36/32
The exploits of several guests and employees of a luxury resort over the course of a week. HBO has renewed the series for a second season, despite the show being conceived as a one-season limited miniseries. The show is said to be an anthology-style series with new characters for each season. HBO has done this before (to great acclaim) with the series True Detective (2014). Featured in Jeremy Vine: Episode #4,175 (2021). While some of the first season was cringe-worthy, this second season is as masterful as anyone could hope for. It starts off a little slow, the first episode, but quickly finds its feet and impresses time and time again, captivating me as if I weren’t very experienced. It feels like a rehash of every thought I’ve ever had on a vacation resort, many of which I had long forgotten. That alone is a delight, but don’t worry, it goes way beyond that to flirt with operatic heights of drama and beauty, which is quite appropriate given its Sicilian setting. Given the excellence of the acting and the apparent naturalness of the story, I’d say that Mike White, the creator of this series, is something of an unsung genius. The guy seems to have no awareness of limits, coupled with one of the sharpest eyes for detail I’ve ever seen.