HOLLYWOOD—This is a limited series I got entangled into recently after hearing so much buzz about the first season. I’m referring to the HBO hit “The White Lotus.” Let me be clear I still have not watched the first season, but jeez, season two has been a guilty pleasure for me as each episode peeled another piece of the onion that just keeps you glued. Writer Mike White, who is also behind the first season and for those who don’t know competed on season 37 of “Survivor: David vs. Goliath,” one of the best modern seasons of the reality series in years, does a fantastic job at crafting these characters and engrossing the audience in the narrative.

I mean you have an eclectic cast of characters with outstanding performances by Adam DiMarco, Haley Lu Richardson, Jennifer Coolidge, Aubrey Plaza, Will Sharpe, Theo James, F. Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli, and Meghann Fahey that just mesh so well.

This time around things transpire in Sicily, Italy and it revolves at its core around two couples, former college roommates, Ethan and Cameron who reunite after years apart. Ethan has hit it big with his business, while Cameron and his wife, Daphne, who are a bit phony, full of themselves and paint a marriage that is perfect that has a ton of cracks with Cameron cheating on his wife more often than she is willing to admit. However, Ethan and his wife Harper, have issues in their marriage as he utilizes porn to satisfy his sexual desire which frustrates his wife.

As the season progresses, that tension between the college buddies reached a boiling point with Ethan, slowly spiraling at the aspect of his wife, Harper cheating on him with Ethan. Harper confessed all they did was kiss, but Ethan did not buy that, and it was hinted in the season finale that Ethan cheated on Harper with Daphne during that walk, even though the audience didn’t get to see it.

Ethan and Cameron came to blows in an epic fight in the waters that gave the audience the impression at one point that either Ethan or Cameron could be the body in the water that was teased at the beginning of the season. NOTE: Neither ended up losing their life in the long run people. A big aha moment came a few episodes back when Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), whose character I was slightly annoyed by at the start of the season, but I later began to champion as the season progressed, discovered that her new potential pal, Quentin (Tom Hollander), was up to no good.

How so? Jack (Leo Woodall), who was coined as Quentin’s nephew was actually sleeping with him. Tanya kept that secret from her assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), who fell hard for Jack, after tossing good-hearted Albie (Adam DiMarco) to the curb. Portia started to connect the dots realizing that something was off after a drunken Jack spilled his grievances to her and her phone suddenly vanished the following morning.

As a viewer, you were screaming to the TV for Portia to get out NOW, but she dragged her feet a bit, until she called Tanya and alerted her what was going on and the dots were connected. Tanya realized her hubby Greg was plotting her murder and used his old pal Quentin to pull off the gig, but Tanya fought back killing her assailants, but in a twist I did not see, she tried to escape only to die after tripping on her stiletto, and striking her head on the boat, killing her. Yeah, Tanya Quaid is dead people, and it was a death I did not expect. I thought leading up to the finale anyone was culpable of dying except Tanya. I was honestly suspecting either Harper or Cameron being the body in the water that Daphne spotted. I mean Harper considered jumping into the water after thinking Ethan cheated on her when it was Cameron who slept with that prostitute.

Yeah those ladies, Mia and Lucia are really good at what they do, I mean sleeping with Dominic (Michael Imperiol) and his son Albie, that is just crazy and Lucia played Albie like a fiddle to get what he wanted. He was just too smart to realize what his father was saying was accurate. This woman is playing on your sympathy, which Albie discovered as the season culminated America. Our characters who survived, find themselves heading home, but all is not as it appears, but it seems Ethan’s tryst with Daphne might have given him that spark in his marriage to Harper people. Albie and Portia, could possibly reconnect, which I hope, because they’re cute together.

While “The White Lotus” has come to an end, the good news is that the show has been renewed for a third season and I can only imagine what chaos writer Mike White has in store for fans. It was a fantastic end to a stellar season that continued to get better with each episode.