In the first episodes, Daphne appears to be floating happily on her good fortune. But as the season progresses, we see slight cracks in her serene expression, making it clear that she knows that her husband is unfaithful (all credit goes to the actress, Meghann Fahy, who perfectly telegraphs Daphne’s discomfort, and quick calculation, without saying a word).
Instead of raging at Cameron, she spends his money on a side trip to an extravagant villa, and it’s suggested that she cheats on him right back. “We never really know what goes on in people’s minds, or what they do, right? You spend every second with somebody, and there’s still this part that’s a mystery,” Daphne says to her husband’s friend Ethan, when he reveals that Harper might have had a dalliance with Cameron. “You don’t have to know everything to love someone. A little mystery? It’s kinda sexy,” Daphne tells Ethan, and adds, “I think you just — you just — do whatever you have to do not to feel like a victim of life.”
After this speech, Daphne leads Ethan, down a beach into a cove, and though we don’t see what happens, their interaction eventually leads to relationship happiness for both Cameron and Daphne and Ethan and Harper. For Ethan and Harper, cheating, or the mere idea of cheating, reinvigorates their previously sexless marriage. In the final scene of the season, at the airport, both couples are blissful and entwined.
In the current season, there is a lot of frank discussion of the role of money in relationships, as there are many older, balding wealthy men who are at the White Lotus with their young, hot girlfriends. Victoria Ratliff (Parker Posey), a booze-and-pills addled, married Southern lady, accosts one of these girlfriends at a party. “You’re such a darling girl. You’re young. You’re beautiful. Why are you with this middle-aged weirdo? Does he have a lot of money?” Victoria asks. The girlfriend’s face drops. “You can’t ask that,” she retorts. Victoria’s response: “Come to North Carolina. I could introduce you to some respectable men. They would eat you up.”
What makes this scene so funny is not just Posey’s sodden delivery, it’s the fact that she doesn’t understand that she’s offering the same compromise — a rich man in exchange for a woman’s youth and beauty — in a more “respectable” package.
