Ethan Brown ‘25
Staff Editor
If you’re cool, you probably know that Lambda hosted the best Feb Club event, a cheeky ode to the hit HBO show White Lotus, this past Saturday, February 4. If you’re really cool, you came to our party in your finest resort wear, equipped with sunglasses, floral tops, and sandals despite it being a brisk twenty degrees outside. But only the coolest people at our party were capable of having a prolonged conversation with me about the virtues and vices of each character on the show.[1] For the HBO virgins among us, and for the benefit of future generations who crave the sort of bacchanalian excess and psychosocial drama that the show entails, here is my authoritative master list ranking some of the main characters in Season 2 of White Lotus.[2] Obviously, spoiler alert.
The Bottom Tier
Tanya
No shade to Jennifer Coolidge, who should probably be our next president, but let’s be completely honest: Her character in White Lotus is morally reprehensible and extremely annoying. I’m all for respecting childhood trauma and its lasting impacts on functioning in adulthood, but girlie: You. Need. A. Therapist. Tanya ravages through Hawaii and Sicily, desperately exploiting the people around her for social and emotional labor, whether it’s wellness instructor Belinda in Season 1 (miss her) or her assistant Portia in Season 2 (bleh—more on her later). She’s a legend in the queer community for her iconic line “These gays are trying to murder me,” but genuinely, getting killed off is her only saving grace. Because, if I had to watch one more moment of her pretending her life was hard while she sat on a net worth of half a billion dollars, I was going to shove her off that boat myself.[3]
Albie
Ew! Albie is too much. For those who haven’t seen the show, Albie is a sensitive Stanford alum on a trip to Sicily with his father and grandfather. He presents himself as a good guy, boy-next-door-type who “loves and respects women,” but then, when push comes to shove and a woman (Portia) rejects him early in the season, he acts so wounded and frail that it’s clear Albie thought he was entitled to her because he played by the rules. Get out of here with your little performative and fragile nice guy persona. I have no time for it. (But also, please don’t actually leave. Actor Adam DiMarco is beautiful and needs to grace my television screen more frequently.)
Portia
I know I just defended Portia in both Tanya’s and Albie’s entries, but to be fair, she also sucks. We don’t know too much about Portia’s background, but she’s introduced to us as Tanya’s beleaguered assistant, a role that would give any self-respecting person a nervous breakdown. While I obviously have a lot of sympathy for her as Tanya’s confidante, Portia is one of the worst types of millennials: the “omg, I hate my phone, I want to go experience the world and live life!!!” type. This is annoying for two reasons: First, appreciate that you have the luxury of wasting your time on your iPhone 11—that’s a privilege, not a punishment. And second, it is quite simply so easy to start “living life.” Go on a walk for thirty minutes a day. Try a yoga class. Make yourself a matcha latte. Turn off your phone after 6 p.m. There are so many things that could improve Portia’s quality of life, but she seems unwilling to actually do the work to do them—which upon writing that on paper, maybe explains why she and Tanya get along so well…
The Top Tier
Valentina
A tragic hero: This is a Valentina stan article. The closeted hotel manager of the White Lotus, Valentina is introduced to us as a harsh supervisor who enjoys screaming at her subordinates—but over the course of the season, she’s revealed as a shy and lonely woman searching for intimacy in a place incredibly hostile to it. While Valentina’s arc is certainly a C plot that doesn’t get too much air time, we get to see some touching moments—like her tryst with Mia and her quiet, lonely lunch with village cats—that make her one of the more likable characters in the season.
Daphne
Daphne is the dissociated and detached queen we all aspire to be. Her toxic marriage to Cameron aside, Daphne comes to Sicily with a mission: Have fun and give no f***s. And she does it. As her week at the White Lotus progresses, she goes through everything from facing allegations of her husband’s infidelity to discovering a dead body at the beach. One would think that those events might be hard to handle, but not for Daphne. Whenever she faces an obstacle, she just smiles vacantly for a minute, says everything is fine, and goes off to either get a $1,000 facial or rent an entire Italianate villa. It isn’t the best mental health strategy, but Daphne refuses to let anything get in the way of her experiencing the bacchanalian pleasures of Sicily. And I have to respect the hustle.
Greg
An insanely chaotic pick, but talk about respecting the hustle: Greg was playing the long game. For new watchers, Greg is Tanya (super rich annoying woman)’s husband, who is revealed to have staged a multi-year plan to marry Tanya, then kill her and capture her entire fortune. This is clearly bad (I took Crim Law—first degree murder, baby). But to have spent years carefully cultivating a marriage, especially when Greg is implied to be gay or at least very close to some gay murderers in Italy, is an impressive feat. And given how horrible I think Tanya is, maybe he’s almost doing the world a favor by trying to take her out.
I had to leave out so many good characters of the show: Harper and Lucia are well-deserving runners up for the top tier. But I hope this list inspires you to spend some time watching the show, so you can develop your own list, and we can discuss the psychosocial drama of these annoying people together.
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