Aubrey Plaza Fantasized A Totally Different Ending For Her Character In The White Lotus Season 2
This post contains spoilers for "The White Lotus" Season 2 finale.
One of the biggest winners in "The White Lotus" Season 2 had to be Aubrey Plaza's character, Harper Spiller. Her vacation may not have gone as smoothly as she planned, but her ending was a lot happier than most. She and her husband finally rekindled a spark that they had lost in their years of companionship and ended their vacation on a more positive note than it began on. It seemed like Ethan and Harper were in a really good place, but Plaza isn't so sure.
This vacation was a pretty toxic spiral for the Spillers. They start the week as a codependent couple, with Harper controlling what Ethan eats and what side of the bed he sleeps on. When Cameron leaves a condom in their hotel room and Ethan's honesty is tested, Harper seems to want revenge on him for breaking her trust. She acts out by making out with Cameron, the thought of which drives him insane with jealousy. He retaliates by definitely possibly sleeping with Cameron's wife, Daphne.
Series creator Mike White leaves a lot of ambiguity in "The White Lotus" season 2. Between Tanya's plotline to Ethan's, nothing is truly confirmed — we only know what these characters have been led to believe. Although Ethan and Harper seemed affectionate at the airport, there's no telling where their relationship will go from there. As for Aubrey Plaza, she would have preferred that her character's ending was even more complicated. "I mean, I'll just say that I was really gunning for some takes where maybe we weren't so happy," the actress confessed on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Plaza doesn't think the good times will last
Nearly every storyline in "The White Lotus" season 2 was left with an open end, and the possibility of an even more rich story to come. Ethan and Harper had one of the most closed endings of anyone and seem to have completely healed their relationship, but it's hard to say how long that will last. "I don't know, maybe they'll be okay," Aubrey Plaza conceded to Seth Meyers. "But I have a kind of fantasy that Harper divorces him and takes all his money."
It's a fun idea in theory, but Harper seems a little bit too morally righteous to betray someone so close to her. On the other hand, if Ethan truly got sucked into the finance bro lifestyle and became more like Cameron, I could definitely see Harper living out Plaza's fantasy. Tanya and Greg seemed really happy in season 1, and look how that turned out. You never really know with Mike White, although he seems to think Ethan and Harper took their medicine.
"Whatever happened [with Ethan and Daphne], it allows him to let go of the jealousy that's been brewing with him and it brought back that kind of sexual charge that happens in the beginning of relationships and sometimes fades away over time," the series creator explained to HBO. "By the end, you're like, well maybe what Ethan and Harper needed was just a small dash of what Cameron and Daphne have."
Harper might have lied about kissing Cameron
As for whether Harper was lying to Ethan when she said she and Cameron only kissed, the jury is still out. "What happened is, we did some stuff, and I hated every minute of it. It was disgusting, and there was no penetration," Aubrey Plaza proclaimed, per Seth Meyers. When Meyers suggests that Harper and Cameron grabbed each other's butts, Plaza retaliated, "I think I grabbed a little more than that."
Mike White left things intentionally ambiguous but weighed in on his own opinion. "The question of whether Harper and Cameron did more than the kiss, I think probably that's just all that happened," he told HBO. "At the same time, there's some time that isn't completely accounted for, and I think that's why it's eating at Ethan."
Plaza dreams that Harper will take Ethan for all he's worth, but White feels that a cheating scandal or two was exactly what the doctor ordered. Still, does it really bode well for the future of their relationship if this new-found spark is based on lies and infidelity? It did appear to work for them, but only time will tell — we'll just have to hope that White brings them back for another season.