The second season of The White Lotus lands in Sicily and swaps Hawaiian sun for baroque churches and mafia lore, but the real bloodsport is not happening in the streets. It plays out across dinners, hotel suites, and boat trips, where the men keep insisting, in different ways, that they are good.
They say it outright, they imply it, they pout it. And across seven episodes, the show keeps asking a blunt question: if you have to keep telling everyone you are a good man, how good are you really?
Mike White builds this season around sex, money, and power, but he also builds it around a very familiar cultural script. The “good guy” who is not like the others. The husband who treats his wife with respect. The sensitive son who rejects his father’s misogyny. By the finale, each of those labels looks shakier than it did poolside on day one.
Sicily Turns Goodness Into a Performance
Sicily already comes loaded with myths. In interviews, White talked about choosing the setting because of its association with operatic jealousy, adultery, and gendered role play. The show leans hard into that. The backdrop is all frescoes and crumbling villas, yet the most dated thing on screen is the way the men understand themselves.
In this hotel ecosystem, “goodness” becomes another costume. You see it in how Ethan Spiller, played by Will Sharpe, quietly judges his college friend Cameron Sullivan, played by Theo James, for being a shameless cheater and finance shark. You see it in how Albie Di Grasso, played by Adam DiMarco, rolls his eyes at his father Dominic, played by Michael Imperioli, and grandfather Bert, played by F. Murray Abraham, for their open lechery.
Albie and the Trap of the Enlightened Nice Guy
Albie arrives in Sicily as the kind of man social media tends to reward. He is gentle. He listens. He calls out his father’s cheating and his grandfather’s old school sexism. Early on, he tells Portia, played by Haley Lu Richardson, that he tries to be a good guy in dating. He wants to be respectful. He wants to be different.
The show treats that as sincere, but not as an endpoint. Albie’s “good man” identity rests on the assumption that his kindness gives him a moral high ground and, quietly, that he deserves something back. Portia feels it in the way he clings, then sulks when her attention drifts. Lucia, played by Simona Tabasco, spots it a mile away and plays to it.
When Albie decides to “save” Lucia by paying a huge sum so she can escape her supposed pimp, he frames it as chivalry. In reality, he has known her for a handful of days. He barely speaks her language. The rescue fantasy has more to do with how he wants to see himself than what Lucia actually wants.
Ethan, Harper, and the “Good Husband” Who Still Betrays
Ethan is another version of the myth. He is the quiet tech millionaire who acts allergic to the sleaze of Cameron’s world. He reassures his wife Harper, played by Aubrey Plaza, that he is not like her friend’s flashy husband. He does not flirt with the staff. He does not brag about cheating. He barely drinks.
Yet from the first episode, Ethan is emotionally missing in action. He withholds affection from Harper, dismisses her instincts, and treats her discomfort as an annoyance rather than something to engage with. His version of being a good man means staying faithful on paper and keeping his head down in everything else.
Dominic and Bert: Apology as a Lifestyle
Dominic and Bert Di Grasso are easier to categorise. They are womanisers, and the show does not pretend otherwise. Dominic sleeps with sex workers while attempting to repair his marriage. Bert eyes every woman in the lobby and blames “different times” for his behaviour. The thing is, both men also see themselves as good in some deeper, more essential way.
Dominic, in particular, is a master of contrition. He cries. He promises to change. He books the family trip to connect with their roots and present himself as a newly serious man. If Albie plays at enlightened allyship, Dominic plays at humbled sinner.
Cameron as the Control Group
Cameron is useful because he does not pretend. He cheats on Daphne, treats people like props, and flaunts his money. Theo James plays him with such relaxed entitlement that you never forget he enjoys every second.
The point of Cameron is not that he is worse than everyone else. The point is that he is the only one who admits, through his actions, that he puts his appetites first. That makes the others easier to expose. You cannot hide behind “I am a good guy” when the audience has a walking comparison in linen shorts two sun loungers over.
What Season 2 Says About Us
By the finale, The White Lotus is not really asking whether any of these men are “good” in an absolute sense. It is interested in the gap between how people behave and how they talk about who they are. That gap is where a lot of modern masculinity lives.
Most viewers have met an Albie who uses his feminism as a dating profile. Most viewers have met an Ethan who treats decency like a technical checklist. Many of us have a Dominic or a Bert in the extended family, still convinced that a heartfelt apology or a charming story makes up for decades of selfishness.
Season 2 holds up a mirror and offers a gentle, brutal suggestion: goodness is not a brand that you can wear. It is a series of choices that do not always flatter you, especially when no one is watching on a Sicilian balcony with an Aperol in hand. The men at the White Lotus struggle with that idea. The rest of us probably do too.
Rachel Sikkema is a New Zealand-based writer and creative entrepreneur who explores the intersection of film, culture, and modern relationships. Through her articles, she examines how stories shape the way we connect, love and see ourselves. When she’s not writing about film and television, she’s watching Dexter and The White Lotus for the third time.