A gruesomely satisfying end for the sun-drenched sinners
Whip away the fancy duvet and complimentary chocolates, and the core message of Mike White’s luxury thriller anthology The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic) is perfectly straightforward: people are horrible. But in the hilarious, devastating and thrilling finale to series two, White spun this dark yet simple lesson into a carnival of horror – the awfulness magnified by the fact that the tragedy and the comedy were intertwined under the oppressive gorgeousness of Sicily in high tourist season.
The White Lotus 2.0 has revolved around two talking points. The first had to do with tonal shifts from season one (largely flowing from the absence of a performance as volcanic as Murray Bartlett as hotel manager Armand). Relocating from Hawaii to Sicily and with an all-new cast – with one significant exception – the mood was less frenzied, but also more withering. The other inflexion point arrived as White achieved something regarded as impossible in 2022 – by shocking us with an explicit sex scene.
Morally questionable sex was again to the fore in the finale. Or was at least hinted at as emotionally impotent nerd Ethan (Will Sharpe) drove himself into a neurotic frenzy over his suspicion that wife Harper (Aubrey Plaza) had been unfaithful with Ethan’s toxic frenemy, Cameron (Theo James).
And so Ethan confronted Cameron’s wife, Daphne (Meghann Fahy), who was unmasked, in the final hour, to be the oldest soul on the island. Her glib, glamorous veneer folding away, she explained, “you don’t have to know everything to love someone.” The insinuation was that, in love as in life, it’s better to pretend. How bleak.
The White Lotus elsewhere continued to walk a line between serious and slapstick. White’s ability to write scenes that are simultaneously unspeakable and frothy remained remarkable as he got to the spoilery climax of the instalment. Quentin (Tom Hollander) and his pals were revealed to literally be the gay mafia. Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge, the returnee from 2021) went Rambo and shot the lot – only to then slip and fatally crack her head alighting from their yacht.
Violent, then fun and ultimately traumatising: The White Lotus in a bespoke nutshell. It also brought the season full circle. The body Daphne had paddled into in episode one was Tanya’s washing to shore. Daphne screamed – but a few scenes later was in the departure lounge laughing with Cameron. Screaming, then laughing, goes to the heart of The White Lotus and White’s writing. This is a relationship horror show dressed up as a sun-glazed thriller and all the scarier for it. Ed Power
There are too many true-crime reconstructions on television – they can be horribly prurient, the equivalent of those cheap supermarket magazines that offer tales of grisly murder alongside diet tips and celebrity bikini pictures. But Channel 4’s The Disappearance of April Jones is a documentary series so compelling that I couldn’t tear myself away.
The style is one pioneered by Netflix: packaged like a drama. It takes time to build up a picture of Machynlleth in Wales, where five-year-old April was abducted in October 2012. The town is central to the story, because it is so close-knit that April’s disappearance was felt by everyone. When a local man, Mark Bridger, was charged with April’s murder, many people refused to believe it. As one resident put it: “If you can’t be safe here, where on earth could you be safe as a youngster?”
The sense of place is very strong. One resident says the town attracts “hippie types” drawn by its natural beauty. On the night that April was abducted, there was torrential rain and a darkness descended. “It’s hard to find words to describe how strange, surreal and dark that energy was,” someone recalled. “The evil of it was just unbearable.”
Documentaries such as this only feel right if they have the blessing of the victim’s family. Here, April’s mother and sister appear throughout; her mother describing how she clung to the belief that April would make her way home. Also featured are the detectives, and who were honoured by for their outstanding work. We learn exactly how they put the case together, from the first call about April’s disappearance to their identification of the suspect.
A couple of journalists recall reporting on the case; neither cover themselves in glory, speaking in terms of competing for scoops rather than caring about the fate of a child. The media’s presence in Machynlleth was at first helpful, then intrusive.
The film-makers only overstep the mark when they ask each contributor in turn how they think April met her death. All except April’s mother refuse to answer, saying it is too awful to contemplate. Anita Singh
The White Lotus ★★★★★
The Disappearance of April Jones ★★★★