The White Lotus Season 2 Episode 4 Is All New Characters, Scandalous Transgressions, And Lying By Omission
It's day four of our stay at The White Lotus Sicily, and things are starting to shift and evolve. The power dynamics between our many characters are morphing into something new, with all of our core players picking up fresh bits and pieces about one another that aid in their future moves on the chess board that is this week-long vacation. This season is clearly a bit more of a slow burn, but it's certainly compelling to watch this group as the frog in the slow boiling water. Needless to say, we are seemingly building to something big—and, in this episode, new folks join the fray to complicate things even further.
For starters, Harper finally gets Ethan on the phone the morning after his voyeur session with Cameron and the Italian girls. She complains about being "kidnapped" by Daphne for the secret Noto excursion she had planned and questions what the boys got up to the night prior. She's suspicious, to say the least. Valentina, who has clearly taken some semblance of a liking to front desk worker Isabella, inquires a few times about whether or not Rocco, her co-worker at the front desk, makes her uncomfortable. Isabella clearly isn't uncomfortable — in fact, they get along quite well and we as the viewer know it — but it's also clear that Valentina is posturing to make some kind of move.
New characters, new potential
At breakfast, Portia awkwardly apologizes for ditching Albie the previous night and asks him to hang out with her later that day to make up for it. When she asks Tanya if she could get some time off that day to be with Albie, her boss spouts that whatever is going on with her husband, Greg, is "bulls—t." On the way back to the room, Tanya and Portia are stopped by the men who were smiling at her during dinner the previous night, whom it turns out are thrilled with everything about her and hope to become vacation friends. Quentin (played by Tom Hollander) and his boyfriend invite her and Portia to the beach club later on and say they'll save them two seats. New characters, new potential.
Meanwhile, Lucia and Mia seem to mentally be switching places a bit. After leaving Cameron's room and setting up their hangover beds on the lounge chairs at the pool, Lucia laments that she is starting to dislike the life she carved out for herself as a sex worker. "All whores are punished in the end," she tells her friend after apologizing to her for exposing her to this kind of work. Mia, however, is starting to take a liking to unattached, unemotional sex in a mutually beneficial arrangement after what she considers to have been a positive experience with Cameron the night before. In fact, she concocts a plan to have sex with the bar piano player in exchange for use of his connections.
Scandalous romances everywhere
Cameron crawls into bed with a hungover Ethan after the girls leave and he asks his friend to adhere to "Bro Code," which is just a dumb way of saying "Don't you dare tell my wife I cheated on her with two local Italian prostitutes." At breakfast, Daphne asks Harper to keep the things they spoke of the night before—namely her admission of Cameron's past cheating—between them, and Harper agrees. Naturally, she tells Ethan about Cameron's transgressions the second she gets back to their room, though. No surprises there.
That afternoon, Tanya and Portia go to the beach club and meet their new friends—and it turns out that the handsome guy at whom she was making eyes at the pool the night prior is Quentin's nephew, Jack. He and Portia formally meet there and totally hit it off, so much so that she completely ignores Albie when he comes to the beach club to meet her there (at her behest, mind you). However, Albie starts to hit it off with Lucia, interestingly enough, who tries to take a seat he saves for Portia at the beach club. The two couples end up in a game of upping the ante with one another from across the room that evening, seemingly daring one another from afar to do more and more with their new partner.
Lying by omission
Back at the hotel, Harper finds a condom wrapper on the couch in their room and immediately suspects that Ethan cheated while she was in Noto. Yikes. Dominic shows off jewelry he bought for his wife and daughter, but Albie makes it clear that he can't fix his wrongs by buying off the two people who have been most affected by it. The piano player quickly takes Mia's bait and finds space for them to have sex in an on-site chapel. He can't keep it up, though, so Mia runs off mid-encounter to get Viagra from Lucia—but she accidentally gives him MDMA, and it makes him collapse. Oops.
Later that night, Harper confronts Ethan again about what happened the night before. He doesn't admit anything about Cameron's tryst in their room, but does confess that he asked Ethan to invest money in his company. She decides not to mention the condom but remains clearly unconvinced by his answer. The episode concludes with both Portia and Jack and Albie and Lucia getting it on ... so it seems as though we have multiple romances to watch as the week progresses. But as you already know with this show, anything can happen. After all, we've still got three episodes left.