RastaVari

OK... cmon guys, it was bad the first time round in Girls (hyped to hell and a really dull, offensively vacuous show) but that this horrifying, talentless, ugly inside-n-out, self publicising, emperor's new clothes-athon had somehow managed to con some good actors, less-good but connected actors, producers, distributers and critics into enabling her creepy fantasy so she could get naked with people she fancied and pretend they wouldn't run screaming for the hills after 3 and a half minutes of her droning on about herself IRL.... but how the eff has she managed to basically do the same thing all over again. Is it NLP? Does she hold kompromat on these folk? Is she some kinda female weinsteinian-woody-alleny anomoly? Whatever it is, get this nonsense out of our country and take it back to the hellhole of 'merica, whereit belongs.

So it looks great, the actors look great, the music is pretty fun and its obviously expensive but its basically pretty boring and predictable with the occasional laugh usually from Coolidge.

Its been pitched as a satire, I suppose a crtique of rich, white, privileged yanks (and believe me they are even more irritating as tourists than shown here), so when the only native/local 'speaking' character in the first series is a criminal, has maybe ten lines and to say his character was one dimensional is generous and otherwise the indigenous people are treated entirely as objectified props I thought, hum, maybe this is a bit of the medium is the message... you know part of the satire.... I mean the hotel although staff by all shades of 'merican including indigenous but we only get to know some whites, one black and one Australian FFS, so its gotta be a comment on the culture, right, the commodification of cultures and people for touristic consumption or some shiz.

This theory is blown out of the water as minutes into series two the natives, being white, are speaking their own language and we're meeting staff from the hotel as well as freelance workers and ordinary residents from outside the White Lotus.

This unnerving aspect of the shows frankly makes me feel as if the parodic elements of the show don't exist and calling it a satire is just a way of getting away with problematic narrative in an entirely unthinking, old fashioned and boring way.

Why, no really why, if you've made and starred in two 'movies' with the same premise (which I haven't seen soooo soz, but asummed this might be interesting coming to it fresh) would you bother doing this?

I mean you'd think at the very least the acting/improvisation would be passable but the lead, who wrote and produced this, is unconvincing at all levels. Even the part where he's describing what a great naturalistic actor he is, its 'sleight of hand' I assume is suppose to be menacing, unnerving, kinda funny, revelatory is embarrassinly clunky and cliche - I mean dude cmon... its gotta work or.... I can't imagine this shiz sells so the only explanation is he's just doing this to get out of the house and away from the fam (oh and maybe some tax breaks on locations etc.,) One star for having a go, and another for the co-star's convincing frustration and annoyance (even though it could well be life imitating art)

Advice - really don't bother - this is to the viewer and TBH to the makers too.