White Lotus: Everything you need to know about the explosive S2 finale

The second season of HBO ‘s The White Lotus came to an end on Sunday, with the identity of the mystery corpse seen in the premiere revealed to be Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge, pictured). 

The season opened with Daphne (Meghann Fahy, pictured) chatting with some new guests on her last day at The White Lotus in Sicily, before going out for a swim… where she discovered a corpse floating in the sea. 

The Season 2 finale – appropriately entitled Arrivederci – the guests all get ready to leave the resort, but not before the mysterious death is uncovered… with many other characters meeting their untimely demise as well as a sinister plot is uncovered. 

The finale begins with Ethan (Will Sharpe, pictured) laying in bed, imagining his wife Harper (Aubrey Plaza) with his friend Cameron (Theo James) before he gets out of bed.  Meanwhile, Daphne (Meghann Fahey) is on a video call with their kids, as she keeps trying to get Cameron to speak with them. Cameron repeatedly hesitates before finally joining the call.

Albie (Adam DiMarco) is in bed with Lucia (Simona Tabasco), telling her he wants to help her and take her to Los Angeles. Dom is looking through old wedding photos, with a twinge of sadness while, back in the villa in Palermo, Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) wakes up and finds Quentin (Tom Hollander, second left) and the other men talking in hushed tones. 

Quentin offers her coffee and asks how Niccolo was, as she said the whole night was a dream. She says she wishes she can take them all with her, and asks if anyone has seen her assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson). Portia wakes up in her hotel with Jack (Leo Woodall) and she can’t find her phone, saying she needs to call Tanya but Jack pulls her back in bed and says it will all be fine. Jack says maybe she left it at the bar but she says she definitely had it last night because she was trying to find him on Instagram but he says he doesn’t ‘do that’ which worries Portia.

Meanwhile, back at The White Lotus, Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) wakes up in the hotel room when a maid tries to enter the room. Mia (Beatrice Grannò) asks Valentina if she liked last night, and says she was good, but she doesn’t answer and rushes off. Cameron and Daphne are at breakfast with Will and Harper as they make small talk about some friends back home. Cameron says that people can’t even succeed anymore because they might harm someone, but Harper just calls him an ‘idiot,’ which he takes with a smile. 

Albie (pictured) meets his father Dom for breakfast, immediately asking his father for 50,000 Euros. Dom realizes he wants it for ‘that girl’ but Dom won’t do it, adding, ‘Albie, get real. A lot of people need help. You’re just gonna go through life trying to rescue every desperate girl you come across?’ Dom asks. and says, ‘Well, good luck with that. Don’t expect me to subsidize.’ 

‘Think of it as a karmic payment,’ Albie says, adding, ‘For all the [expletive] you’ve done,’ as Dom offers 10K Euros. Albie says he wants Lucia to visit Los Angeles and an amused Dom says, ‘How are you going to make it in life if you’re this big a mark?’ ‘I’ll help you with mom. Give me 50 and I’ll help you with mom. I’ll tell her how sorry you are and how this whole trip, all you could think about was her, and how it seems like you’ve really changed. Yadda, yadda,’ Albie says. ‘You would do that?’ Dom says, when Bert (F. Murray Abraham) arrives, asking what they’re talking about but they don’t say. 

Meanwhile, Valentina (pictured) arrives at work, as Isabella comes up and asks if she’s thought about bringing Rocco back to the front desk. Valentina appears lost at first, but then remembers and agrees to bring him back, which overjoys Isabella. 

Valentina orders Salvatore to go back to the beach club and bring Rocco back, which clearly angers him, asking where he’ll be the next day and she says, ‘Washing dishes’ before he takes off. 

Back in Palermo, Tanya is sitting with all her luggage as she walks through the villa again, trying to find anyone. She goes back to the photo of Quentin and her husband Greg when they were younger, when Quentin finds her. 

She asks who the other man in the photo was and she says he was Steve, who worked at a dude ranch, adding, ‘we used to go fly-fishing and drop acid together.’ Tanya says he looks just like her husband Greg and the resemblance is ‘uncanny.’ Mateo (pictured) comes and wants to say goodbye to Tanya since he is staying behind in Palermo, as Tanya and Quentin leave. 

Back at The White Lotus, Ethan and Harper go back to their room, as Ethan is clearly upset. Ethan insists that Cameron and Harper were doing something and she says she doesn’t know why the door was latched. She insists she didn’t do anything and she’s not lying, adding, ‘Haven’t I always been honest with you?’ ‘Yeah, but you’re lying now,’ Ethan says, adding he can’t move on unless she tells him, ‘exactly the truth.’

Harper sighs and comes clean, saying, ‘OK, we did shots at the bar and yeah, I was really mad at you about the hookers and the condom and the whole situation and then he said, “Let’s go upstairs.”  ‘The night before, at dinner, he kept touching my leg, or something. I dont know I was drunk, obviously. So we went upstairs, I let him in the room, he latched the door… and then he kissed me,’ Harper admits. ‘But that was it. That was all. You came up right away. He went through the connecting door. And he kissed me for like two seconds. It was nothing. And I was drunk. And I’m not even attracted to him anyway. He’s disgusting, okay? It was a drunk, stupid nothing. I regretted it immediately, okay? That was it,’ Harper says. Ethan says, ‘So you didn’t come up here for the hat?’ and she admits that she didn’t. Ethan finds Cameron in the water and confronts him. Ethan hauls off and punches Cameron as the start fighting, as Ethan tries to down him underwater but Cameron turns the tables for a bit, starting to drown Ethan as they both get up and a random man gets between them. Ethan gets one last punch in before walking off as Cameron lays back and floats in the sea… going under the water.

‘I’m here for work, and Tanya’s my boss, and I have to call her,’ Portia says as Jack says, ‘Yeah, well, she can’t talk to you now anyway ’cause she’s on the boat. They’re heading back to Taormina.’ Jack says he’s drving her back to Taormina and he wanted to show her around the island before they go back. Portia takes Jack’s phone and calls Tanya and she tells her that she saw Quentin and Jack and they were ‘naked and stuff like that.’ ‘I feel like something bad is happening. I don’t know, I just have this really weird feeling that something bad is going to happen,’ Portia says. 

Portia says that, ‘Jack got really drunk last night and he was saying how like, um, Quentin has no money, and he almost lost his house, and he’s about to come into this giant windfall or something, and Jack is helping him.’ Tanya says that she remembers the photo on Quentin’s desk… when she pieces it together, adding Greg insisted on coming to Sicily. ‘If we divorce, he gets basically nothing… but if… I die…’ Tanya says, telling Portia to meet her in Taormina, adding, ‘We gotta get … outta here,’ when Jack comes back, as Tanya realizes Quentin might be trying to kill her to get her money.

Poria tells Jack, ‘I need to get back to Taormina, like– like right away,’ but he says, ‘Your flight’s not till tomorrow. It’s our last day together.’ She says she needs to get back right away and he tells her not to worry..

Ethan is walking on the beach when Daphne calls to him, saying he hasn’t seemed himself the past few days. She asks if it’s work stuff and he says no, and he tells her, ‘I think… I don’t know… Cameron and Harper… maybe something happened.’ Daphne looks wistfully at the sea before turning back to Will and says, ‘I don’t think you have anything to worry about.’ 

‘I mean, we never really know what goes on in people’s minds or what they do, right? You spend every second with somebody and there’s still this part that’s a mystery. You know? You don’t have to know everything to love someone,’ Daphne says. ‘I think you just… do whatever you have to do, not to feel like a victim of a life, you know,’ Daphne says. 

‘You just use your imagination,’ she says, asking if they’ve been over to Isola Bella, saying she wants to see it before they leave, asking Will to walk with her, which he does. 

He follows her on the sandy path to Isola Bella as she looks back at him with a smile. 

Back on the boat, they drop anchor and Quentin says they want their last meal on the water, saying they’re as close as they can get to shore on a big boat. Quentin says that Tanya’s ‘paramour’ Niccolo is going to meet her on a dinghy and take her back to shore personally.

Back at the front desk, Mia comes to see Valentina, saying she looks beautiful, as Mia asks how her day is. Mia says she will sing tonight and Valentina asks if they can spend more time together, as Mia agrees. Mia says she needs a ‘real lesbian lover’ though and says she knows a lot of lesbians saying she’ll show her around the clubs. 

When Mia leaves, she sees Rocco back with Isabella, and welcomes him back. Then, the pianist/singer, Giuseppe, returns and is welcomed by everyone… but he’s surprised when he sees Mia at the piano. 

He asks what she’s doing here, saying she doesn’t sing at his piano. Valentina says Mia replaced her while he was at the hospital but she says Mia has his job now. 

‘The guests prefer her to you,’ Valentina says before firing Guissepe, as he angrily walks out. 

Portia nervously gets in the car with Jack, asking if she’s been kidnapped, saying she knows he stole her phone. ‘Please can you just tell me the truth. I know you’ve been lying to me. I know Quentin’s not your uncle,’ Portia says.

He says he’ll just take her back now but Portia wants to take a cab. ‘It takes a couple of hours. You can’t afford a cab. Anyway, me uncle made me promise to drive ya. You don’t want me to get in trouble now, do ya? Just let me do me job. Yeah?’ 

‘How am I your job? Like, you’ve just been, like, assigned to me this,’ Portia says but Jack screams at her telling her to, ‘Just leave it alone.’

Tanya goes up to talk with the boat captain, telling him her whole story. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but my husband, he knows Quentin. See, he brought me to Sicily and then he left, so he could have an alibi. And then these gays, they take me off to Palermo and then they set me up with this guy who’s in the mafia and he’s coming here I– I think to try to throw me off the boat. They’re going to do Greg’s dirty work for him because he’s gonna pay them with my money so they can decorate their houses. I may– may be paranoid, but I need you to drive me in the boat, drive the boat to the shore. Please? These gays, they’re trying to murder me,’ she says. The man at the helm doesn’t seem to understand as Niccolo arrives on his boat, waving at Tanya, strapping a duffle bag around his shoulder before he boards the yacht.

Back at the resort, Cameron and Daphne head to the restaurant, as Cameron casually slips an envelope to Lucia. Ethan and Harper are at their table as Harper sheds a tear, when Cameron and Daphne join them, seemingly ignoring everything that happened earlier. Dom, Bert and Albie come to dinner as Mia runs up to tell Bert that she got the job singing her and gives him a hug. Dom tells Albie he did his ‘karmic payment’ and transferred the money, but he doesn’t want to talk about it again. Dom asks if Albie might put in a word for his mother and Albie says he already did. Bert comes back and tells them he got ‘aroused’ when Mia hugged him. Albie says he’s going to pass on dinner as he rushes off to be with Lucia.

Cameron proposes a toast to an ‘amazing trip,’ adding, ‘When some… flunky in the housing office at Yale decided to put me and E in the same dorm room, who would’ve known that all these years later, we’d still be in each other’s lives? I think that’s pretty cool, man. And, Harper, it has been fantastic to finally get to know you properly.’ Cameron toasts, ‘to friendship. To travel. To the good life. Cheers,’ as Daphnie says, ‘Next year the Maldives.’ Albie goes to Lucia, telling her to check her bank account as she hugs him with glee.

Back on the boat, Quentin says she wanted Tanya to have a ‘magical time’ adding they are all jealous. Niccolo arrives and sits next to her and Quentin says Niccolo can take her back any time.  Tanya says she would like more white wine and Quentin says they have ‘all the time in the world’ and lights a cigarette.

Ethan and Harper get back to their room, as Harper asks, ‘Ethan… what’s gonna happen to us?’ Ethan walks up to her and strokes her face, before kissing her neck and taking her dress off… when they accidentally knock over the porcelain statue in the room. 

Albie and Lucia are in his room as she thanks him before they start kissing, while Dom is alone in his room. He calls Albie’s mother, surprised that she answered. ‘Listen… I can’t talk right now, but just call me when you get back into town,’ she tells him as he says he will. 

Jack stops the car seemingly in the middle of nowhere before he gets out to have a cigarette. Portia asks where they are, and she says she thought he was going to take her back to Taormina. He says they’re not going to Teremina, telling her they’re near the airport. He says she shouldn’t go to the hotel adding these are ‘powerful people.’ 

He says he knows she’s smart and says she shouldn’t be stupid before getting in his car…. and just before she takes off, he throws her phone out of the window. 

Back on the yacht, Tanya says she has to go to the powder room as she goes and grabs the black duffel bag Niccolo brought on board, opening it and finding a rope, tape and a gun. They come after her and pound on the door as Quentin wants to have a little talk… but Niccolo bursts through the door and Tanya shoots him twice, while crying. She keeps walking through the boat, firing the gun at random… as she has seemingly hit everyone, firing a round through Quentin’s heart.

‘Is Greg having an affair?’ Tanya asks, adding, ‘Tell me, I know you know. Tell me!’ One of the other men gets up and Tanya tries to fire at her but the gun is empty as he jumps into the sea.

The boat captain sees what happened and starts running as Tanya finds the dinghy and tries to jump onto it from the boat, but she doesn’t, breaking down in tears. She tries again, getting her legs over the railing, telling herself, ‘You got this,’ before she slips, hits her head on the railing and falls into the sea. Tanya is seen lifeless floating in the depths of the sea, when it cuts to the next morning.

Lucia is dressed, trying to sneak out of Albie’s room, as she smirks and looks back at him before leaving, as the sound of the door shutting wakes Albie up. 

They episode cuts back to the premiere… where Daphne finds a corpse in the sea… that’s revealed to be Tanya, as the corpse is loaded into a vehicle. 

Back at the airport, Dom,  Bert and Albie all find themselves smiling at and checking out another Italian woman before heading to their terminal. They walk past Portia, who picks up a pair of sunglasses, as she heads to her flight. 

Cameron and Daphne seem happy in the terminal as do Ethan and Harper, as Portia finds Albie while they wait for their flights.

She asks where his family is and he says they’re ‘right over there,’ and she says her boss isn’t answering her phone. ‘Oh did you hear one of the guests drowned in the hotel? It was crazy. They found a bunch of dead bodies on the yacht too,’ Albie tells her. 

He asks about Palermo, and she says it was, ‘not great,’ and Albie admits Lucia ‘played me.’ Portia asks him for his number as they exchange phones with a smile. 

Meanwhile, back in Sicily, Lucia and Mia give hugs to the man assumed to be her pimp – who’s actually a doorman at another hotel – as they get lost in the crowd as the episode, and the second season, come to an end. 

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