How The White Lotus Makes Unapologetically Awful People Entertaining

The White Lotus is an HBO black comedy about the shenanigans of a group of wealthy, white vacationers during their stay at the eponymous holiday resort chain. Each season of the award-winning satire stands alone, featuring a different set of characters in different White Lotus locales dealing with different scenarios. The only connections are the basic premise and the character Tanya McQuoid, a flighty heiress played by the indomitable Jennifer Coolidge, who won two Emmys for the role.

The characters in The White Lotus are flawed—some are even extremely awful. The guests do everything that every hospitality worker in the world complains about during break time, all while dealing with their own dysfunctional inner lives. And yet, The White Lotus is endlessly entertaining precisely because of these awful people.

How do they pull that off?

Making bad people fun to watch is easy—decades of TV have produced memorable villains, from Alexis in Dallas to Joffrey in Game of Thrones. But the thing about The White Lotus is this: there are virtually no good or bad guys here—everyone is awful in their own way. The show isn’t even that interested in “punishing the bad guy” at the end of the day.

In the hands of a less capable writer, this could easily come across as tone-deaf or terrible, but The White Lotus has Mike White, who single-handedly wrote every episode. His nimble writing carefully treads the fine line between humanity and pulp sensationalism, which we’ll get into shortly.

The first season, set in Maui, is a commentary on colonialism, white privilege, performative wokeness, and class inequality. The second season—set in another White Lotus establishment in Taormina, Sicily—shifts the focus to something more personal yet universal: love and sex. It explores power dynamics in relationships, the transactional nature of love, the roles of sex and marriage as status symbols, and how even genuine relationships are not immune to all of this.

The first season introduces us to an ensemble of white vacationers descending upon Hawaii with all their entitlement. Some are outrageously entitled, like the egregious Shane Patton (Jake Lacy), throwing his frat-boy antics around. Some are more subtle, like Nicole Mossbacher (Connie Britton), a haughty liberal CFO, and Tanya, with her fragile ego. Their interactions with the staff and locals, though polite, are rife with hints of superiority.

And yet, the writing deftly presents these awful traits in the most natural fashion. The longer it goes, the more it reveals how deeply dysfunctional these cultured and well-behaved people truly are. The mindsets behind the characters’ actions are flawed, but they are also well-defined—creating characters that feel all too real because, well, they mirror how people from different classes interact in real life.

The second season is even bolder in its refusal to judge its characters. Shifting its focus to something more primal—sex—the series daringly discusses desire in a way that liberates it from moral constraint while illustrating the many ways society restrains it.

The Sicily season introduces Cameron (Theo James), a cocky fund manager with the physique of a Greek god. He’s the embodiment of toxic masculinity—arrogant, a serial cheater, and a habitual liar. He and his wife, Daphne (Meghann Fahy), seem content with their open marriage, which starkly contrasts with the more conventional couple they travel with, Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan (Will Sharpe). Yet their dynamics reveal that Harper and Ethan’s marriage is no more stable than Cameron and Daphne’s. The latter navigate their relationship unconventionally through games and manipulation, yet their passion remains alive—unlike Harper and Ethan, whose so-called honest communication hasn’t prevented their growing distance. Harper’s superiority complex over Cameron and Daphne masks her envy of their passionate bond, presenting a complex moral dilemma of want versus need.

The season also introduces Lucia, a local prostitute servicing half the male guests at the resort. The other guests look at her with derision, yet almost all of them fall for her charm. Her profession represents the most blatant act of transactional love and sex, yet, ironically, it is the most honest. Everyone else is pursuing the same things—just under the guise of mind games, betrayal, petty tricks, and even blackmail.

As you can see, White is a master of irony. His characters are fun to watch because their awfulness reveals the hypocrisy and unconscious biases we may harbor within ourselves. While other shows exploring these themes almost immediately pick a side—either you’re the good guy or the bad guy—this show comfortably straddles the gray area in between, portraying each individual as both their own hero and villain. Sometimes, the show’s acute understanding of unsavory behaviors even borders on sympathy.

Ultimately, the show understands human nature—including that of its audience.

The creators know that the people watching will identify with the characters’ innate desires, hidden apathy, and base instincts. They know what it’s like to put on a facade in public despite what you really feel inside. They expose some of the unconscious biases we hold toward one another. They also understand the allure of aspiring to be as rich, attractive, and capable of taking a luxurious holiday to exotic countries as these characters are.

The characters in The White Lotus aren’t awful because they’re evil; they’re awful because they’re just like us—the viewers watching at home.

It’s a guilty pleasure in the smartest form of writing, packed with the most obscene display of wealth. The writing even goes a step further by acting as an observant third party, inviting you to form your own conclusions. There’s no condemnation, but no redemption either. At the end of The White Lotus, most of the guests check out and return to their banal lives, slightly more accepting of their inherent flaws. This duality is something that only a few TV series manage to achieve—like Breaking Bad or Mad Men. Now, you can add The White Lotus to the list.

The third season, set in Thailand, is due to premiere on February 16 and will feature a star-studded cast, including Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Michelle Monaghan, and Thai-born K-Pop star Lalisa Manobal. It will explore themes of “death, Eastern religion, and spirituality.” It will be interesting to see how White fits them into The White Lotus mold.