One of the few saving graces of 2021 was that it brought us some exceptionally great television such as Squid Game, Mare of Easttown and The White Lotus.
The latter, which followed a group of quirky (and kind of awful) people over the course of their stay at an upscale Hawaiian resort, has thankfully been renewed for a second season and we’ve so far been elated to learn that Jennifer Coolidge will appear once more.
Now, we are positively ecstatic to discover that Aubrey Plaza — who played the brilliantly sardonic April Ludgate in Parks and Recreation — has joined the cast of the new season as Harper Spiller, a woman on vacation with her husband and his friends.
It was previously announced season two will see the action move away from Hawaii and take place in a different White Lotus property and follow a new group of vacationers. It has been rumoured that Italy could be on the cards for the next location, which would certainly make for some compelling viewing.
Also previously announced was the addition of Michael Imperioli to the cast with the actor taking on the role of Dominic Di Grasso — a man travelling with his elderly father and recent college-graduate son.
In an interview with EW, series creator Mike White explained that the second season location change was due to the expensive cost of filming in Maui outside of a pandemic. “It would have to be The White Lotus: Kyoto or something,” he said. “Which would be fun too, because we could get into culture clash ideas and stuff like that.”
Speaking to TV Line, White expressed his desire for a few of the characters from the first season to return for the second but said having all of the characters come back on the same vacation wouldn’t make much sense.
Considering the first season of the Emmy-nominated dark comedy starred Coolidge along with Murray Bartlett, Connie Britton, Alexandra Daddario, Jake Lacy, Natasha Rothwell and Steve Zahn, we can well understand why Mike would be keen for them to return.
No release date for the second season of The White Lotus has been confirmed as yet, but you can catch the entire first season on BINGE.
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