Though Lani in The White Lotus seemed like she could be a key character in season 1, she ended up making an abrupt exit. The White Lotus episode 1 introduced plenty of characters including both staff and guests, though one character, Lani, surprisingly never returned. HBO's The White Lotus follows the complex lives of the wealthy guests and employees at the exclusive White Lotus resort in Hawaii over the course of a week. As The White Lotus season 1 progresses, the dark nature of the privileged guests’ lives, amorality and exploitation of employees, and imperialist impact on the native Hawaiian culture are slowly revealed.
The introduction of the dynamics among the White Lotus employees to the guests, particularly with the manager Armond, is first seen through the eyes of newly hired Lani (Jolene Purdy). While Armond stresses about The White Lotus’s new arrivals, including the never-pleased Shane and grieving Tanya, he’s also tasked with training Lani, whose name he can hardly remember. By the end of the episode, it’s revealed that Lani has been struggling so hard on her first day of work because she’s actually in labor. After opening with a teaser of a character’s death, The White Lotus’s premiere episode ends with Lani birthing a new life in Armond’s office, only for her to never be seen again.
Lani's White Lotus Exit Was A Subtle Metaphor
Nothing is ever unintentional in The White Lotus season 1, meaning Lani’s prominence in the first episode and absence from the rest of the drama has a higher purpose. On the surface, the reason Lani never returns is that she has a baby in the first episode. She’ll be taking some time off to care for her child, and there’s absolutely no way she would return to work at the resort during the course of the series considering it all takes place within a week.
Additionally, Lani having a baby is just the beginning of the dark drama that will come in The White Lotus season 1, so much so that she’s completely forgotten about by any of the staff or guests. The guests can’t get anything out of Lani when she’s not around, so she’s completely out of sight, out of mind. If her character no longer matters to the guest characters on The White Lotus, there’s no point in following her story. The resort is like its own bubble of ignorance for the guests and once she leaves that bubble it as if she no longer exists to them as she serves them no purpose.
Initially, it can be seen that Lani’s use in The White Lotus’s premiere episode is to set up Armond’s aloofness and disregard for pretty much all people. He’s sick of how he’s treated by the higher management and especially the entitled guests, which means he’s less attentive or kind to his own employees and is primarily high-strung. While Lani thankfully isn’t subject to the critiques and maltreatment of the other employees by the guests, she can clearly see the effects it has on the staff, particularly on Armond by Shane, so it’s possible her first day was also her last when witnessing the utter chaos of only a few hours — having a baby was also a godsend to get her out of this job.
The White Lotus makes it clear that there are very few escapes from the resort for the employees, apparently only being death (Armond), incarceration (Kai), or, in Lani’s case, new life. The employees are disposable caretakers to the entitled guests, so why should it matter to them if Lani had a baby? With how things progressed in The White Lotus season 1 between the guests and employees, Lani is one of the lucky ones who hopefully left her position afterward. With The White Lotus season 2 taking place at an entirely new White Lotus location and focusing on new characters, it offered no further explanation for Lani's disappearance.
Lani Exposes A Deeper Issue With Some White Lotus Characterizations
The disappearance of Lani in The White Lotus can be explained by some of the show's satirical nature, but it can also be seen as part of the show's overall issue when it comes to representing the Natives of Hawaii. The White Lotus is clearly a satire that pokes fun at the oblivious and self-centered nature of these rich, entitled guests. However, some have criticized that the show falls into the same trap of these characters by doing nothing to address the actual issues of the Native Hawaiian people and using any Native characters as plot devices much like the White Locust filming location itself. While this could be argued as being a deliberate meta-commentary or narrative device, that's not how many Native Hawaiian scholars and critics interpret it.
Writer and Hawaii native Mitchell Kuga (via Vox) address their complicated feelings with how the show deals with its native characters like Lani. Just as she is ushered out of the show quickly, the inclusion of Kai comes off as a shallow caricature of an outsider's view of Hawaiians, according to Kuga. Kuga also highlights how The White Lotus' funny moments commenting on white privilege are also used by the show itself to sidestep tackling the nuances of these difficult issues. Kuga points to one scene in which White Lotus character Mark (Steve Zahn) remarks "Obviously, imperialism was bad. But it’s humanity." It pokes fun at his ignorance, but that also serves as the totality of the show's perspective on the issue. Those like Kuga point out that The White Lotus can be as clueless about Hawaiians as the characters it's lampooning.