HBO Max: “White Lotus, Season 2”

Sicily has seen plenty of incursions in its day— from the Phoenicians, the Vandals and the Spaniards, to name a few. None are similar to the crowd that invade the island on “White Lotus, Season 2.”(HBO Max.)

The setting is a sumptuous, if-you-have-to-ask-you-can’t-afford-it resort in upscale Taormina. Guests are similar to the white-privileged clients we met in Season 1. They include Italian-American grandfather, father and grandson (F. Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli and Adam DeMarco, respectively) who are visiting Sicily to discover their family roots. Dominic (the Imperioli character), a moneyed Hollywood exec, has another goal: to reflect on and repent his marital infidelity.

Between beaching and touring, the three men cast their roving eyes eyes on the local ladies, including Lucia (Sabina Tabasco) and Mia (Beatrice Granno) who also happen to be ladies of the evening. Lucia and Mia are thorns in the side of Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore), the hawk-nosed uptight director of the hotel who wants to keep things respectable.

Guests this season also include Cameron (Theo James), an arrogant Winklevoss-like wealth manager, and Daphne (Meghann Fahey), his model-beautiful California-girl wife. They’ve invited Cam’s former college roommate Ethan (Will Sharpe) and his wife Harper (Aubrey Plaza) to travel Sicily with them. Ethan, who’ve recently become a tech zillionaire, and his wife are secretly aghast at Cam’s frat-boy, smarmy ways.

Finally there’s Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), the chubby and shlubby holdover from WL season 1. She’s still the poor little rich girl whose neediness and self-centeredness repel her new husband Greg (Jon Gries). When she’s not gulping down wine, she tortures her PA Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) who has to be on call 24/7. This complicates Portia’s budding romance with Albie and later with Jack (the brilliant Leo Woodall), a sexy working-class English lad who works for a gaggle of gay guys in Sicily.

All these characters keep the festivities interesting—-amusing at times, cringeworthy at others. The underlying theme, besides contempt for the idle rich, is infidelity, which is represented by the camera’s frequent cutaways to a Testa di Moro, an eerie porcelain bust placed in each room of the hotel. As legend goes, “a Moor came here a long time ago and seduced a local girl. But then she found out that he had a wife and children back home. So because he lied to her, she cut his head off.”

While the casting is quite good, the overall award for best-of-show goes hands down to Coolidge as Tanya. Alternately lovable and repellant, she is an amalgam of Peggy Lee, Mae West and Miss Piggy. Coolidge to no one’s surprise and everyone’s delight is the actress du moment. Like Don Draper and Tony Soprano, she is destined to live bigly in television history.

I also liked Aubrey Plaza as Harper, the half-Latina attorney wife whose eye rolls barely disguise her contempt for Cam and Harper. On a lighter note, the death stare Dominic gives his son when he’s angry with him reminded me of the ones I used to get from my Italian father whenever he was angry with me. The actresses who played the hookers were both wonderful, particularly Granno who covers for the ailing piano player when he OD’s on a prescription medicine he thinks is Viagra.

Having said all that, I must confess I felt the overall story fell short of Season 1.  Mike White has taken his usual satirical approach and added an overdose of mean-spiritedness. It comes out in his characters—not a single one, except perhaps for the PA, has any redeeming qualities. That of course is the writer’s privilege. But we the viewers don’t have to like it.

Great finale btw (no spoilers here). And on a personal note, thank goodness Season 2’s over and Mike White can move onto other locales. We can’t wait.