The White Lotus' Mike White Weighs In On That Intimate Quentin And Jack Moment
HBO's latest hit, "The White Lotus," is deep into its second season, and things are getting crazier than anything that happened in Season 1. Season 2 looks to recapture the spark from the show's inaugural season, which earned the network an outstanding 20 Emmy nominations. With well-known actors like Aubrey Plaza, F. Murray Abraham, Theo James, and Michael Imperioli joining Jennifer Coolidge, Season 2 hit the ground running. The storyline revolving around the latter's character, Tanya, had some shocking revelations in the show's latest episode.
Season 2, Episode 5, "That's Amore," took Tanya and Portia's (Haley Lu Richardson) story to a confusing place that no fan expected. The wealthy but unstable woman and her assistant take a few days away from The White Lotus resort, traveling to Palermo with Quentin (Tom Hollander) and Jack (Leo Woodall). The group stays at Quentin's palazzo and explores all the Sicilian capital has to offer. Tanya and Quentin attend the opera while Portia and Jack experience the city. Things get crazy when the pairs turn in for the night at the estate. In the middle of the night, Tanya, unable to sleep, investigates a strange noise, only to walk in on an intimate moment between Quentin and Jack. "The White Lotus" introduced the two characters as an uncle and nephew duo, so the reveal of them having sex raises many questions for fans.
Series creator Mike White spoke on the reveal, something that's become a trend over the two-season run of "The White Lotus."
Mike White wants to push the boundaries with his gay characters
Mike White recently spoke with Variety ahead of the Episode 5 premiere, where he revealed what went into Jack and Quentin's shocking scene. The moment served as a callback to Season 1, where Shane (Jake Lacey) catches Armond (Murray Bartlett) and Dillon (Lukas Gage) in a similar sexy moment in the hotel manager's office. Interestingly enough, both seasons' sex-filled moments come in Episode 4, two weeks before the season finales.
"There's a pleasure to me as a guy who is gay-ish to make gay sex transgressive again," White told the outlet. "It's dirty... men are having sex and you have this 'Psycho' music underneath. It just amuses me." White, who pulls triple duty on the show as creator, writer, and director, loves the atmosphere that the intimate gay scenes create when they are behind closed doors. The secretive nature makes it sexier in White's eyes, bringing even more mystery to the series.
Variety also reached out to Quentin and Jack actors Tom Hollander and Leo Woodall to get their initial reactions to the scene. Hollander knew about it initially, but Woodall didn't, receiving the script weeks after landing the role. He said learning about the twist left him speechless, much like the fans. Woodall told Variety, "I'm such a huge fan of Tom's, and when I heard that he was going to be playing my uncle, I thought, 'That is unreal.' And then when I found out that I was going to shag him as well — that was kind of surreal."
White refused to reveal if Quentin and Jack were actually related, leaving that for the show to reveal. New episodes of "The White Lotus" premiere on HBO Max on Sundays.