White Lotus Season 2’s Godfather Homage Is as Empty as the Characters

Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of The White Lotus.

Even when done in the most ambitious of works, it is always a bold move to reference a past piece of groundbreaking cinema that is considered to be one of the greatest of all time. In the third episode of the second season of The White Lotus, entitled “Bull Elephants,” creator and writer Mike White did just that with an extended homage of sorts to the epochal 1972 film The Godfather. The question swirling around these moments in the show is how much of their emptiness is meant to be a reflection of the vapid characters and how much of it was just hollow vamping all its own? Unfortunately, it soon feels like quite a bit of both.

It begins when Bert (F. Murray Abraham) suggests to his son Dominic (Michael Imperioli) and grandson Albie (Adam DiMarco) that they go to visit a key location where filming actually took place in Italy. The eldest member of the family had been watching the gangster epic in his hotel room and was moved to suggest the addition to their trip. It is part of one of the many ways that the tourism destination reduced the film into being yet another commodity to be purchased. Of course, Bert completely buys into what they’re selling. When they all go, they are accompanied by Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) who is still trying to avoid her controlling boss Tanya McQuoid-Hunt (Jennifer Coolidge) as well as make the most of her time on vacation. She is also the only one who seems aware of how off the expedition is. Specifically, she calls attention to the way one of the film’s more impactful scenes has been turned into a gimmicky prop. Alas, this is the sole moment of self-awareness that we get a glimpse of.

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The Di Grassos’ Discussion Around ‘The Godfather’ Wildly Misrepresents the Film

The scene in question that is primarily being referenced is when the character of Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli) is killed. She is caught in the explosion of a car bomb that was meant for her husband Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) who realized what was happening though was too late to stop it. He had drawn her into the violence, and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In many ways, it is the moment where the last slivers of humanity that the once kind Michael had are destroyed, and he starts to descend into depravity even further. So how does The White Lotus engage with this scene and the broader film in which it exists? When seated at lunch directly next to a model of the car with a mannequin meant to signify Apollonia sitting in it, Bert, Dominic, and Albie all get into a discussion about what the film is supposed to represent. The older men of the family believe it to be the “best American movie ever made.” Albie chimes in to express his disagreement, saying that the reason they like it is “because you’re nostalgic for the solid days of the patriarchy” and that it is a “fantasy about a time when they could go out and solve all their problems with violence” with no issues.

Putting aside the defense given by his father and grandfather, who each try to make it seem as though such a fantasy is just a natural one for men to have, Albie is also wildly misrepresenting the film. If the takeaway you get from watching The Godfather is that violence is a great way to solve problems and the patriarchy is good, you are overlooking so much of the core of the film. Michael is not meant to be valorized, he is meant to be mourned as we see the young man who wanted nothing to do with his family and their life of crime become completely swept up in it. He is not cool; he is cold and cruel. The loss of Apollonia is merely the beginning of this as he begins to inflict violence on others that is presented in the most gruesome and unsettling fashion.

Of all the films that could be singled out as being about a patriarchal male fantasy, The Godfather would be pretty near the end of the list behind so many others. All of what Albie criticizes about it are elements that it is deeply aware of in a way that is integral to the experience. While viewers can obviously misread a film like this and take away all the wrong ideas from it, it would require ignoring all of the many ways it invites reflection on itself. This isn’t to say creators like White can’t have a go at it. However, he should offer something far more than just reducing a powerful scene and film to what is effectively an empty sparring match between characters who are similarly hollow.

‘The White Lotus’ Goes Out of Its Way to Sand Down ‘The Godfather’s Rough Edges

So what is White getting at here in referencing The Godfather in such a way? Part of it may be that Albie is meant to be wrong. Since the first episode, there has been a steady uptick in moments where we are invited to be a bit skeptical of his “good guy” persona. But that also entails the show positioning him as being in the right, even if he is overzealous and narrow-minded. This scene rings of that and, perhaps worse, it almost feels like White is rather bluntly speaking through Albie in a frustratingly reductive fashion.

For all the ways the characters and this trip are part of the tourism industry’s superficial engagement with a past work of art, the show ends up recreating this without making anything that feels robust in its reflections. This is a shame as, later in the same episode, there is an intriguing shot-for-shot visual reference to 1960 film L’Avventura with the show’s standout Aubrey Plaza walking essentially the same steps as the previously referenced late actress Monica Vitti. Even as it is fleeting, it feels infinitely more engaging and meaningful than the one where The White Lotus spent several minutes going out of its way to sand down the rough edges of The Godfather. It did so under the guise of being some revealing analysis, only to reveal its own prevailing emptiness as a result.