Over the past couple weeks my wife and I have been watching "White Lotus". A bunch of people we know have told us to watch and we finally decided it was time. The show is very good. It is worth the hype. It is all very well deserved. I look forward to watching a new episode every night. We are almost caught up and that bums me out. We are going to watch "Last of Us" next, but I still find myself wanting more "White Lotus". Everything about the show works very well but the one thing I want to point out today is the cringe factor that makes this show next level awesome. I will be spoiler free, don't worry, but the time has come for me to talk about this show in some kind of form, and this, the cringe factor, is perfect.

We have two episodes left in season 2. We are just about caught up. What I noticed last night when we watched was a conversation between two of the couples in season 2 talking at dinner. They were talking about sexual escapades of the past and the whole time I was uncomfortable. I'm not a prude, not by a long stretch. But to see how this whole conversation unfolded, I looked over at my wife and said how uncomfortable I was just watching this all go down. There was alcohol involved, some indiscretions were alluded to and the way the husband of one couple and the wife of the other were batting the words back and forth was a masterclass in cringe. The way they spoke made me shudder. The way the husband was rubbing her leg under the table made me turn away. When she smiled at him after pulling her leg away made me wildly uncomfortable. Everything about it made me want to stop watching. But I couldn't stop. I am so into it that I do not care how uncomfortable it makes me feel. I want to see how this all gets wrapped up. I want to see what happens next. I want to see how this resolves.

The cringe is a credit to this writing staff and the creators of this show. They take these glamorous areas of the world and put these supposedly happy and glamorous people in there, and they make it get very, very weird. It takes me aback to see how miserable and crummy these beautiful people can be. It shows their true colors. I know this is a fictional show but I have fully given in and look at them as real people. The way Aubrey Plaza handled this as Harper, her character on the show, is a wonderful example of how great an actor she is. And it is not just her character this season. This show has been doing this for two seasons now. Everytime Jennifer Coolidge speaks I get queasy. She is amazing on this show and she is the shining star. But everytime she speaks with Jon Gries, or Belinda from season 1, or Portia or the friends she made in Italy, she is the cringiest of cringe. And it is wonderful and uncomfortable to watch. The stuff with Albie and his dad and the sex worker this season is an achievement in making the viewer uncomfortable. To know what they know about each other is wild. Michael Imperioli and F Murray Abraham have some of the worst father son conversations in the history of talking. Every interaction in season one with the newly married couple is wildly hard to watch, especially when his mom shows up on their honeymoon. Steve Zahn does a masterclass in cringe factor throughout season one. Murray Bartlett is my favorite character to date and his whole journey in season 1 is wildy uncomfortable. The stuff with Albie and Portia makes me terribly uncomfortable. I could go on and on and on. But I think this is my favorite part about this show.

The show is amazing and everyone should be watching it, especially for the cringe factor. I'm in awe of how they put this across on screen and I cannot wait to watch more tonight. "White Lotus" is an achievement in making cringe television and it should be celebrated for that, among many other things. What a great television show. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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