The 'White Lotus' Misery Index S2E5: What Is Quentin Up To?

The White Lotus Misery Index is a weekly accounting of who and/or what is having the worst time in paradise in season two of the HBO series. The rankings are based on a number of factors, none of which can or will be quantified in any way. We are doing art here, not science.

UNRANKED: Mia (look who got to play the piano, after all); Bert (he’s concussed, he can’t be held accountable for the things he says and/or does); Daphne (“You should get a trainer” lol); Jack the Rowdy English Boy and “Uncle” Quentin (more on these two later); Giuseppe the Piano Man (ALIVE!); Tommoso the Boat Captain (I love him very much); Salvatore the New Front Desk Man (I would pay up to $45 for a version of this season where Salvatore narrates the action and gives his little opinions about what is happening and why, just to hear that adorable gravelly voice for hours at a time)

10. (tie) Cameron (Last week: Unranked)

Three notes about Cameron that I think merit discussion:

It remains my position that Cameron is the one who ends up in that body bag they teased in the opening of the season, in part because he’s a mostly unlikable doof no one would cry for and in part because I could see the thing where he owes Lucia money leading to my sweet little woodland creature Albie trying to confront him about it and accidentally bonking him over the cliff and into those ominously crashing waves the show keeps cutting to between scenes
It’s weird that Cam and Daphne kind of have the same relationship that Bert and his wife had, just with a handsome trainer for her instead of, like, tears alone at night (that picture… those kids are the trainer’s, yes?)
The thing where he was touching Harper’s leg was weird and played right into Ethan accusing him of various levels of mimetic desire in a way that was so straightforward it might as well have reached out of the screen and grabbed you by the cheeks

I do not like him and I hope he gets ruined by sweet misguided boys or the stock market or, like, anything.

10. (tie) Isabella at the Front Desk

She’s getting sexually harassed by a boss who doesn’t know how to flirt and she no longer has Rocco to commiserate with because he’s been replaced by the most Italian man I’ve ever seen. It’s not going great. She’s going to need a new job soon. I think she’d be a great travel agent.

10. (tie) Albie (Last week: 4)

This freaking kid has his brain so poisoned by genetics and books and dicey father figures that he has no idea how to behave in any situation. Like, of course he would hook up with a beautiful Italian girl without realizing she’s an escort and of course he would immediately worry about her being exploited and of course he would think the whole thing is kind of like Pretty Woman now where they’re going to fall in love and he’s going to save her or whatever. There’s a non-zero chance that the next episode opens with him trying to lay his jacket over a puddle in the street so she doesn’t step in it and then just getting walloped by a bus. He’s a sweet boy.

9. Lucia (Last week: 6)

Lucia is:

Hooking up with the son of the guy she was originally hired to hook up with, the former of whom had no clue she was an escort and the latter of whom would really like very much if she stopped sleeping with his son and sneaking into his father’s room
Getting stiffed on a payment by Cameron, who is kind of suspicious with money in a way that implies things are not what they seem
Getting accosted on the street by earring-clad pimps who feed directly into what Albie thinks the situation is

Could be better, could be worse. That gelato did look pretty good.

8. Portia (Last week: Unranked)

The problems Portia has are more of the impending doom type than anything right in front of her face. Specifically, the thing where her rowdy British boy toy is also screwing his uncle (“uncle”) in the same scenic villa where he plans to screw her later, and Tanya saw them mid-thrust and will presumably have to tell her about it at some point, which will be a thing.

Please take a moment at some point this week and picture that conversation, by the way. Picture Tanya trying to explain what she saw and picture Portia’s face when she hears… uh, all of it. Picture Tanya trying to explain anything to anyone, actually. Picture her trying to give someone directions to the house she lives in. That could be a whole episode of this show, to be honest. Just Tanya trying to get home from the airport in a limo with a broken GPS. My point here is that she is not the ideal messenger for the “your handsome new boyfriend was having sex with the person who may or may not be his uncle and I walked in on them but they didn’t see me” chat. I kind of can’t wait to see it.

7. Valentina the Manager (Last week: 10)

Wellllllllllllll she’s a hopeless mess in her pursuit of Isabella and she might have just kind of traded a job for a sexual encounter with a young singer/prostitute, which is problematic from both a legal and ethical standpoint to the degree that she should probably be fired from her supervisory position and could very easily end up getting the entire White Lotus resort chain sued. It would be funny if that’s what the next season is about. Just a string of witnesses giving depositions about everything that’s taken place in this season of the show. I would really enjoy the part where the lawyers — played by… oh, let’s say Judy Greer and Henry Winkler — hear someone explain how a young prostitute kind of poisoned the piano player and then took his job by offering sexual favors to the manager. That’s one of those things that does not look too great on paper. Valentina is not doing great.

6. Tanya (Last week: Unranked)

Bullet points once again:

What do we think is going on with Quentin here?
My initial reaction is that he’s trying to scam Tanya out of some money and that he’s enlisted Jack to woo/distract Portia and it’s all part of an opera/underpants ruse that he hopes will continue to fund his lavish lifestyle, but I always think everything is a ruse and/or grift so let’s go ahead and take my opinion on this with a few grains of salt
Did anyone else notice that his story about falling in love with a cowboy in Wyoming was suspiciously close to the plot of Brokeback Mountain, like in a way that people inclined to suspect grifts and/or ruses (ahem, hello) might raise an eyebrow about it all?
Jennifer Coolidge is the best
I would watch an entire movie about her snooping through beautiful Italian villas, possibly while investigating a murder

I could easily make a GIF of every little face/wave/thing she does and I would be so happy about it but I have things to do and “I was making GIFs of Jennifer Coolidge” is not a widely accepted reason for, like, paying your credit card bill a week late. Yet. I’m working on it.

5. Having too much wine in the afternoon (Last week: Unranked)

It is so much fun in the moment. A little light day drinking. A few glasses of wine in the warm Italian sun. You feel so classy and sophisticated and nice. Especially when it’s wine from a fancy vineyard. It barely counts as drinking, you think, as you “taste” another glass of red. And white. And another red. You know, to compare. It’s fun. You’re having fun.

But then the tasting or brunch or whatever ends and you go to your hotel room and sit around and the buzz starts wearing off and you need to make the “Do I try to nap or just keep drinking?” decision, which there’s not really a correct answer to, because a nap never really fully resets you and pouring more gas on the fire just means you’re now like aggressively drunk at 7 pm and being a little too honest at dinner about — to choose an example at random — your husband’s pornography habits.

It’s not an ideal situation.

4. Dominic (Last week: 8)

Dominic has a handful of problems, some bigger than others. He has a warped view of society and of love thanks in part to the way his father behaved with/to his mother while he was growing up. His son has kind of fallen in love with one of the Italian prostitutes he hired and had a jacuzzi threesome with as recently as a few days earlier and he is caught in this gross web where he wants to protect his son from his own mistakes but he also desperately wants to keep his own involvement with escorts (plural) secret and he’s also kind of a little jealous of his son for getting attention from a woman who had very little interest in him beyond his wallet. His phone calls to his wife are going straight to voicemail. He’s really just frowning a lot, all day, which is not something you want to be doing on vacation, as a general principle.

A few of these will solve themselves by leaving Sicily and going home. Most of them aren’t going anywhere any time soon without many visits to a very good therapist. And I suppose we can’t rule out the other things not actually solving themselves. Albie might straight up invite Lucia to come back to America with them in an attempt to be some sort of valiant prince. That would make for a fun Thanksgiving dinner.

3. Rocco (Last week: Unranked)

ROCCO DOES NOT WANT TO WORK AT THE BEACH CLUB

HE JUST WANTS TO SIT AT THE DESK WITH ISABELLA

LEAVE HIM ALONE

LEAVE ROCCO ALONE

2. Harper (Last week: 1)

The condom she found the day before and left on the kitchen sink was finally discovered, which led to a lot of hemming and hawing by Ethan, who is really not wired in a way to handle any of this in a reasonable fashion. She’s drinking too much wine and dropping little conversational bombs about threesomes and party drugs. She’s getting groped under the table at dinner by her husband’s sleazy friend. The wife of the sleazy friend is straight up telling her that she knows her husband is a cheating sleaze and copes with it by screwing her trainer and accepting the series of guilt gifts that come with the situation. She’s staring off into the empty middle distance more than one should at any point but especially on an expensive vacation. There’s a very real chance she gets arrested in Sicily for whipping a full wine glass at someone’s head before this all ends.

Harper is not having fun right now. She’s not going to have a lot of fun when the trip is over, either. Lotta open wounds here. At least she had some wine.