what did you hate so much about season 2?
I've been thinking about an answer, s, for a few days, and, although I'm not sure of this, this is what i came up with:
It's kind of an intense experience, watching, essentially, a six hour movie in one sitting, season one for me, and two sittings for season two. So my initial response was kind of charged. For season one, I thought, this is
really good. I thought a bit and edited, removing the italics from the word really. and a third edit would probably remove the word all together. But it
is good.
Once i started to get what season one was about, somewhere into the third episode--the 1 (maybe 5) percenters navigating the rest of us--I got interested. It's not a simple subject, and I thought it was explored in an engrossing, entertaining, and certainly well written and acted way.
But once I started to get what season two was about, I thought the opposite: ah god--sex. People chasing their desires regardless of any sense of ethics or decency. People using the desires of others to exploit, to manipulate, and to separate them from their money. It's all about the humping, and this interests me less; it's kind of old hat.
I don't know how much of popular entertainment is about the humping, but I imagine most. Humping and killing, humping and killing. Watching some dude, from behind, a'humping away is almost like watching someone vomit, or deficate. Yes people hump and puke and shit, but I don't really need to see it. (I won't mention the suitcase scene, in season one, which i definitely didn't need to see, lol.) Anyway.
Also, I've seen White Lotus 2 described as satire, but I'm not buying it. I think season 2 thinks of itself as a satire, while not really being one, only to excuse the fundamental implausibility of the whole scheme. Anyway.
Nate's comparison to True Detective was, I think, good. Season one of that was exciting--not a committee deciding what they could trick people into watching, but a singular idiosyncratic point of view. Season two, of both shows, was more like regular TV--not bad but nothing special.
So . . . I didn't hate season two of White Lotus, didn't even dislike it, but I didn't
like it.