Warning: This post contains spoilers for The White Lotus.
“White Lotus” knows how to get people talking, and the last few minutes of Episode Five of the final season certainly did just that.
After Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) and her assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) are whisked away from their Sicilian hotel on a day trip to Palermo with Quentin (Tom Hollander) and their nephew Jack (Leo Woodall), Tanya hears some mysterious noises. at night in the palazzo.
As she walks down the hall and follows the voice down the hall, she sees Jack having sex with his uncle Quentin (or whoever it is). he says his uncle is Quentin).
In Season One Episode Five, when hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) is caught red-handed with his employee Dillon (Lucas Gage), the sex scene in Season Two just might be. on shock value.
The creator and stars of “White Lotus” on stage
The White Lotus creator Mike White told Variety that the scene was an “echo” of the moment in Season 1, noting that both scenes featured a character having gay sex behind closed doors, and both from the finale. takes place two episodes ago. .
“For me, as a gay guy, I enjoy making gay sex transgressive again,” White told Variety. “It’s dirty… men having sex and you have Psycho playing underneath. It amuses me.
“I just think transgressive sex is sexier,” she said. “I think I’m old school. There’s a gothic vibe to it, like walking around a haunted hotel or a haunted house and people having sex behind closed doors.”
Woodall told Variety that he was unaware of the scene until he accepted the role, as he was not sent the script until several weeks after he accepted the role.
“When I heard about the scene, I was speechless for a while,” Woodall said. “I’m a huge fan of Tom and when I heard he was going to play my uncle, I thought, ‘This is unreal.’ And then when I knew I was going to beat him too – it was kind of surreal.”
“Everything Mike White has done with this show is kind of perfect, so there were no reservations about it,” he said. “It felt like an incredibly ‘wow’ moment.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Richardson said that after Episode Five ends, the final two episodes are “going to be crazier, believe it or not.”
“Yeah, it’s a slow burn kicked into high gear,” Adam DiMarco, who plays Albie DiGrasso, told Entertainment Weekly. “Mike (White) is great at making these slow burns, and at a certain point it just explodes, and we’re at that point now. It’s just explosions everywhere, fireworks factory explosions.”
Theories about what really happened between Quentin and Jack
But what could the sex scene between the uncle and the nephew mean for the direction of the show? The internet is already abuzz with theories.
This could be another incest case on the HBO show
Maybe this scene is what it seems on the surface: Jack and Quentin are related and having sex. HBO doesn’t shy away from incest (we’re looking at you, Game of Thrones and Dragon House).
But with two episodes left, there’s plenty of room for more twists. Plus, White told Variety when asked if the two are actually related, “Well, you’ll have to see.”
Or, Jack and Quentin are not related
If they are not related, then how do Jack and Quentin know each other? Redditors have theories ranging from Jack being the sex worker Quentin hired to join him on the trip to Jack plotting to kill Tanya.
Something Fishy Could Be : Early in Episode Five, Jack takes Portia out to dinner as part of his newfound whirlwind romance. Instead of paying, Jack grabbed her hand and ordered her to run away without telling her why, leading the pair to dine and run.
Reddit users pointed out that a filthy rich European must have money for his nephew’s dinner, highlighting the disconnect between Quentin and Jack.
Maybe it all goes back to Quentin’s “American Cowboy.”
TikTokers also picked up on the possible relationship between Quentin and Tanya’s husband Greg (Jon Gries). After attending an Italian opera performance, Quentin reveals he’s only been in love once: he met a straight-talking cowboy in Wyoming.
“I would do anything for her,” Quentin told Tanya. “And the weird thing is, 30 odd years later, I still would.”
TikTokers believe the cowboy could be Greg, who returned to Denver for two days in the middle of a vacation he supposedly wanted to continue despite Tanya’s pleas.
Users recalled how Greg brought up Tanya’s prenuptial agreement and the mysterious phone calls she made in the middle of the night before she left for work as reasons for her going to Denver for work. Plus, the impeccable timing of Quentin befriending Tanya as soon as Greg leaves the hotel.
Some on social media speculated that Quentin was part of a plan to get Greg and Tanya’s money, either through murder or by framing her death as a suicide. Users noted that Quentin took Tanya to see the opera “Madama Butterfly” where the main character committed suicide.
Redditors have often associated Jack’s role with stealing Portia away from Tanya whenever he can, so he can’t be as close as he normally would be while serving as Tanya’s sidekick.
However, as revealed in the show’s first episode, many people were found dead in Sicily by the end of the week – could it be Portia and Tanya? Or are some of the other guests involved?
Things aren’t looking so good for Ethan, Harper, Cameron and Daphne either. What’s more, the love triangle between Albie, his father Dom (Michael Imperioli) and local sex worker Lucia (Simona Tabasco) escalates—all while Testa di Moro statues stand around the hotel, watching as we do.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com