While the only familiar faces from “The White Lotus” Season 2 are just several months into their marriage after falling in love in Hawaii, Jon Gries admits Greg and Tanya’s honeymoon stage has faded as the couple’s differences have sparked conflicts that have begun to tire out easygoing Greg.
“Greg is pretty much go with the flow kind of guy; he takes everything in stride … Tanya is anything but that,” Jon Gries told TheWrap. “Everyday is a crisis, things get lost, she’s discombobulated … I think by attrition, he’s getting a little worn out.”
Though the pair enjoys their romantic Sicilian getaway despite Greg’s disapproval of Tanya bringing her assistant, Portia, along for the ride, things are further exacerbated when Greg announces he must travel back to the U.S. to handle some business during their vacation — which naturally sends Tanya spiraling as she sobs at the breakfast buffet.
Add a couple of shady phone calls and layered comments here and there and Greg’s supposed work trip becomes Tanya’s new obsession as she speculates whether something nefarious is on the agenda. “At face value, he’s going to take care of some work,” Gries said. “He’s going back to take care of something and she’s turning it into something way, way larger.”
In her moment of doubt, Tanya requests a house call from a fortune teller to quell her concerns, which, of course, fails to give her any reassurance. Gries imagined how Greg would shut down this spiral had Tanya shared it with him, noting his character’s practical tendencies due to his background in law enforcement.
“No, no, no, we’re not gonna go down that rabbit hole,” Gries said as Greg. “You had somebody come into your room and throw out some cards and talk about your relationship with me? Who’s never met either of us? I’m sorry, but I can’t invest in that.”
After Greg first whisked Tanya off her feet in Hawaii, the couple tied the knot and it’s clear Tanya facilitated medical treatment for Greg’s unknown health condition which has since dissapated — though Gries suspects it wasn’t as serious as Greg implied.
“I don’t necessarily know if Greg was quite as terminal as he made himself out to be,” Gries said. “I think maybe there’s a couple of characteristics that he shares with Tanya, which is a little bit of glass half empty when it came to his health, and [he] felt that, ‘hey, I could drop dead at any time.’”
Aside from their shared pessimism, the pair couldn’t be more different — especially when it comes to wealth. While Tanya bankrolls their vacation with an absurd amount of luggage, Greg admits he wouldn’t be able to support himself if he loses his job in the case that the pair split up due to the prenup brought up by Tanya.
“Greg is uncomfortable with it [but] at the same time, he’s not gonna he’s not going to spend a lot of time in self reflection,” Gries said. “He takes it as it comes; he’s not gonna beat himself up over the fact that his wife is way wealthier than he could ever imagine being.”
However, he has learned to walk the walk pretty well, according to Gries. “He gets right in the flow,” he said. “[Tanya] walks up [and] he’s having an aperol spritz, eating a little bar food … he’s kicking back, and she shows up, and it’s like, ‘hey, where have you been?’”
Although Tanya offers to rip up the prenup in a moment of desperation, Greg knows this solution wouldn’t put an end to their problems. Gries points to Tanya shoving Greg off of her during a moment of intimacy.
“Greg doesn’t want to walk away,” Gries said. “Greg wants to continue … he’s attracted to Tanya, he loves her, but he loves her in his own way.”
While their issues definitely won’t be solved in just a week, Gries says that Greg would hope Tanya “has so much fun that that she would not be hyper-focused on him [and] that she would just be able to go with the flow and maybe learn something about herself” during his absence in Sicily.
“That would be the ideal return for Greg” he said, “so that she would just learn to have fun and go with it.”
New episodes of “The White Lotus” debut Sundays on HBO at 9 p.m. ET/PT, and stream on HBO Max at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.
