the white lotus episode 5 thoughts

money for nothing

a welcome note: this is my first time posting on substack so I apologize if I’m doing it wrong. (as a woman I am required to apologize generally up front.) anyway, if you’re not a substack person it’s nbd, you can either subscribe to get it sent to your inbox whenever I do these, which I promise won’t be excessive, or you can just read it like a regular article. I decided to write longer thoughts like this “on here”, where they can live on for more than 24 hours and you don’t need to press your screen down for minutes at a time while reading, or rely on the whim of Mark Zuckerberg to keep IG highlights in existence. now to the White Lotus.

If the theme of the first season was privilege, and the theme of this season is sexual dynamics, then this episode was all about the price of sex, whether it’s paid in dollars or euros or something else entirely. Here are some of my initial reactions to episode 5, before an inevitable re-watch when I’m sure I’ll have more.

Jack / Quentin / Tanya / Portia in Palermo

The big moment of the episode was clearly the ending, which confirmed my suspicion that Jack is not Quentin’s actual nephew but rather some sort of male escort or associate. Whatever it is, it’s not familial. Apparently the niece/nephew verbiage is commonly used to discreetly refer to escorts, but also, it never made sense that these two were related. Why would Jack have never left Essex if he has this extremely posh uncle who lives in Italy with a palazzo? As soon as Jack left Portia at her room at the end of the night and said he had to go “do something for his uncle” it definitely seemed like the cue for something shady.

The question is if Jack is technically being paid or if there’s some other context that explains their relationship, and perhaps more about who Quentin really is. Jack’s dine and dash after the arancini raised the question of his finances (and honesty), and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the motifs of sex work and being strapped for cash both came up frequently this episode.

A few moments from their scenes stuck out to me:

• Is there ANY chance that the cowboy from Wyoming who Quentin fell in love with was Greg? Tanya said it was Greg’s idea to go to Sicily. I wonder if he’s who Greg was talking on the phone with before he left. Quentin also says he would still do anything for this person, even after 30 years.

• When Quentin says to Tanya “I’d also die for beauty, wouldn’t you?” he gave her a look like she might have to.

• Tanya had some funny lines like “you two are having sex on the boat… I’m jealous” and “is that the queen of Sicily?” Also, “it’s a good feeling when you find out someone has money so you don’t have to worry about them wanting yours” immediately followed by her telling Portia not to steal anything.

• HOWEVER that last comment was a flag for me because my hunch is that Quentin is at least partly after her money. He commented about how expensive the palazzo was to maintain more than once…and no offense to Tanya but why is he so into hanging out with her? I know that we the audience are enjoying Jennifer Coolidge, but in the context of an actual Sicilian vacation, I don’t see what she’s offering personality-wise that would earn a palazzo invitation.

• I’ve never seen Madame Butterfly (not much of an opera-goer) but after googling, it appears to be a tragic story about love and cheating and [SPOILER] Madame Butterfly ends up committing suicide after her husband abandons her. So it seems like a clue that Quentin keeps saying Tanya is the heroine of her own Italian opera and then, while Tanya is being actively abandoned by her own husband, he takes her to see an opera where the heroine dies and they all end up hysterically crying.

  • 1 day later realization: I predict that Quentin is going to convince Tanya that Greg isn’t coming back to Sicily and has permanently abandoned her (not a hard sell), to try to induce her to end her own life. Maybe he’ll try to convince her to leave all her money to preserving the palazzo, knowing that even if he isn’t successful at that, Greg will inherit the money and they can still split it.

• Did anyone catch what fruit Tanya picked up on her nightstand before she went to find Quentin and Jack? It felt so intentional so it had to mean something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

• Portia was SO much more comfortable around Jack than she was around Albie, and I feel like it was not only about sexual chemistry as much as she felt intimidated and a little bit inferior to Albie, rather than just badly about turning him down. The goodbye conversation between them in the hallway was way more awkward than it needed to be for people who just met three days ago, which made me think it might not actually be their last conversation. Have a nice life...

Albie / Dom / Bert & Lucia

Speaking of Albie, the mix of confusion and connection between him and Lucia when it comes to their sexual dynamics was so fascinating. I assume it’s purposeful that this “nice guy” who is supposed to have no game is the one who Lucia doesn’t actually want to pay her for sex. Despite the language barrier, which makes every conversation they have 5% more uncomfortable because of the translation, it seems like she and Albie actually like each other, even if she doesn’t appear to have decided if she should be hustling him or not. It was probably unusual for Lucia when she realized that he wanted to see her again without the expectations that she’s used to.

We also just learned that Lucia has a pimp named Alessio (I think we just learned this, right?) who is monitoring her earnings, which makes me wonder if her inability to get paid by Cam will put her in danger that Albie (and maybe Dom) will somehow end up involved in? Albie did say that he falls in love with wounded birds, and maybe he’ll be tempted to save Lucia from her situation. In the opening sequence, the dog from Albie’s credit is shown peeing on the statue in Cam/Theo James’s credit, so maybe this is where they intersect.

My Freudian hunch is that Albie’s attraction to “wounded birds” might be a subconscious instinct to try to save the types of women who he saw his father and grandfather mistreating. Regarding Bert and Dom’s relationships to women (as a monolith, like we are), I could’ve watched a full hour of their dinner conversation. If these were real people, it would possibly be the most honest and important conversation these two hypothetical men ever have. But it also felt like a conversation I’ve had in my own head about the extent to which you can blame your parents for your shortcomings, before your own refusal to take responsibility will wreak havoc on you anyway, not on the parent who’s arguably to blame. All this is to say that, in a show filled with unhappy people, I think Dom is probably the most unhappy.

It’s not like I was running around with hookers! …Dom, didn’t you run around with that *exact* hooker?

“Women aren’t all saints Albie, they’re just like us.” - a timely comment from Bert given the recent mini moral panics that Lucia and Mia were each having over whether all whores are punished or not. It also alludes to Albie’s simplistic view and posture towards the world, like for a kid who went to Stanford, you would think he could figure out a more savvy excuse to get money from the ATM.

Cam / Harper / Ethan / Daphne

So glad we got that condom confrontation with Ethan and Harper out of the way early. Ethan technically didn’t “lie” to Harper but he did do that classic move that people do to try to minimize wrongdoing by downplaying and omitting, but ultimately they come across worse than if they had just been truthful in the beginning, which would have been comparably less bad. “I was gone for one fucking night and you did molly with hookers?!” Worse Ethan, you did it and then tried to act like you didn’t.

The dinner scene after their day at the vineyards perfectly captured the energy of post-day drinking messiness where you’ll say absolutely anything. And we had a major series of red flags from Cameron last night:

• The conversation at the vineyard about “mimetic desire” and Ethan’s attempt at flipping the narrative that Cam had always pushed, which is that he was the higher “status” of the two, was intriguing and possibly what sparked Cam to go harder for Harper.

• “There wasn’t a lot of overlap, different dating pools.” - this was like a follow-up to last week when Daphne said that Harper doesn’t know anyone she knows.

• Cam toasts to “threesomes past present & future” and then gives Harper a look to see how she will react. (I don’t think she looks back at him.)

• Rubbing Harper’s leg during dinner!!!!! I’m less surprised that he would hit on Harper, more surprised that he would do it so openly with their spouses right there!!!! which makes me even more sure that his office lawsuits aren’t as baseless as he says.

• Leaving the hotel and not going to the ATM to get money for Lucia. I think we’re meant to assume that there’s no ATM at the hotel so Cam leaving and not going to one is sketchy and feels purposeful. Especially given two episodes ago when Daphne’s own trip to the ATM in Noto was such a distinct scene. Does Daphne control the purse strings with her own family’s money, or did she purposely clear the bank account on her ATM trip in Noto as part of her games? (The latter is assuming they don’t have as much money as they claim, which is a theory I believe.)

Speaking of the Noto night, the conversation between Daphne and Harper after dinner was sort of unclear to me. Is Daphne sleeping with her trainer and showed the photo of the kids because she didn’t want to show Harper the real trainer, or was she using the trainer as a metaphor for her kids, but was just referring to generally finding purpose outside an unfaithful husband? Or is it both. I think maybe both.

I still don’t really understand why it seems like Daphne wants Harper to cheat and for them to deal with infidelity. Is it just standard petty cattiness or is there a more sinister goal?

Valentina & the hotel

So we now know that the piano player is alive, and that Valentina may be more than just a tough boss. Moving Rocco to the beach club so she could replace him with a less attractive person at the desk with Isabella was a classic hostile work environment maneuver.

I also felt an alarm go off when Valentina was telling Rocco to go work at the beach club and the doorman was shown in the shot, which seemed purposely set up to highlight his presence at the time. Will his hearing that conversation become relevant later?

Mia using her new quid pro quo seduction strategy on Valentina (while wearing what looked like a thermal refugee blanket) was another piece of the episode’s theme around the value of sex. Valentina looked like she was going to cry and felt so seen by Mia recognizing she was gay, even if it was just in the context of exchanging sex so she could sing at the bar.

….And that is all I have for now. Can’t wait for next week and I wish there were more episodes. Comment your theories below so we can discuss!