Editor’s Note: The following are spoilers for The White Lotus Season 2.
What else can you guess or gamble White Lotus, one thing is certain: how it will all end. Bodies will be washed up on the beach, and every episode between the start of season 2 and the season finale is another step towards one inevitable death - or maybe even more than just one. Audiences are looking for clues as to whose imminent death is most likely, but those who aren’t fans of classic Italian operas may have missed vital clues pointing to at least one of the show’s impending deaths: Tanya’s. McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge).
Tale of Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly, or Madama Butterfly, a three-act opera first released in 1904 and based on a short story written in 1898 by John Luther Long. It tells about the tragic romance of a Japanese woman named Cio-Cio-San, whom her English lover B. F. Pinkerton, a US Navy lieutenant, affectionately called Madama Butterfly. Madame Butterfly falls so deeply in love with Pinkerton that it has become her personality - she secretly converted to Christianity only to marry him, and in doing so was expelled from her family.
However, Pinkerton is not going to remain faithful to her and leaves her as soon as he finds an American wife. When he leaves her, Cio-Cio-San deceives himself into believing that one day he will come back for her and the child she had with him. The song we see during the show is called “Un Bel Dì, Vedremo” - roughly speaking, “One Fine Day, We’ll See” - it talks about Madame Butterfly’s pipe dream. It’s a song that celebrates her love for her man, and the tragedy of it is that it’s all based on a lie.
Her misplaced faith proves to be her undoing, because when Pinkerton returns, it’s not for her - it’s to get his son back to be raised by him and his new wife in America. Madama Butterfly kills herself by her father seppuku knife - a knife used for ritual slaughter.
Tanya McQuoid is also a tragic heroine
In episode 5 of the series, Tanya’s new friend Quentin (Tom Hollander) takes her to the opera, showing Madama Butterfly. Tanya is very passionate about this story. Of course, she was forced to identify herself with Madama Butterfly - Quentin was aiming for just that. Instead of letting her be upset about her husband leaving, he helps Tanya feel better by making her feel like the hero of this tragic love story, not its victim.
While Quentin may not have fully realized it, Tanya and Madame Butterfly have a lot in common. They are both dreamers and cling to that dream, no matter how many denials they have to use to get it. We have already seen how hard Tanya is on the very idea of misfortune - she rejects it literally, as she rejects a fortuneteller who calculated Tarot cards for her. However, it is worth remembering that the fortuneteller warned that Tanya was waiting for suicide, and that is how Madame Butterfly met her tragic end.
There are other smaller overlaps; Madama Butterfly’s main confidant is her maid, just like Tanya’s main confidant is her assistant Portia (Hayley Lou Richardson). Both women have a love for beautiful things and both women are willing to lose their sense of identity for their dreams of love. The main similarity between them lies in what caused Madame Butterfly’s death: their husbands lied to them and left them. Both of their dreams have collapsed - and it is clear that the death of Madama Butterfly is still weighing on Tanya.
Tanya is not the kind of woman who has a strong connection with reality. In fact, the show claims that most rich people have a distorted idea of what reality is. This is logical, when you have enough money, like Tanya, you can do your dreams come true and nothing makes Tanya happier. We saw how delighted she was when she spent the whole day with her husband, bringing to life all her impractical fantasies. We also saw how quickly she turned away when these fantasies were threatened; becomes ugly. Tanya is simply not prepared to deal with a world that doesn’t give her what she wants, and it’s unknown what she’s going to do if pushed even further.
All signs point to Tanya’s possible death.
Rumors circulate among White Lotus an audience over a strange secret that Tanya seems to be involved with Quentin, believing there might be something more sinister that would lead to her death. Others believe that, as the only character carried over from the first season, Tanya is the only character who is safe and will still be around in the third season, followed by tragedy but somehow still immune to it. The show, however, still deliberately puts up signs that indicate she is committing suicide: the fortune teller, the opera, the knowledge that more than one person from a very limited cast will die, and Tanya’s own morbid tendencies. that arise now that she feels abandoned.
Of course, it is entirely possible that this setup is nothing more than a red herring. After all, the death of the resort manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) in season 1 appeared completely out of nowhere. It was an accident that had little to do with everything that happened in Armond’s life, an unfortunate twist of fate, combined with the chaos that White Lotus surpasses in. On the other hand, Armond’s death was not foreshadowed in the same way as Tanya’s death. We may have come to the end of Tanya’s story - anyone who follows the signs can see that Tanya’s story has always ended in tragedy. The only question is who, in the end, is responsible for the death of Tanya and currently the moment her number comes up.
White Lotus The second season will end this Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.
Source: Collider
