Jennifer Coolidge Is Returning For The White Lotus Season 2
The best part of "The White Lotus" — yep, you knew I meant Jennifer Coolidge — will return to season 2. Can I get a W in the chat, please?
According to TVLine, several sources confirmed on October 15 that the legendary actress will be reprising her role as Tanya McQuoid (that's pronounced McWad, by the way) in season 2 of the hit HBO Max series.
As previously revealed by HBO, the second season of the series will step away from Hawaii "and follow a different group of vacationers as they jet to another White Lotus property and settle in temporarily amongst its inhabitants." The next destination for the show will reportedly be somewhere in Europe, but no concrete location details have been revealed.
Writer-director Mike White previously revealed that he was interested in bringing back some original cast members, but that he wanted to do it in the right way. "I don't think you can credibly have [all the season 1 guests] on the same vacation again," he told TVLine in August. "But maybe it could be a Marvel Universe type thing, where some of them would come back. We only made one-year deals with the actors, so we'd have to find out who is even available."
He also noted that he found Coolidge's success via the series "hugely satisfying" after many years of her prolific comedy roles. "She's one of the funniest people I've ever met. She's also a really nice person," White told the outlet over the summer. "And we had some false starts with other [projects] we tried to work on together, so this is very gratifying. It's probably one of the most satisfying aspects of the whole experience for me."
Remind Me Why We Loved The White Lotus Season 1, Again?
It has only been a minute since the satirical romp went off-air, but if you need a refresher, here's the gist.
The cast of season 1 was really pitch perfect and set the tone for an insightful piece that stirred up a lot of conversation in the prestige TV zeitgeist. Murray Bartlett, Connie Britton, Alexandra Daddario, Fred Hechinger, Jake Lacy, Brittany O'Grady, Natasha Rothwell, Sydney Sweeney, and Steve Zahn rounded out the cast of White Lotus Hawaii guests alongside Coolidge.
Additionally, the show's laser-sharp focus on white guilt and how white supremacy functions within friendships, families, and potential business relationships has been an interesting topic of debate — which has kept the series on the tip of everyone's tongues.
According to HBO, "The White Lotus" closed out its freshman run with 1.9 million viewers for its season finale. This number was calculated across all platforms and went up a whopping 59% from the previous week. In addition, the season finale audience went up 3.5 times from its July 11 premiere.