“Season one was centered around money. Season two tackled sex. Who knows, maybe Season Three will be about religion,” Mike White said immediately following the finale of the latest season of his breakout hit, “White Lotus.” By diving into some of life’s biggest subjective complexities, Mike White awakened the critical thinking of all of his loyal fans. This is because with “White Lotus,” you aren’t just watching. You’re not checking out with popcorn and setting your mind on autopilot for an hour; you’re analyzing the characters, social dynamics and - let’s face it—you’re analyzing the hell out of yourself. For this reason, I think everyone can learn something from this masterpiece of a show. Without further ado, here are some key takeaways from this not-so-relaxing Italian getaway.

Don’t fight “nice.”

They say that “nice guys finish last,” and while that sometimes may be the case, girls will figure it out eventually. When Albie leaned in and asked Portia if he could kiss her, Portia laughed because she was looking to be swept off her feet in some grand display of passion. She wanted the confidence of European men to exude from Albie and ended up going with the bad boy for just that reason. He was funny, full of lust and unpredictable. But sometimes—as Portia discovered—that bites you in the ass and abducts you. She eventually figured out that sometimes a little predictability is needed and that you should revel in comfort and safety because they’re much harder to come by than you’d think.

People see the world in darkness or in light.

There’s two ways that you can choose to view the world. There’s a spectrum of positivity and negativity, and most people don’t hit that center spot. Unfortunately, in modern society, people tend to be pretty damn lopsided. Ethan & Harper and Cameron & Daphne personified these split worldviews. Early on in the show, Mike White blatantly shines a light on this. Harper said she has trouble sleeping at night because of “what’s going on in the world.” She talks about the different catastrophes and inequalities on the news and the environment slowly dying. To that, Daphne responds, “Oh come on, it’s not that bad, we don’t even watch the news.” Most people can be boiled down to either glass-half-empty or glass-half-full mentality. We are all in the same world, but perspective is everything. It’s a never ending battle between hopeful optimism, blissful ignorance, hopelessness, and the burden of looking at the bad. Everyone, assuming they’re not in the dead center, has a dark or light haze that clouds their vision and shapes their perspective. Only a select few people (if any) can see the world as it really is. Most of us succumb to one side of the scale.

Women are still victimized but don’t have to be victims.

This major theme was painted by situations in the show in which women seemed to be victimized: Cameron cheating on Daphne, Lucia not getting paid for her escort services, Tanya being cheated on and held captive by “the gays.” There were so many more examples of female victimization scattered throughout the story. While it is undoubtedly true that modern-day women are treated harsher by society collectively (pointed out by the three generations of DiGrasso men discussing the ”Godfather”), they can create their power in every situation they're in. The show constantly showed a juxtaposition of instances where the female characters were victimized but refused to be victims. Whether it’s Daphne playing games with Cameron and having secret rendezvous with other men, Lucia using the DiGrasso men’s savior complex and sexual desire to get rich and even Tanya killing all the men in the story (even if she ended up causing her own demise), women are constantly biting back in season two of “White Lotus.”

It was no secret that Daphne and Cameron’s relationship was a shit show at times. Whether it was condoms in the couch cushions or unpaid bills to escorts, Cameron certainly left a trail of sloppy adultery behind him. The power in Daphne and Cameron’s relationship dynamics came in the unspoken. In many ways, their secretive, spark-filled, push-pull relationship was juxtaposed to Ethan and Harper’s honesty, lackluster love life and transparency. While Cameron was no stranger to sleeping with strangers, Daphne knew how to pull at the strings that would drive Cameron wild in some sort of creative revenge. She knew how to beat him at his own game, but only when she needed to. When Harper said that she thought something happened with Ethan while she and Daphne were in Noto, Daphne responded with a simple “If anything ever did happen, you just do what you have to do to make yourself feel better about it…” While she was stuck in a sometimes shitty situation, she “refused to be a victim,” and shot back under wraps.

The women of “White Lotus” were often puppeteers of power behind the scenes. They were certainly not helpless damsels in distress, despite being too-often screwed by the men around them. Albie’s grandfather touches on this toward the end of the show: “Women aren’t all saints, Albie. They're just like us.”

Don’t Stay At White Lotus For Your Next Vacation

Mike White’s “White Lotus” leaves you with lots of lessons and much to think about, and I hope this article does the same. And while the White Lotus Resort may bring about stunning destinations, culture and a myriad of great learning experiences, I am willing to sacrifice a little wisdom in order to avoid being the main character of White’s next tragic, opera-inspired story arc.