Well, you’ve certainly got to give it up for Jennifer Coolidge, that’s for one thing. A lot of Coolidge fandom is that weird performative thing that all actor fandoms seem to do at this point where it’s more like you want this person to be your parent or best friend than a dude who happens to be really good at acting, but let’s put that aside, because she really is good at acting! It’s hard to convincingly play a stupid person without it devolving into a million old jokes, and Coolidge has consistently pulled that off as Tanya. This episode in particular is the ne plus ultra of the role, as Coolidge portrays Tanya’s final realization that she’s surrounded by men who intend to murder her for her money like a cocker spaniel figuring out calculus.

I reviewed the season finale of The White Lotus for Decider.

Are there dramatic moments that moved me, or comedic moments that made me laugh? Very much so! Bert’s open distress as he connects his failed family reunion with the fact that he’ll never be romantically or maternally loved again. Quentin telling Tanya that doing coke after a prolonged period of abstinence is like “riding a bike.” Jack semi-drunkenly asserting that we live at the best point in history despite all the signs to the contrary, which have been brought up by Portia primarily to burst his bubble rather than to make any kind of real point. Harper and Ethan’s grueling conversation about whether or not their marriage is dead, the tightest and hardest-hitting discussion of relatable human misery in the show’s history, I think. Ethan’s increasingly insufferable stone-faced fury at it all. The revelation that Isabella and Rocco are engaged. The genuine sexual chemistry between Valentina and Mia.

I reviewed this week’s episode of The White Lotus for Decider.

My emotional journey with Season 2 of The White Lotus continues to take unexpected twists and turns. I’ve been entertained, bored, vaguely disdainful, but as of this week’s episode (“That’s Amore”) I’m disconcerted. Like, what if Mike White is right? What if people really are like this — all of them grasping, self-deluded, hypocritical assholes? What if my friends and loved ones are secretly like this. What if I’m secretly like this? How can I ever have a healthy, trusting relationship of any kind ever again? How can society survive???

I reviewed the fifth episode of The White Lotus Season 2 for Decider.

So it was a mixed bag, this White Lotus ep. In a way, I can’t help but admire White for trying to stuff so many different things inside that bag, and the result may have been the most entertained I’ve been by an episode this season. I just wish the results more consistently matched the ambition.

I reviewed episode four of The White Lotus Season 2 for Decider.