The White Lotus Season 2 Episode 6 Is Starting To Put The Pieces Together

Our vacation in Sicily is coming to a close. This is day six — which means we are just one day away from finding out who the heck kicked the bucket on this beautiful mind-bender of a vacation, and that's what we all want to know, right? Let's head back to our room at The White Lotus and dive in.

That morning, Harper and Ethan have a frank conversation about her lack of belief in his story about the rager night — which turns into an even more frank conversation about the fact that they're not attracted to each other anymore. Harper claims that something may have "died" within their relationship, but that they are "too young to be this old." Naturally, Ethan feels defeated by the whole thing, because, as we audience members know, he didn't actually do anything with the Italian girls. The man's innocent.

On the other side of the wall, Daphne tells Cameron that Harper is "convinced" he and Ethan "did something bad" while the girls spent the night in Noto. "What'd you do this time?" she asks her husband, implying that she's well aware of his ways. He turns the question on her, further insinuating that this is a regular occurrence for them, just like Daphne mentioned to Harper in Noto, just a bit more consensual-sounding.

Where's my money?

Portia has breakfast with Tanya at Quentin's estate, where the businesswoman tells her assistant that she needs to think more about her relationship with Jack after hearing they dined and dashed during their night out. We all know Tanya saw Jack and Quentin having sex at the end of the previous episode, but obviously, Portia isn't aware. Tanya expresses concern that Jack might not actually be related to Quentin, calling it a "strong hunch" — which is, of course, hilarious — but her assistant isn't buying it.

Lucia and Mia stop at the front desk looking for that envelope of cash Cameron promised them, but it isn't there. Lucia catches Ethan in the lobby as he's coming back from a run and confronts him about the lack of payment. He claims he's on it and that he didn't know they hadn't been paid in the first place, which is innocent, but Harper ends up seeing him from down the hall. Nothing's innocent during this trip, clearly, and everything puts a wrench in the mix.

Valentina reveals to Isabella while she mans the front desk that it is her birthday, and she then invites her out for a drink to celebrate after work. Isabella excitedly accepts the invitation. Harper confronts Ethan at breakfast about his conversation with the Italian girls, but Daphne and Cameron interrupt the dialogue when they come to sit down with them. Elsewhere, Jack propositions Portia with a rented car and the prospect of a day out together, which she accepts on the condition that they'll be back in time for Quentin's party at the estate that night.

Making connections

The Di Grassos set out to Testa Dell'acqua to try and make family connections in the small town from which their family came — but Dominic is thrown for a loop when Albie insists that Lucia come along as their translator, and they don't hide their PDA along the way. Lucia speaks to a local in town and finds out that there is a Di Grasso family a mile away, but she then realizes her pimp has been tailing their car since they left the hotel. She ends up leaving with him to placate the situation, but when the guys arrive at the address, things go from weird to worse. They meet two women who don't speak English working on the home's porch, and they aren't very friendly. They allow the three men to poke their heads inside the home to greet the family matriarch, but she chases them off the property. "Not quite what I had in mind," Grandpa laments as they head back to the hotel.

No one is who they seem

The Spillers and the Sullivans make camp down on the beach, but after Daphne grabs a last-minute massage appointment, Harper makes a pointed decision to accompany Cameron to get more drinks and leave Ethan at the beach. He watches them flirt shamelessly with one another at the bar, and he isn't happy, so he swims out far to clear his head. When he gets back, he finds a text from Harper saying she ran back to the room to get her hat. Ethan, suspicious as hell, makes his way to the room — but he can't get in with his key card because the door is mysteriously latched shut. To add insult to injury, when he gets inside he finds that the door between the Sullivans and Spillers' rooms (yes, the one Harper said they'd never use during episode 1) is ajar. Harper admits that she and Cameron came up to their rooms together and insists that isn't weird, but Ethan's brain is running wild. Later, as Daphne returns, Harper tells Ethan that Cameron confirmed what he previously said about the rager night, and the mood shifts.

Jack is plenty drunk when we meet him and Portia next and he brushes off her request to head back so they can attend the party. It's clear she's nowhere near his intoxication level and her infatuation with him is starting to wear off. Meanwhile, Quentin reveals to Tanya that he found "the sexiest heterosexual in Palermo" to be her date for the party. He introduces them, and the group does cocaine together, which really gets the party going. Needless to say, she does a ton of it all night (and the song in the accompanying montage rules).

Fit to be tied

Isabella meets Valentina after work and before they leave, she asks if Valentina would consider removing the new guy she works alongside from the front desk and reinstate Rocco, whom her boss previously relocated to the beach club. She reveals that she and her former front desk mate are engaged, which is why she'd like to have him work alongside her again, but she promises they will behave. Valentina, totally rocked by this revelation, cancels their plans for a drink on the spot.

At dinner, Ethan tells Cameron to stop flirting with Harper, point blank. He asks if Cameron was in their room that day, but before they can get into it, Daphne and Harper join the table. Mia is singing in the bar that night, and Valentina sits for a drink to quell her disappointment with the Isabella situation. Lucia arrives at Albie's room for the night, seemingly affected by the events of the day. She tells him that her pimp won't let her go, and that money is the only way to get out of his grasp. At the bar, a drunk Valentina reveals to Mia that not only is it her birthday, but she's never actually been with a woman. Mia tries to make a move on her, but Valentina takes her to an unoccupied suite on the second floor — and it is there our quiet hotel manager gets her first kiss and orgasm from another woman.

Catalysts in motion

A deeply inebriated Jack forces Portia to get a hotel room with him that night, where he starts spouting drunken truths about Quentin's family and insinuating he's not actually part of it. That freaks Portia out, but he continues, explaining that Quentin came to his aid when he was in a very, very bad place. He implies that it was really really bad, whatever he was doing back then, but Quentin helped him when he really needed someone — so he's "happy" to be able to help him now. Portia asks what that means, but he falls asleep before he can answer. Dear reader, I think you know what he means.

The episode concludes with Tanya hooking up with her arm candy from the party. When he runs off to get freshened up before their tryst, she wanders into an adjacent bedroom of the estate that is covered in hanging photographs, paintings, and memorabilia ... and it is there she finds a jaw-dropper of a discovery: an old photo of Quentin and her husband, Greg. And you know what? That could mean so many different things it makes my head spin. That said, she hooks up with him anyway, because everything is different and nothing is the same.

While this season is still a quiet slow burn in comparison to last, there is still a ton of meat to chew on here and the pieces are starting to come together. The answers we want are one episode away, and I don't know about you, but I'm dying to see how the chips fall for all of these characters. Not every reckoning has to have a battle cry, and it's been fun watching writer-director Mike White take the long way to a hopefully explosive finale.