Vacations are a special time, when you can leave that burden called society behind and dedicate yourself to more narcissistic pursuits. And be pampered — like a baby.

“They wanna be the only child, the special chosen baby child of the hotel,” explains resort manager Armond to a colleague in the first episode of HBO’s The White Lotus, a six-episode miniseries about rich people on vacation in Hawaii. The comedy drama, whose finale airs tonight, is a scathing satire, neatly availing itself of two TV and film tropes: trouble in paradise (say, The Beach) and comedy in a hotel (Fawlty Towers).

What sets The White Lotus and its eponymous resort hotel apart is that it serves as a container for America’s social antagonisms, its guests and staff playing out the drama of class society and its twenty-first century delusions in a tropical idyll. The principal members of the superbly cast ensemble number ten in total. The eight vacationers — a family of four plus friend, a newlywed couple, and a bereaved solo traveler — are avatars of America’s ruling class and its professional adjuncts: self-pitying but vicious, woke and superior. These are complemented by put-upon staff: Belinda, a hotel masseuse, and the manager, Armond.