Aubrey Plaza joins 'The White Lotus' as show casts its darkly comic eye on vacations

The man who ruined vacations is back.

Mike White, the comically devilish hand behind HBO's “The White Lotus,” returns for a second season Sunday (9 EDT/PDT).

When confronted with that title, White just laughs and cops to it: “My experience is, on vacation you escape one thing only to find a new set of anxieties and hard truths about yourself and those close to you.”

That’s the thematic scaffolding that supports both seasons of the pandemic-spawned hit, which last year was nominated for 20 Emmys and won 10, including best limited series, best director for White and best supporting actor awards for Murray Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge.

More: Review: Wonderful 'White Lotus' is back for Season 2, and it's not a second too soon

The source of White’s vacations-are-hell attitude? Blame the CBS reality series “The Amazing Race,” on which he competed in 2009 with his father Mel.

“It was fun, but it was like a vacation on steroids,” says White, whose credits include "School of Rock" (writer) and "Chuck & Buck" (actor). “So whenever I’m in an airport or taxi or hotel I have a sense memory of being so stressed out.”

Last season, White and his cast were at the COVID-19-shuttered Four Seasons resort on Maui, enduring a form of forced creative captivity that helped up the angst. The show opened with a mystery murder, then rewound to spotlight the troubled lives of both the hotel's staff and their well-heeled guests.

This season, we’re at the "White Lotus" in Taormina in Sicily, Italy, (a stand-in for the real San Domenico Palace hotel, another Four Seasons property). Once again, a shocking death opens the season, and we quickly meet the hotel's neurotic general manager, Valentina (a compelling Sabrina Impacciatore) and a mostly new set of guests who seem to have more problems than fun.

Filming at an actual resort once again helped the actors access their characters on a primal level. Ultimately, a sense that “those happy couples aren’t as blissful as they seem to be” even started to infect the cast, which took over the San Domenico last February when it was closed for the off-season but remained for a bit as the hotel welcomed real guests.

“Mike hits on something basic, which is that when you go on vacation you bring your problems with you; you don’t become a different person,” says co-star Will Sharpe. “So I’ll be somewhere now and overhear a conversation and think, ‘Oh, that’s a little ‘White Lotus.’”

Men behaving badly anchor this season of 'White Lotus'

Sharpe plays newly minted tech millionaire Ethan Spiller, the husband of Harper (Aubrey Plaza). The couple grapples with their newfound wealth while on holiday with Ethan's one-time college roommate, obnoxious finance bro Cameron Babcock (Theo James) and his deceptively doting wife Daphne (Meghann Fahy).

Other hotel guests include a multi-generational trio in search of their Sicilian roots; Bert Di Grasso (F. Murray Abraham), his son Dominic (Michael Imperioli) and grandson Albie (Adam DiMarco). They're on an ancestral quest marred by some deep flaws and insecurities.

And rounding out the troubled vacationers is one holdover couple from the first season, the now-married Tanya McQuoid-Hunt (Coolidge) and her Hawaii-sourced beau Greg (Jon Gries). Tanya, beloved as the off-kilter millionaire, has brought along her assistant, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) for company, while Greg’s demeanor gives Tanya solid reasons to worry.

Coolidge is a veteran of improvisation, as with her riotous turn in Christopher Guest’s 2000 pampered-dog epic, “Best in Show.” But she and other actors confirm that’s not the way things work on “White Lotus.”

“Mike really sets up the whole structure of it, so much of the dialogue is all Mike White,” says Coolidge. “All of it is so fun to say and live.”

Abraham calls the script “a gift right from heaven; a couple of pages and you realize that.” Adds Imperioli; “It’s really a testament to Mike’s imagination and skills as a writer to come up with this world and design it this way.”

The first season dealt squarely in the realm of “rich people sucking,” as Imperioli ("The Sopranos") puts it. Hawaiian "Lotus" also seemed to play a bit more for broad laughs, especially when it came to the manic antics of Bartlett’s drug-fueled manager.

This season digs deeper and focuses more on the flaws inherent in the male of the species. And James embraced his role with slimy fury.

“Although these guys are repugnant, they’re also kind of charming, and you kind of want to hang out with them,” he says. “Cameron represents this toxic masculinity, the man-boy that’s unique maybe to our generation, men in their 30s and 40s who are still like big children, but they’re also fun.”

'Sopranos' star Imperioli says creator White finds 'compassion' in flawed folks

That deftly expressed duality keeps “White Lotus” from wilting.

“It would be easy to take down (these people) and be cynical,” says Imperioli. “But Mike makes everyone three-dimensional, and allows you to have compassion.”

Dominic struggles with infidelity, but as Imperioli suggests, White layers in an element of self-reflection and vulnerability that makes him human.

Similarly, Harper is trying mightily to come to terms with her husband’s financial success while confronting painful truths about their seemingly solid relationship. As he did with Coolidge, White wrote the part especially for Plaza, who's best known as glib wisecracker April Ludgate in NBC's “Parks and Recreation.”

“We’re very close,” she says. “So it’s complicated because someone knows you so well, but it’s also helpful for the work because there’s a language you speak with no words.”

White was eager to show other sides of his friend’s personality. “Aubrey has this sardonic persona, but in real life, she also has a lot of colors: she’s compassionate, complicated and interesting and kind. I was excited to write something for her, to make her more accessible.”

White also wanted Coolidge to return, along with Gries, to see how Tanya developed after getting over the loss of her mother and marrying her beau.

"I thought, I'd love to know what the next installment is" for Tanya, says Coolidge. "He's never boring Mike White, always fascinating."

So is White busy scheming up another chapter for Coolidge and new characters and locations for Season 3?

“I’m just finishing up (editing) the last episode, so today I don’t think I can do anything ever again,” he says with a laugh. “But give me a few weeks after sitting around the house.”

His audience likely will be waiting. White has captured a previously unknown niche: a cross between a cerebral soap and a high-gloss travel show. Chambers of commerce in Maui and Taormina should be kissing his ring. He finds irony in that score.

“This show is like a ‘Vacations Gone Wrong’ idea, but so many people have sought out that (Maui) hotel since it aired, so it’s weird how whatever messages you’re sending with these characters, it gets lost in the aspirational photography,” he says. “People just feel like, ‘I want to go there!’”

A pause. Then a very Mike White sigh and a deadpan line about saving a few bucks on the production.

“I wish the Four Seasons people knew then what they know now," he says. "Maybe they’d have given us a break.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mike White's 'White Lotus' focuses on Italian beauty and male toxicity