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Everybody light your cigarettes and straddle your Vespas: In The White Lotus’ second episode, “Italian Dream,†our guests are getting into their vacation groove. But even as some of these crazy kids are fulfilling their fantasies — Monica Vitti cosplay; closed-mouth kissing in the hotel hallway — at least one of them is one day closer to dying in paradise and/or being forever changed by taking the life of another. But who will it be, and by whose hand? Let the wild and mostly baseless predictions continue!
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Cameron
The deck is being stacked for us to believe that Cameron is a murder-y guy, from what Daphne describes as his tendency to “just go crazy†at the end of his long fuse (combined with their insistence that they “never fight,†which suggests somebody is repressing a lot of anger) to Cameron’s lament about his lost luggage (“Incompetence makes me homicidalâ€) to the way he grabs Harper’s ankle while they’re swimming and delights in how terrified she is. All of which to say: I think these are red herrings and Cameron will reveal himself to have a squeamish little soul and would never kill another.
Will he kill? It’s too obvious. I say not likely.
Will he be killed? Maybe I’m putting too much weight on Daphne’s behavior from the premiere, but I feel like if he died she would’ve had a very different energy there! He lives to search for his luggage another day.
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Daphne
I know she is “bad†(doesn’t vote, etc.), but … I love her? When she says that when she gets drunk she wakes up and realizes she’s spent a ton of money! But on, like, animal and little kid charities! (Sure!) I honestly feel like she would be an ideal vacation companion.
Will she kill? I’m not ruling it out, but probably not.
Will she be killed? As we know from the very start, she’s not getting killed on this trip.
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Tanya
Tanya has death on the brain from the get — “This is such a beautiful view. I wonder if anyone’s ever jumped from here†— and now that she’s found out that her husband (1) resents her and barely even likes her and (2) has been lying to her for who knows how long while he (3) carries on an affair with someone to whom he says “I love you†and for whom he will leave his Sicilian vacation, the one he insisted on taking, to go home and canoodle with her … let’s just say if she took him for a Vespa ride and came back alone, I wouldn’t be too scandalized.
Will she kill? It’s feeling more and more like she absolutely could be a killer.
Will she be killed? I maintain that Tanya will outlast us all. She’s a survivor.
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Greg
The way he sets up realizing Tanya’s perfect dreamy day like he’s fulfilling some Make-a-Wish request is so gross. Stop patronizing your wife who wants only to be “really chic and happy.†Don’t get mad that the very wealthy woman you married, rather late in life, made you sign a prenup. It was the rational thing to do! I know we’re not supposed to like him. Well, it’s working. I don’t!
Will he kill? He’s getting on a plane tomorrow, so he probably doesn’t have the time.
Will he be killed? It’s rude to say this but I would not be mad if he got murdered.
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Harper
Harper wakes up with murder in her eyes. (Look, I would feel the same way if I were married to an early riser who got in a run every morning while I was still fast asleep.) Then she can’t even have breakfast alone because she gets spotted by the Sullivans, who wave her over to join their table. I don’t know about you all, but if I were in a similar travel arrangement, I would need much healthier boundaries and significantly more personal space. She still does plenty of off-putting stuff — self-identifying as “not materialistic†while on a luxury vacation tops my list — but still, if Harper winds up killing Cameron, I am not going to hold it against her. As the famous TikTok audio goes: I support women’s rights, but more importantly, I support women’s wrongs.
Will she kill? This woman is being DRIVEN to murder from all sides! Yeah, I could see it.
Will she be killed? I feel like the same forces putting her in play to do a little homicide could also put her in danger of being killed herself … It’s all very high stakes. A real possibility.Â
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Bert
Nonno cannot believe his dumb-dumb son got caught flagrantly cheating on his wife, thereby ruining Grandpa’s fantasy family vacation where his granddaughter and his daughter-in-law would get to witness his rampant, unrepentant old-man creepery toward all of the White Lotus’ comely female employees. I love that he’s like, I literally could have burned my house down and my wife would never have missed a family trip to Sicily. Simpler times. Also he uses the word rape a LOT in a very short amount of time in front of a young woman he barely knows, which is … a choice! Anyway, if he didn’t want to listen to his son succumb to sex addiction, they should’ve gotten rooms across the hall from each other instead of side by side. For someone who did a lot of infidelity in his day, you’d think he’d have a better handle on the logistics.
Will he kill? Again, I don’t have a lot to go on here except that he’s sad that this isn’t a boys’ trip and he believes all of his actions to be above reproach. He absolutely could be a killer.
Will he be killed? I just feel like men like this have a way of living forever. Probably not.
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Dominic
As we suspected, Dominic cheated on his wife of 25 years, enough times and with such insufficient discretion, that she had no choice but to give him the boot. When we see him quite brazenly send his family (and Portia) on ahead so he can coordinate with his “girlfriend†for the week in broad daylight, are we no longer surprised that he got busted by his wife? His late-onset conscience evaporates the second Lucia tells him she’s brought Mia along to “say thank you.â€
Will he kill? He seems like a desperate guy, and desperation has made many a murderer. Could be!
Will he be killed? I actually think this is equally as likely an outcome. Fifty-fifty.
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Ethan
The fact that he’s so committed to his fitness regimen, on vacation, to the point of exhausting himself too much to have sex with his wife in the evenings: psycho-killer shit. He and Harper have a habit of pointing out each other’s “personality quirks†just so they can criticize each other and pretend they’re being constructive. This makes me hate them both, and I amend my earlier statement re: his inability to kill anybody. When he just decides, at dinner, to spew the details of their sex life to this couple that his wife obviously isn’t vibing with, I decide that I would not be sad to see him go either.
Will he kill? This could go either way for me, but I’m going to guess he has some killer potential.
Will he be killed? For some reason I feel like he’ll make it out alive, but of course that assessment is subject to change.
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Portia
I’m glad she found her way into the Di Grasso family vacation. Her little PG-13 flirtation with Albie is very sweet, if not the most thrilling rendezvous of the series. I wish she didn’t keep wearing weird doll clothes and/or sweatshirts with dopey sayings on them. But I hope she can find a caveman who is ignorant of the discourse to love her as she is.
Will she kill? This is seeming less and less likely. Probably not.
Will she be killed? Also doesn’t seem like the direction we’re headed here.
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Albie
I’m not in this show for the realism, but I find Albie’s ability to articulate not only that he is the family “peacemaker†but also that his type is “pretty, wounded birds†extremely hard to believe. He has the sort of thankless task of being the straight man to his dad’s and grandpa’s wild cards, but maybe that’s to lull us all into a false sense of security for later when he commits multiple homicides?
Will he kill? So far he just does not strike me as the killing kind. Doubtful.
Will he be killed? Too sad! Nope.
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Valentina
It’s genuinely amazing that this aggressively inhospitable person has chosen this line of work and ascended to her role here at such a swanky establishment. Her aversion to Mia and Lucia sort of makes sense, though also from a business perspective … does it really? And her attempted obstruction of Tanya’s Vespa rental also seems weird to me. She should be taking notes on Tanya’s A+ itinerary and start marketing it to other guests as the Monica Vitti experience!
Will she kill? I feel like she WANTS to kill everyone, but dead bodies on the property are bad for business, so probably not.
Will she be killed? As we’ve seen, she lives to defend her hotel against allegations of wrongful death. No way.
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Lucia and Mia
Living their best lives, these two! I was so nervous when Mia went to drunkenly play the piano, like oh no what if she’s terrible and then the real death is MINE, from secondhand embarrassment?! But her playing and her voice are just lovely. (Also, “The Best Things in Life Are Free†is a very funny song choice, considering the crowd.)
Will they kill? So far, they seem perfectly content to run up a ridiculous tab on Dominic’s credit card. Why would they want the trouble of covering up a murder? Nah.
Will they be killed? I maintain that killing off the young female sex workers would be tacky and gross. I hope not.
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Rocco
He’s Valentina’s lackey, and I left him off the list last time, but now that he’s been referred to by name twice, I wonder if his role will get a little bigger and he will lash out in a murderous rage at his micromanaging boss.
Will he kill? He needs to have more lines first, but maybe!
Will he be killed? Since we saw him frantically dealing with the corpse from the sea in the present-day timeline, we know he survives.