In The White Lotus Season 2 Finale, The Best Things In Life Are Free
Welcome to the last day in Sicily, folks — which means we're about to get the missing puzzle piece confounding us all season long: who the heck dies on this season of "The White Lotus." Let's get strapped in for the final day of festivities and jump in headfirst because the rabbit hole gets deep and treacherous very quickly as season 2 comes to a close. Ready?
On the morning of the final full day, Lucia and Albie wake up together and make plans for her to visit him in Los Angeles. Tanya makes her way to the breakfast table at Quentin's manor and interrupts a hushed and suspicious conversation as she walks in. He informs her of their plan to take her back to Taormina, but she questions Portia's whereabouts. Elsewhere, her assistant wakes up in bed with a hungover Jack — and starts to panic because she can't find her phone. Jack continues to be affectionate with her, but man is she totally over it. At this point, she appears to be grossed out by him — in addition to being nervous on a whole new level without her phone — and I couldn't blame her even if I wanted to.
So, something DID happen...
Valentina gets caught sleeping in the vacant room on the second floor by a maid following her tryst with Mia, but Mia conveniently stays hidden under the blankets. At breakfast, Harper calls Cameron an idiot when he claims that people aren't supposed to succeed anymore because of the effect it has on the feelings of others, and it sets Ethan's mind racing once again. At another table, Albie asks his father for 50,000 euros to help Lucia get out of debt to her pimp. He calls it a "karmic payment" that will be part of Dominic's redemption for all the things he's done, namely to Albie's mother. Ultimately, he agrees to do it on the condition that his son put in some good words to his mother about how he's "changed" over the course of the trip.
At the manor, Quentin walks in on Tanya examining the picture of him and Greg again — but strangely enough, he claims that the photo is of a man named Steve whom he met on a dude ranch decades earlier. She even mentions that "the resemblance is uncanny," and it's pretty weird in general, the whole situation. It's beginning to feel like something bad is going to happen.
Ethan questions Harper again in their room about Cameron. He claims that she had sex with him in revenge, but she denies it ... until she admits that they kissed in her and Ethan's room after doing shots together at the bar. "It was a drunk, stupid nothing," she says repeatedly during the scene. Ethan isn't convinced, though, and claims that she and Cameron must have done more—and with that, he heads for the beach, where he and his former college roommate proceed to scrap and try to drown each other in the ocean.
And now there's a murder plot
Meanwhile, Jack continues to gaslight Portia about her phone and tells her that Tanya left on the boat without her. The panic starts to rise within her again as he explains that he planned to take her around her island that day and then drive her back to the hotel so they could spend time together. While he runs off to get more drinks (and "take a s***"? Imagine telling that to a woman you're having a fling with, but I digress), Portia steals his phone to call Tanya. Their call is hushed and quick since she is being watched by Quentin and his crew on the boat.
Tanya admits to Portia that she saw Jack and Quentin having sex during the call — and like, finally, she needs to know — to which Portia says plainly, "I feel like something bad is happening." And let me tell you, she's speaking for us all in that moment. The tension is knife-thick and everything is fragile. The pair deduce that Greg and Quentin are working together to secure Tanya's prenup money, which would effectively become his only if she died. Greg left so he could have an alibi, and his former (or current, potentially) lover would do his dirty work for him. The panic shifts from Portia to Tanya in a major way, and I, too, start freaking out at this point.
An unexpected hookup
Back on the beach, Ethan sees Daphne and reveals to her that he thinks Harper and Cameron have been messing around behind their backs. Daphne brushes it off, claiming that "You don't have to know everything to love someone." She takes him out with her to Isola Bella, a small island within walking distance from the White Lotus resort beach—and reader, we don't know for sure that they bang out there, but it seems like they totally bang out there.
At the hotel, Giuseppe returns to work after his collapse, and of course, Valentina goes into a small panic of her own. She tells him that in his absence, she hired Mia, which he calls a conspiracy. I don't exactly blame him for that, but it's less a conspiracy on Valentina's part and more just what happens after someone who really needs it gets laid. He'd understand if he knew.
When Portia and Jack finally get into his car to head back to Taormina, she asks him straight up if he's kidnapped her and tells him she knows that he stole her phone. He feigns innocence until she asks if he has sex with his uncle... and then the dude's entire face changes. His playful attitude melts away and leaves behind something really dark and sinister. She argues with him about getting a cab instead, to which he tells her, "Just let me do my job." So, it seems like he's been somehow assigned to distract her this entire time.
Stalling with a side of new beginnings
On the way to dinner that night, Cameron slides Lucia an envelope with the remaining cash he owes her as he and Daphne head to their table. Score settled. Tone deaf as ever, the couple crash Ethan and Harper's table, despite the fact that the pair are sitting there wordless and seemingly aware of how broken their relationship now is. A few tables away, Dominic informs Albie that the money has been transferred, but that he wants to pretend it never happened. Albie reveals he already put in a good word with his mother for him, and goes to tell Lucia that he got the money for her.
Quentin forces Tanya to stay onboard for one last dinner and arranges for the hunk she hooked up with at the party to escort her to shore on a smaller boat. Tanya accidentally drops her phone in the water and asks the captain of the boat for help, but he doesn't speak English. After dinner, she stalls leaving the boat with another round of wine.
Back in their room, Harper questions what will happen to their relationship, which ignites a fiery passion between them, one they'd been desperate to find the entire trip. Dominic calls his wife after dinner and she actually picks up the phone, indicating progress. Jack leaves Portia outside of the airport in Catania and tells her not to go back to the hotel. He implores her to get on a plane and leave, because there are "powerful people" involved in what's going on and they aren't to be messed with. He tosses her her phone before he goes.
Loose ends tied in knots
Before leaving with her escort, Tanya grabs his suspicious black bag and runs into the yacht's bedroom to inspect the contents. She finds items that totally do not bode well for her: rope, tape, a gun. She bursts out of the room gun blazing, shooting everyone in her path dead in a terrified frenzy. Only one of Quentin's friends makes it off the boat alive and jumps into the water to swim to shore, while the captain hides on the top deck. As Quentin bleeds out from his gunshot wound, she asks him if Greg was having an affair — but he doesn't answer.
In her last and final act, Tanya tries desperately to jump off the yacht and into her escort's smaller boat to drive to shore, but she falls and seemingly breaks her neck on the boat during the fall — which makes her body the one Daphne finds on the final morning before heading to the airport. Ding ding ding! Mystery solved. That same morning, Lucia leaves Albie high and dry in his bedroom, where he realizes she played him for a fool this entire time.
At the airport, Albie and Portia meet once again, where they swap discontent about their horrifying hookups over the trip and exchange numbers, because of course they do. He informs her that several people died in a yacht nearby the resort, including a guest of the hotel, and it dawns on her that what Tanya predicted came true. The Sullivans and the Spillers lovingly cuddle as happy spouses near the gate, though in different sections, their relationships seemingly repaired in the end.
The sunbeams that shine, they're yours and they're mine...
And as Sam Cooke sings out "The Best Things In Life Are Free" in the season's final scene, Lucia and Mia triumphantly walk the busy and bright Sicilian streets, greeting Lucia's boyfriend happily and reveling in their newfound glory, their lives completely changed in just a week. If anyone wins this season of "The White Lotus," if there could be a winner of Mike White's class-war-hunger-games, these girls are undoubtedly our champions — and their success highlights how we even the playing field of life. Or like Daphne tells Ethan, "You figure out a way to not become a victim of life." Lucia and Mia, they figured out a way. And that, my friends, concludes the story of The White Lotus Sicily. I sincerely hope you had a wonderful stay.