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Yamsforyou t1_j1isr6j wrote

Reply to comment by Rdw72777 in White Lotus is a very, very terrible show. by [deleted]

I think another way to look at them is that they both had very clear and consistent motivations. 1) The singer just wanted to sing. Didn't matter what the consequences were, she just wanted to follow her dream. 2) Lucia clearly just wanted money. Ideally with kindness and fun times thrown in.

And White Lotus as a whole consistently tells a story about easy attractive people have it and of course, how money insulates you from consequence (until youre targeted because of that wealth). The main characters wife in season 1, the CEOs daughter in season 1, the escorts in this season - their youth and beauty are all mentioned time and time again, and the glimpse we have of their summer is spent at a top tier resort. No one was looking to nip their plots or even worry about their ulterior motives. They were given everything freely simply because they were beautiful.

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Rdw72777 t1_j1j9fl6 wrote

See if it was that I could be more engaged, but we’re supposed to find them diabolical. One manipulated the most dim-Sutter college graduate this side of Stupidville. The other nearly kills someone with random pills and takes his job because she manipulated the hotel manger not so much with sex but being the only person on Earth who figured out she was a lesbian. Every intelligent person who encountered them wasn’t so much mesmerized by their beauty as they were “eh whatever, you’re not worth me turning my brain on for”.

I think my main bother with the non-singer was how transparent her plot was with the pimp. Like when the encountered him on the family trip they all bought into the “I’m trying to protect you” when the older 2 clearly snuffed out the scheme like 2 hours later (maybe it was a day not it was so immediate). They were both so concerned about her not getting in the car with him and then just immediately once money came into the picture they were suddenly not worried about her and figured it all out. Also, it seems kind of unlikely they hadn’t spent near that amount during their week of expensive shopping plus the nightly rates already, which made $50k just seem so…insignificant? Wasn’t the rate $2k per night each and Imperioli had like 3 nights and Albie 1 and then all the shopping, they must have already spent $20k, likely more, on them by the time of the $50k plot even came up.

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Yamsforyou t1_j1jb2og wrote

Albie was a willing victim. He even said he had a thing for pretty, broken birds and wasn't even mad when he admitted he was played. He wanted the attention of a pretty woman but more than that he had a savior complex that showed up with both Lucia and the blonde. He pushed his father to get Lucia the money just as much to spite the father as to potentially "help" Lucia. He clearly states the money is nothing to his father. And they come from generational wealth which only compounds the idea.

With the hotel manager, it's not that no one could tell she was a lesbian, but that no one cared for her. No one looked her way. No one hits on her other than the singer, even though other women are continuously complimented. Her male coworkers thought she was a bitch. She is shown feeding cats during her spare time. Once again, it shows how people (especially socially anxious/reclusive people) easily fold and fawn when under the attention of someone beautiful.

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Rdw72777 t1_j1jtohw wrote

I mean she didn’t fold or fawn to beautiful people, she was forced to accept the escorts because Imperioli made her and he was hardly beautiful. She was quite repulsed by the escorts personally/professionally, until magically she wasn’t, because the girl she was repulsed by acknowledged she was a lesbian and offered her sex when she was at her lowest moment. Recall leading up to that she realized the other front desk attendant she had a crush on didn’t realize she was a lesbian and that it was a date.

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Yamsforyou t1_j1jw4np wrote

In my interpretation, she was clearly the hardworking manager with a stick up her ass always scrambling to have things perfect. She barked orders and didn't particularly care for anyone except the receptionist she had a crush on. She didn't openly identify herself as a lesbian because social stigma/cultural stigma especially with the higher place of authority she held in the hotel in a country with a terrible employment rate. The singer gave her an "out" from that feeling through offering to be her "girlfriend". She's repulsed by the fact these women chose to be escorts but she's not repulsed by the women themselves.

The receptionist was already taken and actively flirting with her fiance everyday at work so it's not surprising she didn't really notice her boss giving her gifts was pursuing her romantically. And after having sex with the singer, the manager quite happily lets the couple be. In my opinion, the manager never really made it obvious that she was pursuing her - women at work give eachother gifts all the time where I'm from.

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Rdw72777 t1_j1k8xs4 wrote

The issue with that is that she wasn’t particularly hardworking and had barely any interaction with guests. Did any action she was actually shown taking was actually to improve the customer experience? Her barking at both male reception guys, cozying to the female reception person, switching the make reception guys and then switching back, etc were just all based on personal dislike with no regard for guests. Even her own interactions with Imperioli she was standoffish and she was obnoxious to/about Tanya.

Contrast that with season 1 when Armond was all over the place with trying to please customers and get the best out of staff (literally) and then the poor spa manager was essentially Tanya’s unpaid Portia. They really made the S2 resort manager almost useless and not acting in the interests of anyone but herself. In that vein I’m not even sure, after watching S2, what made that hotel experience better than a Hampton Inn except the location; when did anyone at the resort do anything spectacular for guests…arranging for a Vespa or maybe terrible lounge singing…lol?

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Yamsforyou t1_j1kb6zd wrote

Fair point. I took her title and willingness to order around her coworkers as her having some sort of reputation that would have earned her the spot. She's also the one that spots the escorts first, when the other staff don't notice and the one of the first hotel responders to the original pianist's heart attack, and the one to be filled in about the dead bodies floating in the water. Clearly chain of command is very strong despite the fact she treats them like trash.

What I saw was a lonely woman who only had her work going for her, who gets progressively more creepy as her crush develops. I understand how others could see her as a more malicious character than that. I do appreciate that both managers from season 1 and 2 offered what they did with consenting parties though. Even though they both leveraged their position and the benefits they could give through work, it wasn't a situation of heinousness, more like transactional opportunity.

Also, everyone was obnoxious about Tanya lol. It's her whole character arc that she just doesn't understand how her sensitivities and personal asks imposes on literally everyone around her. Even the spa lady got tired of her.

I agree Armond was a much better hotel manager from the optics of the clientele, but that's why the robbery plot in season 1 was relevant. To a degree, the people working at the hotel (the native people) were oppressed and forced to serve the rich white clients that gave them their livelihood. While in Italy, none of that culture was present. The clientele and the staff weren't on such widely different planes of social class. The staff in Italy were allowed to flirt on the clock, whisper about clients, openly give disapproving looks to the clientele (when Albies dad signed the escorts in), and so forth. I think the show was very conscientious about the respective backgrounds of the resort locations and the people who naturally live and work there.

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Rdw72777 t1_j1kbwe8 wrote

I didn’t even find her creepy, she was just adult-awkward. The broach purchase like 1-2 days after the compliment and mention of the shop was on the line but I don’t think she realized what she was doing with that (though she did with Rocco’s banishment). All in all her character was a bit of a shoulder shrug fir me, but Armond set the bar too damn high (and low) in S1 lol.

The resort seemed so average that I just had to pretend it was not high end so honestly none of the staff behavior even mattered, which I was fine with, but it’s such a huge contrast to S1.

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