As it did in its inaugural go-round on HBO, Season 2 of The White Lotus begins with a corpse — or, in a bit of a twist, corpses. Strawberry-blonde beachgoer Daphne wades into the water off the coast of Sicily and bumps into a dead body, although it’s not clear who has perished. We then learn from resort employees Rocco, Valentina, and Salvatore (offscreen) that multiple guests have died, and the local authorities begin dragging the deceased out of the water.
The White Lotus’ second season features seven hour-long episodes, with the finale set to air this Sunday. Showrunner Mike White (not the Jets’ quarterback) has done a deft job keeping his cards close to his chest while regaling his audience with a healthy amount of lush Italian scenery and full frontal nudity on one of television’s randiest shows. That said, some favorites and intriguing longshots have emerged for those attempting to forecast who will die on Sunday evening, and US Bets has taken this opportunity to assign hypothetical sports betting odds on who will perish. (Spoilers abound.)
Daphne, Rocco, Salvatore, and Valentina: Off the board. We know from the first scene of the season premiere that this quartet is still alive, but the fact that none of Daphne’s three travel companions are hanging at the beach club with her on the last day of their trip is a tad ominous.
Isabella: 200/1. In the sixth episode of Season 2, we find out that Isabella, a pretty front desk clerk with whom Valentina is infatuated, is engaged to marry her co-worker, Rocco, who was banished to the beach club after flirting too much with the object of his manager’s affection. Valentina initially appears devastated by this news, but then gets tipsy in the hotel bar and hooks up with Mia, a pseudo-escort and lounge singer who swings both ways in the sack. Had this tryst not happened, Isabella’s odds would be halved, and the fact that the deceased are initially referred to as “guests” could keep her alive as well.
Bert: 100/1. While F. Murray Abraham’s aging cad might well die of old age in the season finale, it would be surprising to see him wash up on the beach. But his proximity to son Dominic and grandson Albie, who may have to grapple with a violent pimp in the finale, makes Bert a candidate for collateral damage.
Lucia: 50/1. Mia’s friend and a full-time escort has slept with both Dominic and Albie on the trip and has managed to seduce the latter into thinking he’s her boyfriend. At the end of Episode 6, Lucia shows up at Albie’s door and tells him that it will require a lot of money to get her pimp, Alessio, to back off. This portends all kinds of trouble for everyone involved, but Lucia simply doesn’t seem like the likeliest character to get whacked.
Dominic: 25/1. Watching Michael Imperioli and F. Murray Abraham play off each other has been one of this season’s comedic delights, and Imperioli’s Dominic seems like a live longshot to be among the deceased. He is likely to aid his son, Albie, in confronting Lucia’s pimp, and there was a sad scene earlier in the season in which Dominic was seen wandering the beach in a depressed state, envious of all the happy couples after he’d managed to sabotage his own marriage. He may be willing to take a bullet to save his son — or even Lucia — is what we’re saying.
Portia and Jack: 15/1. The only reason the odds on these ill-matched young lovers are so low is they’re likely to be on Quentin’s yacht for a return trip from Palermo, and all the crashing wave imagery White has employed throughout the season makes it seem fairly likely that what the sea giveth, it can taketh away.
Albie: 10/1. This poor little rich kid is in way over his head with Lucia and all that surrounds her. He could easily meet his end in a back alley confrontation with Alessio — or he could squire Lucia back to California and live happily ever after. The odds are roughly the same on either scenario.
Harper: 10/1. Of all the actors in this season’s cast, Aubrey Plaza seems likeliest to bring home a bunch of award-season hardware for her turn as Harper, who may or may not be schtupping her husband Ethan’s longtime frenemy, Cameron. If you want to call this a love triangle, she seems the least likely of the three to meet a watery fate.
Ethan: 6/1. After Harper found a used condom wrapper in her room after a night spent at a different Italian locale with Daphne, she suspected Ethan of cheating on her. That turned out not to be the case, but he’s worked himself into a paranoid lather after Cameron, an insatiable womanizer who was actually the one who philandered, accompanied his wife to fetch a hat and a book from their adjoining rooms. If we were offering odds on someone actually murdering someone else, Ethan would be toward the top of the list, but something tells us that if just one of this trio is going home in a coffin, it’s going to be Cameron.
Tanya and Quentin: 4/1. While sexually incompatible as a straight woman and gay man, Jennifer Coolidge and Tom Hollander’s characters have nevertheless been engaged in the most dramatic love story of the season — one that seems destined to end horribly. From the Madame Butterfly foreshadowing to the mysterious photo of what looks to be Quentin and Tanya’s estranged husband, Greg, in their younger days, this plot line has really reached a cocaine-fueled hilt, especially with the revelation, revealed by a drunken Jack, that his “Uncle” Quentin is cash poor and palace rich. Could Quentin and Greg be secretly working together to blackmail Tanya out of much of her fortune? Very possibly. And if so, could something go tragically awry on the yacht trip back to the resort? Most certainly.
Cameron: 2/1. While in Italy, Theo James’ playboy financier has engaged in a three-way with a pair of call girls, stiffed them out of half of what he owed them, and blatantly hit on (if not fornicated with) his college buddy Ethan’s wife. Cameron’s own spouse, Daphne, is well aware that he messes around behind her back, and she drops strong hints that she does the same. At least twice in the “next time on” scenes, Cameron has been shown wrestling in open water with a foe. That foe is likely either Alessio or Ethan, the latter of whom is shown punching Cameron in the water in the preview of the finale. Cameron’s Season 1 equivalent was the insufferably pompous Shane Patton, who wound up going unpunished for killing the manager of the Hawaii White Lotus. And while maybe it’s too obvious to wind up being the case, stopping Cameron’s pulse would be a justifiable course correction this time around.
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