The White Lotus (prod. Mike White).

Season two of HBO’s anthology series, set at a different branch of the fictional “White Lotus” luxury hotel resort chain around the world, focuses on several Americans vacationing on the Sicilian Coast. While the corrupting influence of wealth and class conflict is still paramount to White’s salacious embodiment of satirical melodrama, the transactional nature of sex and its ensuing murky politics is at the forefront of the on-screen relationships this time around.

There’s a casually slow build to the various characters’ eccentricities and motivations where the intermingling of their base desires coalesce into boiling point of intrigue. There’s a looming darkness teased endlessly at the edges of each comedic episode. It’s another entertaining but twisted season of sun-kissed vacation drama.