Hey, It’s That Guy!

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It’s White Lotus season once again, and you know what that means: sun, hospitality, death, and sexcapades — this time, in Thailand! As always, a buffet of delicious mysteries awaits us: What’s with the active shooter? Does the ultimate girls’ trip end in murder? Why is the vibe between those three siblings so weird? Why is Walton Goggins so sweaty? How do I feel the way Parker Posey feels all the time?

Such macabre bacchanalia is the stuff we’ve come to love and expect from our visits to the most cursed luxury-hotel chain of all time. But you know what is much less expected? That MCU-style reveal near the end of Sunday’s premiere, when a scene-stealing Aimee Lou Wood, who plays Goggins’s significantly younger girlfriend, strikes up a conversation with a fellow age-gap paramour at the hotel bar. “Honestly, he’s so fucking boring I almost don’t even care,” says the new drinking buddy played by Charlotte Le Bon, bonding over their respective shitty older boyfriends. That’s when the camera cuts past her shoulder, and we see a familiar face …

… It’s Greg! Good ol’ Greg, staring off into the abyss. What’s his deal again? Great question. In case you didn’t spend the past week revisiting the last season in preparation for our Southeast Asian sojourn, here’s a little FAQ.

Wait, is that …?
Yep. It’s the BLM guy.

Remind me of his name?
That’s Greg Hunt, husband to the late Tanya McQuoid, played by the dearly missed Jennifer Coolidge, who succumbed in the elaborate Sicilian plot on her life in the last season. He’s played by Jon Gries, noted character actor and erstwhile runway model.

Whoa.
Oh, yeah. That’s him in the Technicolor fuzzy sweater and hypebeast pants walking for Eckhaus Latta in the fall of 2023.

What does BLM stand for again?
Not Black Lives Matter, that’s for sure. In this case, it refers to the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that governs, maintains, and protects public lands across the country. I personally think it’s noble work. Someone has to balance conservation with forestry needs, you know? Anyway, back in the Hawaii season, Greg explains to Tanya on their first date that he works at the agency, seemingly in some managerial law-enforcement role at the Colorado office. “I have like 300 rangers across ten states that report to me,” he says.

So he’s a cop.
Nature’s cop, but yes.

How did Tanya end up with him in the first place?
Well, you have to remember that Tanya was kind of a sad and lonely character who shows up in Hawaii existentially adrift over the death of her mother, from whom she inherited a fortune. Haunting the resort, she started to develop a peculiar dependency on Belinda, the masseuse played by Natasha Rothwell, when she encounters Greg, who says he’s on vacation with his fishing buddies. He, too, comes across as a sad and lonely character, but at that point, the guy still seems fairly banal. Also, tragic: One big thing we come to learn about him is that he’s stricken with illness. This draws Tanya closer to him, to a point where she disengages from Belinda entirely — but not before stringing her along with notions that she may help fund the masseuse’s own venture. Greg and Tanya leave Hawaii as a couple.

And then they visit the Sicilian White Lotus together.
Yup. The second season picks up after some undetermined amount of time, but enough for the energy between the couple to have shifted significantly. We don’t actually see a ton of Greg in Italy, because pretty quickly after arrival, he claims that he needs to leave due to a work emergency. However, his brief appearance does establish a few key details. First, he openly disdains his new wife. Second, the visit to Italy was his idea. Third, he’s no longer sick. Fourth, he’s constantly on the phone with some unknown caller. Finally, and most importantly, he’s frustrated with their prenup. “Well, can’t you just quit the Bureau of Land Management bullshit or whatever it is?” Tanya says to him, upset over his sudden need to depart. “I can’t afford to quit. You made me sign a prenup. What if we don’t work out?” he responds. (A fair sentiment, though given the BLM will probably be on the new Trump administration’s chopping block eventually here in the real world, the point is now moot.)

Aha. Motive!
Motive!

So he tries to kill her.
What happens in Sicily is pretty complicated. Over the course of the season, Tanya comes into the company of Quentin, a mysterious and seemingly wealthy expat played by Tom Hollander, who showers her with attention and whisks her off on glamorous adventures: sunning on their yacht, visiting his exquisite estate on a nearby island, a night at the opera. At the same time, he facilitates a concerted effort to isolate and place her in a compromising situation. Jack, a creepy young man played by Leo “Math Wunderkind” Woodall, whom Quentin introduces as his “naughty nephew,” seems unusually focused on drawing away Tanya’s assistant Portia. Quentin also sets Tanya up with a hunky Italian, Niccolò, and their sexual encounter is implied to have been video-recorded. After a slow burn, the season crescendos into what appears to be the climax of the conspiracy: Tanya is lured onto Quentin’s boat, where he and his coterie intend to tie up and kill her.

You say “intend.”
Oh, yes. You probably remember this, but they weren’t, uh, successful. Instead, Tanya ends up massacring the entire boat — absurdly, hilariously, beautifully — with a gun with her eyes closed.

And she still dies?
Unfortunately. After miraculously surviving an assassination attempt, she nevertheless slips and bumps her head when she tries to jump onto a lifeboat. It’s a fitting end for the incredible character.

Back up for a second. You’re telling me that Greg, a nature cop, was in cahoots with the boat of murderous gays?
Seemingly. This notion is supported by a late scene where Tanya, while visiting Quentin’s tasteful island mansion, discovers a picture of what appears to be a young Greg and a young Quentin. The image rings a bell: Earlier in the season, Quentin tells the story of a “cowboy” he met and fell in love with while traveling in the United States as a youth. In the picture, young Greg is wearing a cowboy hat.

So we’re sure they were collaborating the whole time?
You could say it’s a reasonable conclusion.

Why do you sound like a lawyer?
Sorry! I mean, there’s motive and means, but we’re not 100 percent certain of the full picture, because there are still tons of gaps that need to be filled — enough to drive deep pockets of theorizing on YouTube, Reddit, and the rest of the internet. For instance, who was Greg speaking with on the phone? Was he ever sick? Did he ever work for the BLM, or had he been targeting Tanya as a mark from the start in Hawaii? Moreover, there are hints of malevolence at an even grander scale. At one point in Sicily, Jack makes some reference to Portia about “powerful people” that is never fully explained. So my point is, while we can confidently say that Greg was involved in the plot to kill Tanya and is now clearly a beneficiary of her death, we can’t say for sure how he fits into the whole thing.

Okay, so, what do you reckon he’s doing in Thailand?
Probably just enjoying the fruits of inheriting Tanya’s money. (And the ennui that comes with it, apparently, given the sunken look on his face.) We learn from his girlfriend that they’ve been living in the area for about a year and routinely come down to the resort for dinner.

And presumably to evade the authorities.
Don’t be so sure about that. Thailand has an extradition treaty with the U.S., so it’s not exactly the first place you’d go to if you’re trying to lay low for committing murder on another American citizen. On the other hand, the plot to kill Tanya did take place in Italy, and as the Amanda Knox case illustrated, a situation where an American national is suspected to be involved in the murder of another American on Italian soil would still be prosecuted under Italian jurisdiction — and Thailand does not have an extradition treaty with Italy. On the other other hand, the fact there isn’t such a treaty doesn’t preclude the state from honoring specific extradition requests depending on the crime. So whatever the exact situation, it’s safe to say Greg is in ambiguous territory here.

What are the odds he’ll get some form of comeuppance this season?Pretty decent, I’d say. After all, the only living people who might have a sense of what’s going on with this guy are Portia, who doesn’t seem to be returning this season …

And Belinda.
Yup.