Creator Mike White extends The White Lotus franchise by setting the second season in another luxury five-star hotel, this time in Sicily. With exception of Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) and her new husband (Jon Gries), there’s a whole new set of characters jet-setting to holiday in the company of strangers. These other overprivileged vacationers include young rich couples Cameron (Theo James) and Daphne (Meghann Fahy) and Ethan (Will Sharpe) and his wife Harper (Aubrey Plaza).

F. Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli and Adam DiMarco comprise three generations of the Di Grassos who are in Italy to retrace their family heritage and heal some wounds. The choice of another island can be read as metaphor for a prison, no matter how glamorous and pampered the guests’ surroundings. Looking for a way out are local prostitutes Mia (Beatrice Grannò) and Lucia (Simona Tabasco). The recent vogue for ‘eating the rich’ was seen in White’s Season 1 of the HBO original series. Subsequent features including Knives Out: Glass Onion, The Menu and Triangle of Sadness (all set on boats and islands) all took pleasure in satirizing the casual prejudice and entitled behavior of the monied elite.

“One of the differences we emphasize, grounded in Mike’s writing, is that while many of our characters are superficially despicable we end up empathizing with them because we see their vulnerabilities and weaknesses,” says John Valerio, ACE, who won an Eddie earlier this year for “Arrivederci,” the Season 2 finale. “The characters are multi-dimensional and therefore relatable.”

Says Heather Persons, ACE, who also was Eddie nominated this year (for the “Abductions” episode), “The reason Jennifer Coolidge’s character is such a sensation is that she was clearly a rich bitch but you learn she carries this wound and that vulnerability helps the audience empathize with her. Mike is
always doing that in his writing, forcing you to look at the world differently, with more compassion, more nuance.” White writes and directs the seven 60-minute episodes with Persons and Valerio resuming editorial duties just as they did on Season 1. In fact, so valuable are the editors to the creation of
the show that they were given producer credits for the second season. “Our collaboration with Mike was so strong and we were all bringing so much in terms of style that they stepped our role in S2 to bring more of that through,” explains Valerio.

So embedded in the story, neither editor needed much of a briefing from White as to how to approach the new season.Valerio says, “I think people responded to the story style, the transitions, and with the location being a main character, that it was about maintaining that White Lotus brand if you will.”

Whereas filming in Hawaii for Season 1 was confined to the hotel due to COVID, the more relaxed shooting rules in early 2022 enabled White to expand the story to other locations including a vineyard, a yacht, Palermo, Rome and a country mansion once used as a location in The Godfather Part II and Part III (which is referenced by the characters in The White Lotus).

“In terms of editorial, particularly in Episode 1, our goal was to establish all these new characters in a whole new country at the same time as being consistent with the tone of the first season,” says Persons. “We didn’t have a conversation with Mike about it – it was just understood that this was the show we were making.”

A big aid for continuity was the score by composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer. In the first season the score had incorporated tropical and jungle elements whereas in Season 2 the sound is appropriately more orchestral and European using instruments including a harp.

“Mike was very clear at the start and before we heard Cristo’s score that he wanted something percussive, driving and hypnotic but we didn’t know what that would sound like,” Persons says. “He referenced the radio show by Joe Frank that I used to listen to from the 1980s. Frank was an experimental artist and part of his sound was to use looped and repetitive music and sounds.

“Tonally, the score helped us avoid sentimentality so as not to manipulate the audience into feeling a certain way. It’s very easy to let the music do a lot of signposting but here it is used to help the audience feel free to think about the story.” Both editors commend White for knowing what he wants – “He writes it, shoots it and gets it” – and they would also regroup scenes when it came to assembly. Persons says, “If we had a funny scene up against something more serious it was a little hard to make that quick adjustment so sometimes we would group more comedic things together before shifting to a different tone. The aim was to keep the tonal flow without being schizophrenic. The music helped in this regard.”

The main location is the Four Seasons San Domenico Hotel in Taormina, Sicily, a venue that as a result of exposure on the show is booked for years in advance and that both editors were fortunate enough to stay in during extended set visits. Valerio was juggling dailies with trips with the second unit to  and palm trees helpful for transitions and to establish a sense of place in the first season, they came armed to Sicily with an extensive shot list. This included sculptures and paintings in the hotel as well as landscapes, aerials and details of local town and countryside.

“I was getting up at 4 a.m. and either on set or out with the second unit director Frank Larson and also executive producer David Bernad to shoot material that we felt would be good bridges between scenes, after which I’d be cutting in my room,” he says. “I had to keep up on my dailies at the same time. The amount of hours and sleepless nights made the whole experience feel like a fever dream.”

That’s not unlike the experience of the characters in the show, not least for Tanya who it is finally revealed, is the body in the ocean that we see in the pre-credits to Episode 1. Persons also traveled around the island with the crew including to Palermo and, later, to Rome. “It was particularly helpful to understand the geography we were creating. The beaches we see as part of the hotel complex are not actually adjacent to the hotel but shot in another
part of the island.”

Persons cut Episodes 2, 4 and 6 – the penultimate episode “Abductions” which includes a scene where the Di Grassos go back to their ancestral home. This is a small house in a rural town where the owner doesn’t give them the welcome they expected. “My first stab at it was cutting for comedy because it was very funny, but ultimately Mike wanted it to be emotional and devastating for the characters. We basically slowed it down and made it more real-time to achieve that.”

The episode also brings a number of storylines to their head including with Tanya trapped but not yet against her will on the yacht and with her assistant Portia realizing that she has been in effect kidnapped by her friend Jack. She says of the season, “This was kind of like a feature where you make sure we’re tying everything off in a satisfying way.

I was on the boat when they were filming the death of Tanya and I recall that as being technically challenging. How do we stage it so it doesn’t feel like a dummy falling overboard and how do we avoid overcutting this?” Editorial for the season, just as on The White Lotus Season 1, was in Hawaii not far from White’s home. The editors and their assistants had rented units in a resort to finish cutting the picture.

It’s not a stretch to say that some of that paradise isle rubbed off on the team creatively. Says Valerio, “We were very fortunate to work in that environment and to literally step out and see mountains and waterfalls and the ocean each day. It was very conducive to the vibe and creative energy.”