Americans Behaving Badly The White Lotus brings a new cast of characters who can’t stand one another to Sicily.
two american women sit in a limestone piazza exchanging barbed pleasantries: the newly rich Harper, affecting European glamour with a teal scarf and an arched eyebrow, and the comfortably moneyed Daphne, wearing a cropped blue-and-white Prada two-piece. Harper reclines defensively across from her companion, who is scoping her out like a lioness with a glinting smile. Harper has a job. Daphne does not. The women seem to resent each other in the subtle ways of people who insist they should be friends. They are on a day trip in Noto, a town famous for its Baroque architecture and described as “Sicily’s hidden gem” in 2016 by Condé Nast Traveler, something both of them would have read—Harper probably while telling herself she was doing it ironically. Bells ring in the background. Children wander across the square. The caffè down the street sells Italy’s