Tanya McQuoid Is A Ridiculous Hot Mess & She's My Idol

Note: The White Lotus Season 2 spoilers ahead.

If you’re watching Season 2 of The White Lotus you are probably watching specifically for one person. The icon Tanya McQuoid, played by icon Jennifer Coolidge. The only returning main character from the Emmy award-winning first season of The White Lotus, Tanya is the character to watch. Because yes she’s ridiculous and yes she’s privileged and yes she’s selfish. But she knows what she wants. She’s not afraid to ask for what she wants, even as she has her heart broken over and over again. And this is why she is a role model to watch. Although definitely use a little restraint when modeling your life after Tanya McQuoid because she wields her self-awareness in ways that are perhaps less than advisable.

Still, as we prepare for the finale this Sunday, we’d be remiss if didn’t properly profess our love for this fascinating character. Because you never know what twist The White Lotus creator Mike White is going to throw at us next and many of us are honestly a little worried about the fate of Tanya.

Now, for those poor people who are not well-acquainted, Tanya McQuoid is the wealthy traveler who has visited both the White Lotus resort in Hawaii and Sicily. She loves a colorful caftan, big sunglasses, and staying laser focused on her own needs at all times. Like getting off the boat in the first season of The White Lotus and immediately begging for a massage, for instance. Or telling her rotten husband Greg (ugh...) how she wants to spend her perfect day in Sicily cos-playing as Monica Vitti on a Vespa and eating whatever she wants. Or my personal favorite moment in Season 2 so far, dropping a bunch of dishes in the dining room of the White Lotus at breakfast and asking the staff if they can get her some Oreo cake for breakfast. In Sicily.

Tanya just knows what she wants and she never, ever seems too embarrassed to ask for it. Even when she changes her mind, as she did when she absolutely insisted that her beleaguered personal assistance Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) be with her because she absolutely needed to see a fortune teller in Sicily, and then forced Portia to hide in the bathroom. She never doubts her own decisions.

This level of self-interest does not always work out for Tanya, of course. In fact, some might even say it rarely works out. I had high hopes for her new friends in Sicily, especially when they invited her to a swanky villa in Palermo and took her to see the opera Madame Butterfly. This might not be the case, and here’s what’s especially interesting about Tanya. She is suspicious of their motives but still dives headfirst into a fun weekend of debauchery. Even as she’s warning Portia to “get your sh*t together” as she continues to romp around with British-boozehound-dine-and-dashing-f*ckboy Jack (Leo Woodall), Tanya still does what she wants.

Tanya caters to her own self interest, whether she’s hunting down cheese she is certain was made by “blind nuns in a basement” or refusing to leave a villa in Palermo even though she knows she’s in danger, simply because she’s really hoping to get it on with a hot Italian guy. Yes, it will probably turn out badly but you know what? She’s having a heck of a good time in the moment. And even owning up to her past mistakes, like backing out of helping her massage therapist in the first season of The White Lotus. “Sometimes I think I should have started that spa for poor women with the girl from Maui,” she told Portia in Palermo over breakfast. “Maybe she put a curse on me.”

Perhaps that’s the most important lesson we can all learn from Tanya McQuoid. Just live in the moment — and wear color every chance you get.