Send Them to a White Lotus: 5 Casts We'd Love to See Check Into Mike White's Resort

If you’ve been on Twitter over the past few days, you’ve probably seen six words dominating the timeline: “Send them to a White Lotus.” What started as a one-off joke about The O.C. cast deserving a messy resort stay has since morphed into a week-long meme, with fans speculating about what The White Lotus would be like if the GTL-loving Jersey Shore crew or the Upper East Siders of Gossip Girl stopped by for a visit.

In the spirit of the meme, we’ve come up with five casts that would thrive at Mike White’s fictional resort. Fair warning, though: If the first two seasons are any indication, a few of these beloved TV characters would likely end up dead.

The Sopranos

Even without Michael Imperioli, The White Lotus and The Sopranos seem to share some of the same DNA. Both shows center on Italian-American characters and raise questions about generational differences, the sacrifices required in a marriage, and the limits of our own self-determination. How much are we to blame for our problems, and how much can be ascribed to our parents and the environment we grew up in? If only Dominic (Imperioli) had someone like Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) to help him search for answers.

How They Get There: When Carmela (Edie Falco) catches Tony (James Gandolfini) watching a History Channel documentary about the construction of the ancient theater in Taormina, she begins dropping hints about finally going on that Italian vacation. Paulie (Tony Sirico), Silvio (Steven Van Zandt), and Chrissy (Imperioli) tag along, claiming they have “business” nearby.

Girls

If you think Shane (Jake Lacy) made a scene about the Pineapple Suite, just wait until Marnie (Allison Williams) makes her way up to The White Lotus reception desk. Whenever the girls of Girls traveled together, all hell broke loose — just look at the Season 3 episode “Beach House,” in which Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) dressed down each of her friends with remarkable specificity (“Jessa goes to rehab for five f*cking seconds and we have to listen to everything she comes up with?” remains an all-timer). These white, privileged, and totally unself-aware women will fit right in with the rest of the horrible people at The White Lotus Resort & Spa, even if they’ll take a page out of Olivia Mossbacher’s book and pretend to hate their opulent surroundings.

How They Get There: Shoshanna attends a live taping of The View and wins a free trip to The White Lotus Aruba.

Community

By and large, the ensemble players of Community are less privileged than the other characters on this list, but they might be the most entertaining if let loose in a world of unlimited drinks and endless buffets. Picture this: As Jeff (Joel McHale) lounges by the pool and hits on every woman passing by, Britta (Gillian Jacobs) convinces a reluctant Annie (Alison Brie) to help stage a protest against the resort’s use of plastic straws, while Abed (Danny Pudi) and Troy (Donald Glover) turn their suite into a massive fort. #SixSeasonsAndAMovieAndAResort

How They Get There: After completing his sail around the world with LeVar Burton, Troy invites his friends on an all-expenses-paid trip to the new White Lotus hotel in Singapore.

Veep

Like Girls, Veep’s “vacation” episodes tended to go awry in spectacular fashion (but then again, what didn’t?). A trip to Camp David over Christmas famously ended in a mix-up involving a perceived mother-daughter make-out. The following season, Selina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) Confederate flag-ified Gary’s (Tony Hale) 40th birthday in Alabama in hopes of impressing a donor for her library. It’s almost as if Selina and her entourage are even more unhinged outside the confines of Washington, D.C., making them ideal White Lotus guests. Of all of these ensembles, it would be the least surprising for someone from Veep to turn up dead at the resort, though Selina is so self-absorbed that it would probably take her days to notice.

How They Get There: With her poll numbers flagging, Selina sets out to win the votes of a large community of American citizens living in Greece. She hosts a lavish reception at the resort, but alienates the potential voters by declining to invite them.

Succession

We know very little about The White Lotus Resort’s corporate structure — who’s to say it’s not one of the many embattled properties in the Waystar Royco empire? We’ve seen plenty of instances of impropriety and misconduct over the past two seasons of The White Lotus (Armond’s relationship with Dillon comes to mind) that feel strikingly similar to Succession’s cruise scandal, and while we’ve yet to see how executives handle them, a Logan Roy (Brian Cox) style cover-up doesn’t seem completely off the table.

How They Get There: After yet another death at a White Lotus property, Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) advises Logan to temporarily close down the resort — but he requires the staff to stay and serve his entire family and C-suite.

The White Lotus airs Sundays at 9:00 PM ET on HBO.

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Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.