32/40
The exploits of various guests and employees at a luxury resort over the course of a week. HBO has renewed the series for a second season, even though the show was originally intended to be a limited one-season miniseries. The show is said to be an anthology-style series with new characters each season. HBO has done this before (to widespread acclaim) with True Detective (2014). Featured by Jeremy Vine: Episode #4.175 (2021). While the first few seasons were underwhelming, this second season is about as masterful as you could hope for. It starts off a bit slow, the first episode, but soon picks up and surprises me again and again, captivating me like I wasn’t quite experienced. It feels like a review of every thought I’ve ever had about a vacation resort, many of which I’d long since forgotten. Just considering the score alone is a joy, but don’t worry, flirting with opera-like peaks of drama and beauty is something quite fitting given its setting in Sicily. Given the excellence of the acting and the seeming ease of the story, I’d have to say Mike White, the series’ creator, is some kind of unsung genius. The guy seems to know no bounds, along with some of the sharpest detail I’ve ever seen.
