Review: The White Lotus, "Abductions" | Season 2, Episode 6
Facing the truth leads to panic and paranoia as this season’s murder mystery heats up
Despite the cryptic opening flashforward of each season, The White Lotus has never exactly felt like a true murder mystery. While I’m always aware that this story is going to end with multiple people dead—and it’s fun to speculate about how that could happen—the identities of the murdered and the identity of the murderer(s) have never been the main focus for me, in either season. This show is intense and exciting because of the characters, their twisted relationships, and their tendencies to constantly get in their own way. Murder isn’t foregrounded, and “clues” aren’t doled out in any traditional way.
Yet even as I typed that, it felt a little wrong; there’s been plenty of visual foreshadowing, from the foreboding shots of waves crashing over rocks to the dolly zooms of last episode’s ending. Those final moments especially seemed to hint at some sort of grand deception going on, one that could potentially lead to violence even if we had little reason to think Quentin could a…