This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross.

The HBO comedy drama series The White Lotus, one of the TV hits of the pandemic,

is wrapping up its second season with one episode remaining.

The first season was nominated for 20 Emmys and 1, 10, including Best Limited or Anthology series.

It won our guest Mike White, its creator, Emmys for both Writing and Directing.

Mike White also created the HBO series Enlightened.

He wrote the hit film School of Rock, wrote and directed the film's year of the dog and Brad

Status, an early in his career wrote several episodes of the TV series Freaks and Geeks,

and Dawson's Creek. In the New York Times, Alexis Saloski pointed out two themes he's

examined in his work, the gulf between the people we imagine ourselves to be, and the people we

actually are, and how living your best life usually pushes a lot of people into living worse ones.

A similarly out of character chapter of his career as being a reality show contestant,

he competed on two seasons of the amazing race with his father, and was a runner-up on Survivor.

The White Lotus is about the staff and the wealthy guests at five star luxury resort hotels

in gorgeous panoramic settings. The settings resemble paradise, but the guests are wrapped

up in their problems. Season one was said at a White Lotus hotel in Hawaii, and focused on class

money and entitlement. Season two is said at a resort hotel in a beautiful part of Sicily.

The cast includes Michael Imperiali, F. Murray Abraham, and Orbrew Plaza.

Jennifer Coolidge plays the same self-absorbed, insecure, incredibly wealthy character she played

in the first season. This season pivots around the sex lives of its main characters, passionate,

indifferent, and transactional sex, sex from the perspective of sex addicts, sex with and without

love, and the suspicion jealousy mischief and mayhem that are sometimes the consequences of sex.

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