Are these the kind of people we're going to be hanging out with now?

White Lotus, S2 — 4/5

I think the concept of White Lotus is a bit of a cheat. Yes, some characters cross over into other stories, but it's hard to call the stories "connecting." And if you don't want to call it connecting, then "thematic" is also even a loose term. "Money's effect on sexual relations." Yeah, sure. Maybe. What White Lotus smartly does is break up 4 (5?) different movies into an intercut TV show, and really, for it to be successful, only two of them need to be any good. And two out of the four are great! The Aubrey Plaza-led story is a wonderful story about paranoia and trust and new money and how individuals hold onto power within an equal relationship—and the impact of a little bit of a lie—that could have lived very well as its own stand-alone movie (that would have been one of my favorites of the year). Jennifer Coolidge and Haley Lu Richardson's story is one that shows how easily we allow ourselves to be kidnapped because, it's not that we're too trusting, it's that we're just too kind. We'd hate to offend our kidnappers by accusing them. It's not great enough to stand on its own, but there's value in it. I don't really care to talk about the other stories.