"The White Lotus" is the new nugget of HBO, whose final was broadcast this Tuesday in France on OCS.
The series follows a group of wealthy vacationers at a luxury hotel in Hawaii.
Why is it urgent to catch up with her?
While the doors of the
White Lotus
, Hawaii's paradise hotel for wealthy clients, closed on Tuesday in France on OCS, HBO has already announced the renewal of its new nugget.
While waiting for season 2 of
The White Lotus
, here is why we absolutely must catch up with season 1, available to stream on OCS and Amazon Prime Video, of this almost perfect tragicomedy.
A superb creation by Mike White
Almost ten years after the unforgettable
Enlightened
, a series created with Laura Dern, Mike White takes the viewer into a luxury hotel in Hawaii.
Mike White signs a jubilant satirical comedy.
A perfect cocktail for the summer combining grinding humor, mystery and change of scenery.
The careful execution offers a breathtaking view of the Hawaiian beauty.
A heavenly setting that contrasts with the darkness of the characters and situations.
A bit of mystery
The series opens with Shane (Jake Lacy, seen most notably in
The Office
and
Girls
), a newlywed who answers a couple's questions about their vacation in the airport departure lounge as he watches with bitterness the cargo labeled "human remains", loaded on their flight.
Returning a week earlier, when he arrived on the island for his honeymoon aboard a boat with his wife Rachel (Alexandra Daddario, seen in
True Detective, New Girl
or
American Horror Story
), a family and a lone woman.
On the coast, the employees of the complex, on their 31, are lined up to welcome these wealthy visitors.
Of course, the spectator wonders which of these customers or members of the staff will end up between four boards, but one could not reduce
The White Lotus
to a simple story of murder ...
A five-star cast
In
The White Lotus
season 1, comedian Steve Zahn plays Mark Mossbacher, one of the wealthy vacationers, Connie Britton (
Friday Night Lights
) Nicole Mossbacher, the scabrous wife of Mark, a
workalcoholic
who is much more successful than him financially. , Fred Hechinger, Quinn, their awkward teenage son, Sydney Sweeney (
Euphoria
), Olivia, their arrogant daughter, and Brittany O'Grady, Paula, Olivia's best friend.
Jennifer Coolidge (seen in the "American Pie" saga) brilliantly embodies Tanya McQuoid, a wealthy and completely neurotic woman facing the sorrow of the loss of her mother.
Murray Bartlett, at the top of his form, (seen in
Sex and the City
) plays the role of Armond, the manager of the palace while Natasha Rothwell plays Belinda, the compassionate manager of the spa.
The series also stars Molly Shannon as Kitty, the mother of the newlywed Shane, Kekoa Kekumano as Kai and Lukas Gage as Dillion.
A gallery of ambivalent characters
All the characters in the series are ambivalent: neither completely hateful, nor really lovable.
Alcoholic and self-proclaimed "mad" Tanya, for example, is quite touching: she has never received true affection and suffers from it.
It is nonetheless dangerous because it is perfectly oblivious to its own egoism.
This rich, white woman has a sincere admiration for the healing skills of the less wealthy black woman Belinda.
When she offers to finance a health center, it evokes the "Magical Negro" trope, or "magical negro".
An offer that Belinda cannot neglect, while Tanya can do without this project.
A powerful satire on human nature
Inequalities and inequities accumulate with each episode and the air gets heavier and heavier.
And each character brings their own set of tensions.
Mike White focuses as much on the history of the poor as on the rich.
He is interested in inequalities, corruption and all the forms of suffering and cruelty (major and minor, insidious and flagrant) that they entail.
Over the episodes, the plots become more and more intense.
Under its delicious varnish of comedy, soap and mystery,
The White Lotus
manages to question the fundamental structures of domination of our society and to demolish contemporary hypocrisies.
In short, a biting series, punctuated by moments of intense grace and sublimated by the intoxicating and anxiety-provoking music of Cristobal Tapia de Veer (who will never come out of the mind of anyone who has seen the series).
Series
"Gone forever" on Netflix: French, Spanish ... How Harlan Coben adapts to the European sauce
Series
"I buy clothes on Vinted at Morgane Alvaro", confides Audrey Fleurot, the heroine of "HPI"
Series
OCS
HBO