Tanya’s Sicilian vacation hasn’t been the ideal, romantic, and flimsy getaway she expected it to be. But a fate far worse than a bad vacation might be awaiting her ahead.
Tanya is the most nonchalant character in The White Lotus, thriving and revelling in the unfazed privilege and the subsequent ignorance of most things surrounding her that her wealth affords her.
However, ever since her arrival at the White Lotus in Italy’s Sicily, her life has not been as smooth sailing as it used to be. It’s mostly thanks to her tumultuous relationship with Greg, her new husband.
Greg has been in a hot temper ever since he spotted Portia the assistant, beside her and arriving at the hotel together. He takes great offence at her bringing Portia along with her.
He continues to get irked by something or the other thing that she does, visibly not fond of her eccentricities or the giddy desires she wants to be fulfilled.
The crumbling relationship
The big fault in the couple’s relationship forms when the husband informs the latter about his work commitment that has just come up and that he has to tend to real quick. He needs to temporarily go away for said commitment, and Tanya is devastated by this news.
She tells him that he doesn’t love her but only tolerates her. Greg denies that and tries to convince her he’ll be gone only for a couple of days, trying to impress upon her, the importance of the work call that has just surfaced.
Tanya can do nothing but grieve and bawl out in tears at her perfect vacation getting ruined by her husband. Before departing for work, though, she comes across one more suspicious little thing about her husband.
Even though he says he’s divorced, Tanya eavesdrops on him talking to someone in the middle of the night. It’s someone close to him since he says “I love you” to them, along with the very suspicious remark, seemingly about Tanya herself, saying she is clueless as usual.
The card and the promiscuous lover
After Greg departs, Tanya slumps down, drowning in her misery and morose condition. She asks for a Tarot Card reader, to know and receive some positive or reassuring words about her relationship.
Instead, she gets the worst possible fortune read to her by the fortune teller. The cards tell a sad story about Tanya’s relationship and its future, as the teller says her husband is in love with someone else.
“A beauty”, she claims, telling Tanya that her husband is secretly in love with a beautiful woman. She asks, without hesitation or dip in self-confidence, if this beauty she speaks of is referring to herself.
The tarot card reader isn’t there to just make a quick buck. She means business and she lays it straight, crushing Tanya’s hope and misunderstanding of this fortune — the beauty is someone else.
The fortune resonates well with the hints Greg has been unintentionally giving his wife all along. His lack of eagerness regarding texting her and constant annoyance, as well as the suspicious phone call — all point to him having an extramarital affair with someone.
A fatal fortune
However, an even worse fortune surfaces shortly after the tarot card tells Tanya about her husband’s potential extramarital affair. She is already distressed and fed up with the fortune teller’s negativity; she wanted the reader to prop her up with some positive, feel-good fortune.
However, all that reader has for the wealthy woman is a heartbreaking fortune and a grime, much darker fate that awaits her.
Before she escorts the Negative Nancy out of the room, the fortune teller warns her, in Italian, of the grim fate she has got coming for herself. The fortune, or the misfortune, entails Tanya’s madness eventually leading her to commit suicide.
She can’t understand whatever the teller had to say, though, having missed what might have given her some sense of caution with which to proceed forward.
However, it’s not really a given that she might have even taken her steps all that carefully, had she known what awaits her next.
For the time being, the blessed and privileged woman is having an alright time, albeit with some personifications of red flags surrounding her; the future might not be as comfortable an experience as her life so far has been.
That said, all these might be a distraction planted by the show’s creator, to lead the viewers astray with their speculations about Tanya and wondering if she’s among those bodies recovered at the beach in episode 1.
Also read: The White Lotus season 2 episode 4 recap & review: In the Sandbox