurity. He’s spiraling a bit. His place in the world is being fractured. His very basis is wealth and social and economic position, and now he’s in a place where, in his mind, doing less is a trend, just like having less confidence and social standing and prowess with women. Also now Ethan’s a very wealthy man, more wealthy and more successful than Cameron, so Cameron needs to reestablish his own identity,” James said. “When Mia and Lucia say, ‘It’s going to be expensive,’ Cameron says, ‘I’ve got money. That’s the one thing I do have.’ For Cameron, that’s a tiny admission but also quite an illuminating one. He believes there’s something lacking in him, so without money and power, he doesn’t know what he is. That’s why he’s trying to demean his friend. He’s trying to control him. He’s trying to own his friend and own his wife in a search for control.”
White, who weighs in on whether Ethan and Daphne had their own tryst during the finale below, is also looking ahead at season 3. While some fans picked up on Daphne declaring that the group should go to the Maldives next year, it hasn’t been revealed whether any characters are set to return.
“The first season kind of highlighted money, and then the second season is sex,” the Survivor alum said. “I think the third season would be maybe a satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at White Lotus.”
Scroll through for more answers to season 2’s burning questions:
Some viewers aren’t quite ready to check out of The White Lotus. Following the Sunday, December 11, finale, creator Mike White is addressing burning questions about how season 2 wrapped up.
As fans know — spoiler alert — Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya met her fate after discovering that her husband, Greg (Jon Gries), hired a group of gay men to kill her so he would inherit her money after signing a prenup.
“In the end of last season, Tanya is sitting with Greg in the last episode and he’s talking about his health issues and she says, ‘I’ve had every kind of treatment over the years, death is the last immersive experience I haven’t tried,’ and I was thinking, it’d be so fun to bring Tanya back because she’s such a great character, but maybe that’s the journey for her, the journey to death,” White said in HBO Max’s Unpacking S2 E7 featurette. “Not that I really wanted to kill Tanya because I love her as a character and obviously love Jennifer, but we’re going to Italy, she’s such a diva, a larger-than-life female archetype, it felt maybe we could devise our own operatic conclusion to her life and story.”
White wanted to make sure Tanya had her moment before she died, however.
“I just think her dying at the hands of someone else felt too tragic,” he continued. “It felt like she needed to give her best fight back and that she, in a way, had some kind of victory over whoever was conspiring to get rid of her. It just made me laugh to think, like, she would, like, take out this cabal of killers and after she successfully does that and she just dies this derpy death and that’s so Tanya.”
While many are reeling over Tanya’s death, other fans are still shocked that Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Daphne (Meghann Fahy) and Cameron (Theo James) are all leaving Italy with their marriages still intact.
“By the end you’re like, ‘Well, maybe what Ethan and Harper needed [was] just a small dash of what Cameron and Daphne have.’ It feels like Cameron, to me, is one of those guys that’s not really going to change,” White said. “Some of the unspoken things between them, you wonder if that’s going to ultimately catch up with them. It is somewhat of a happy ending although there’s dark clouds on the horizon too.”
As for whether Harper was telling the truth about only kissing Cameron, James thinks more went down. “I think she feels oddly attracted to this monster that is Cameron, but she’s also trying to use the incident to wake Ethan from his existential and sexual reverie,” the actor told Vulture. “In terms of what specifically happened, though, it was probably more than she let on by half. Maybe not the most extreme version of that scenario, but there was something else.”
Another theory going into the finale was that Cameron had financial issues, but viewers saw him pay his debt to Lucia (Simona Tabasco) on Sunday’s episode.
“It’s a deep insecurity. He’s spiraling a bit. His place in the world is being fractured. His very basis is wealth and social and economic position, and now he’s in a place where, in his mind, doing less is a trend, just like having less confidence and social standing and prowess with women. Also now Ethan’s a very wealthy man, more wealthy and more successful than Cameron, so Cameron needs to reestablish his own identity,” James said. “When Mia and Lucia say, ‘It’s going to be expensive,’ Cameron says, ‘I’ve got money. That’s the one thing I do have.’ For Cameron, that’s a tiny admission but also quite an illuminating one. He believes there’s something lacking in him, so without money and power, he doesn’t know what he is. That’s why he’s trying to demean his friend. He’s trying to control him. He’s trying to own his friend and own his wife in a search for control.”
White, who weighs in on whether Ethan and Daphne had their own tryst during the finale below, is also looking ahead at season 3. While some fans picked up on Daphne declaring that the group should go to the Maldives next year, it hasn’t been revealed whether any characters are set to return.
“The first season kind of highlighted money, and then the second season is sex,” the Survivor alum said. “I think the third season would be maybe a satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at White Lotus.”
Scroll through for more answers to season 2’s burning questions:
Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO
Will Greg Be Held Responsible for Plotting to Kill Tanya?
“I think as far as what happens to Greg and the conspiracy of Tanya’s death, it’s possible that I think Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) is scared enough to just leave it alone, but the fact that all of those guys die on the boat, it feels like there’s gotta be somebody who’s gonna track it down to Greg,” the writer explained before teasing: “But maybe you’ll have to wait to find out what happens.”
Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO
Did Harper and Cameron Just Kiss?
“The question of whether Harper and Cameron did more than the kiss, I think probably that’s just all that happened,” White said. “At the same time, there’s some time that isn’t really accounted for and I think that’s why it’s eating at Ethan.”
Credit: Stefano Delia/HBO; Fabio Lovino/HBO
Did Ethan and Daphne Hook Up in the Season 2 Finale?
“Did Ethan and Daphne have some kind of a dalliance on the island or whatever happened? That allows [Ethan] to let go of the jealousy that has been brewing with him,” White continued. “It kind of brings back that first kind of sexual charge that happens in the beginning of relationships and sometimes fades away over time.”
James, for his part, told Vulture: “That’s deliberately opaque for a reason.”
Credit: HBO MAX
Is the Father of Daphne and Cameron’s Kid Her Trainer?
“I think one of them is [Cameron’s] kid,” James said. “You know, Meghann’s character is one of the most accepted characters on the show because of her warmth and bubbliness, her energy. She can go out and deliberately make friends, like when she’s initially against the ice wall that is Harper. At the same time, the way Daphne rectifies the situation is she does some pretty appalling things to feel a level of power over Cameron. Their relationship was born of love, but it’s fallen into a cycle of games and control.”
Credit: Fabio Lovino/HBO
What Was Airport Scene With Bert, Dominic and Albie Implying?
While it’s not surprising Albie got played after convincing dad Dominic (Michael Imperioli) to give him the 50,000 euros for Lucia, fans are left wondering what happens next for Dominic and his estranged wife.
“[At] the end of the show, you see three generations of men and there’s this attractive woman who crosses,” White said. “They all sort of gawk at her and my hope is that Dominic does change, so there is a little bit in the texture of it that their relationship with women is going to always be fraught with the sexual desire.”
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