The White Lotus
Sky Atlantic | ★★★★★

There’s an idea in anthropology that a culture can only truly know itself through contact with that which it is not. Differences in food, rituals, taboos and, for the purposes of this review, humour highlight hidden truths through contrast.

Which is to say that The White Lotus feels like the most non-Jewish comedy series on television. In a genre that owes so much to our people, to the point where in America we’re infused into its very DNA, it’s somewhat jarring when something so utterly its own thing comes along.

The first series deservedly won five Emmy Awards, which gives some indication of how well it was received, and also of its impact on those of us who fuss over their viewing choices like a wine snob ordering at a fine restaurant.

“Fresh, tart, exquisite, refined, precise, with a tinge of tension.” On Sky Atlantic via HBO, the chattering class kissed their fingers in delight at the misadventures and interactions of different groups of guests at an exclusive Hawaiian resort and the employees subsuming their needs to meet those of others. In most cases less deserving others.

On the surface it’s a white show. The White Lotus, authored by Mike White with his evangelical Christian background, has a predominantly “waspy” cast, whatever that word fuzzily evokes upon this side of the Atlantic.

But it’s too clever to limit itself to ethnicity or identity politics, although the focus of some of its characters is fixated on them. It’s about money.

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Lovable monster: John Gries and Jennifer Coolidge (Sky Atlantic)

Those who have it, those who don’t. And even then it wisely avoids easy judgment. On either side of the wealth divide there are innocents and there are monsters, on either side you could rapidly find yourself turning from one to the other. Fairness is an illusion, redemption’s unlikely, and the first season blew itself up in a glorious eruption.

And now it’s back. A new hotel, a new country, a (mostly) new cast, the same division between the haves and the have-nots.

Or more accurately, the have-too-much’s and the have-to-put-up-with-them. Loveable monster Jennifer Coolidge and her husband are the returnees, and that she’s able to evoke such varied emotions through her plastic surgery is a testament to the strength of the writing and her genius for nuance.

Aubrey Plaza expertly seethes as the clunky fourth wheel in a couple of couples getaway, and it’s exciting to see a greyed Michael Imperioli finally shedding the Christopher Moltisanti skin that clung so close in The Sopranos, here playing a Hollywood douchebag.

There’s nothing preventing a dive straight into this opening episode of the second season, and this is one of those rare series that I don’t think lends itself to binge-watching.

Everything from the credits onwards is impeccably laid out, time and space are required for it to digest well. No stuffing your face after the blessings as you argue whilst tearing off bits of challah, this is a delicate bonbon that needs to be chewed a hundred times to extract the full flavour. It might not be your mother’s chicken soup, but it’s delicious.