‘The White Lotus’ Season 2 Premiere Showers Us With Penises Galore

Our prayers have been answered: The White Lotus has finally returned to HBO. No more dragons and no more incest (we hope)—instead, we’ve got snotty rich couples and farting grandpas. Yes, one of TV’s finest shows is back and grosser than ever. Get ready for male genitalia galore!

But before we get into the many dicks—double entendre—of The White Lotus Season 2 (Euphoria, you’ve been challenged), let’s set the scene. We’re in Sicily now, still at The White Lotus resort chain, but with a whole new crew of characters. In the very first scene, we meet a very chipper Daphne (Meghann Fahy) on her last day at the resort. During her last dive into the bright Mediterranean waters, she swims into a dead body. Ah!

As opposed to in the first season, though, we know the body is not that of our main hotel concierge (RIP Armond). Instead, we meet manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) soon after the body is found. Her ditsy assistant Rocco (Federico Ferrante) approaches her near the beach: Multiple guests have died. Though the ocean isn’t hotel property, there’s something fishy afoot at The White Lotus yet again.

Then, we’re sent back to the beginning of the week, meeting the new guests of The White Lotus as they ride the boat to shore. As always, creator/director/writer Mike White does a fantastic job of introducing us to the bunch. That includes the return of Season 1 vacationer Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge).She’s back with her bevy of bags and a new assistant, frazzled twentysomething Portia (Haley Lu Richardson).

They’re joined by an Italian-American boys’ trip, including flirty and farty grandpa Bert Di Grasso (F. Murray Abraham), cheating dad Dominic (Michael Imperioli), and nice son Albie (Will DiMarco). Finally, the real doozy: There’s a double-date couples’ trip here too, with cynical Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan (Will Sharpe) Spiller joining Ethan’s college friend Cameron (Theo James) and his wife Daphne. Daphne, you may remember, is the one who finds the dead body.

Quite the set-up! And that’s not all. Though they’re not technically guests, a sex worker and her curious best friend prance around the outskirts of the hotel, hungry to seduce the American tourists. Lucia (Simona Tabasco) already has a customer, and Mia (Beatrice Grannò) shows interest in getting involved in the biz. But Valentina doesn’t want them around.

“They’re fast sluts!” she shouts, after they sprint around the hotel, hiding from the staff. Put that in the hall of fame White Lotus quotes, right next to Sydney Sweeney’s “Maybe grandpa was a power bottom, does that make you feel better?” from Season 1.

Enough set-up talk, though—it’s time to get into the genitalia of it all. We’ll start with Theo James, who, yes, shows peen in The White Lotus Season 2. His character’s last name is Babcock. We should’ve seen this one coming.

Cameron’s suitcase is lost in Rome, so he’s left without a swimsuit as he arrives in Sicily. As any good pal might, Ethan offers to lend him a pair of trunks while Cameron waits for his belongings to make their way to the island. Cameron and Harper head up to the bedroom to grab Ethan’s swimsuit and some more sunscreen for the table—but instead of changing in the bathroom like a normal person, the dolt shreds his pants RIGHT IN FRONT OF HARPER. Talk about weird, bro.

And, yes, we see his schlong swinging between his legs as he pulls up his pants. In honor of this massively memorable White Lotus debut, I spoke with some of my colleagues at The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, who were just as shocked as I was upon seeing it.

“My gasp when it swung between his legs…” said senior entertainment editor Kevin Fallon.

Entertainment critic Coleman Spilde’s take: “What we need to know is if it’s a prosthetic. People are asking questions all around the town square.”

My take: What a year for Theo James. Not only did he bare all for The White Lotus, but he also gave himself fellatio in The Time Traveler’s Wife. Yes, folks, his younger self shoves his own mouth down to his own crotch and—you know the rest! The whole bit is that his character travels back in time to do goofy stuff, experimenting sexually, yadda yadda. This man is down to clown, and that’s dedication to acting, baby.

Oh, what’s that? Not enough genitalia for you? Don’t worry, there’s more! While at a fancy hotel dinner, the Di Grasso boys trip talk about their three generations of penises. Albie is curious about his nonno’s ability to get, um, erections, for some reason. Bert’s not afraid to boast about the fact that, yes, he still does, and he even jerks off daily. Hey, a jerk off a day keeps the doctor away, right?

Albie is disgusted. “It seems like the body would naturally stop getting horny once you’re past the age of procreation,” he argues. “It seems undignified. No girl should have to be exposed to an old guy’s junk.”

“It’s not like it was ever so beautiful to look at anyway,” Bert fires back. “I mean, it’s a penis! It’s not a sunset.”

Exactly. Yet another quote we’ll file under the best White Lotus sayings of all time.

And now, we present:

The Five Guests Most Likely to Die

We’re placing bets on who will die this season on The White Lotus. After this episode, here’s our top five picks of folks who may become corpses in just a few episodes.

1. Dominic Di Grasso: A hotel worker tells him a story about a woman who kills her lover when she finds out he has a wife. Dominic is actively cheating on his wife, who’s back home in Los Angeles and screams at him over the phone. If Lucia doesn’t kill him first, Dominic’s wife will hop on a flight to Sicily to come murder him herself.
2. Cameron Babcock: Daphne is alone on the beach in the beginning of the episode. Where is her husband? Plus, he’s so weird, he just deserves to die.
3. Nonno Bert Di Grasso: Poor gramps takes a bad fall in the beginning of the episode, leading to the meet cute of Albie and Portia, who hit it off. Since there are multiple deaths at The White Lotus Sicily, one of them could be the senior member of the boys’ trip. It just makes sense. Sorry, pops!
4. Greg (Jon Gries): Tanya’s former boyfriend, now husband, returns for Season 2, but something’s up with him. He’s making a lot of phone calls, he won’t respond to Tanya’s texts, and he’s fat-shaming his poor wife! Tanya, kill his ass!
5. Harper Spiller: Daphne mentions loving Dateline and all the men who kill their wives, a possible hint at something ominous in the future. Since Daphne’s alive in the end, I’ll place my final bet on Harper. Ethan’s already getting tired of her.