The Idol: Sifting Through the Rubble
HBO and A24’s latest collaboration, spearheaded by Euphoria creator Sam Levinson and Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, had a very brief span of just five episodes, but more than left its mark during its runtime. You’ve probably heard of it in the last few weeks and perhaps not for reasons its creators would have intended. A 5.0 score on iMDB tells its own story, but it’s my belief that nothing is created with the intent of being bad, and productions rarely get this far if they don’t have something good to offer (as much as the opposite may seem true at times). So what can we derive from The Idol?
I first came across this show via a billboard depicting the promotional art for the show and upon revisiting this, one could argue the show delivers on what is promised within the image. The Weeknd looking well-dressed while being in sunny LA was more or less enough to sell the show to me and we do get this in abundance, although we perhaps don’t get enough variance in location as we’re confined to Jocelyn’s house for a very large part of the show. The image possesses bright, rich colours, which the show delivers upon, with its cinematography perhaps its strongest trait. The camera makes use of and brings out the best of its cast and its locations, with every shot looking well-crafted and void of any muted/dull tones. Finally, we get the tagline: “We All Crave Things That Aren’t Good For Us”. Heavy-handed? Maybe, but we shouldn’t complain, as its a declaration of theme & trajectory for us to refer back to during a show that can at times seem void of either. It’s a tagline that is explored in multiple ways throughout the show as the ‘us’ as it turns out, can apply to both of the show’s leading characters.
The Idol tells the story of Jocelyn, an up-and-coming pop star, trying to bounce back from a traumatic point in her life, who ends up in a relationship with controlling self-help guru and nightclub owner, Tedros. Portrayed by The Weeknd, Tedros initially appears as a positive influence in her life, pushing her to re-record her new signal and utilising experimental (and BDSM-esque) methods to elicit a vocal performance that Jocelyn is more happy with. Over time though, Tedros exerts more and more control in her life, seemingly appointing himself as her manager, berating and excluding her friends, all the while attracting the unease of Jocelyn’s acquaintances.
The Weeknd’s acting was subject to much scrutiny throughout the show’s run. The sleaze, musical ear, and dominating aspects of Tedros’ character I found were communicated quite effectively, although the characterisation was frequently undercut by some lines of dialogue that aim to be shocking/offensive but purely come off as cringe. Some of the facial expressions produced by Tesfaye also stand out among the more amusing aspects of the show.
Lily-Rose Depp’s performance as Jocelyn is multi-faceted and mostly strong, although the canonical improvement in her singing abilities is never fully actualised (she gives stronger performances on the show’s accompanying EPs). The biggest issue is that we’re rarely let inside Jocelyn’s mind, with shifts in her attitude, mainly towards Zander and Tedros, occurring without any build-up and giving the impression that there were scenes in between that were left on the cutting room floor. One reason for this could be that a deep dive into the show’s pre-production reveals that The Weeknd and Sam Levinson feared the original script leaned too much into a ‘female perspective’, and this evidently resulted in the over-correction we’ve seen that ultimately portrays Jocelyn as a master-manipulator, rather than a troubled starlet fighting the industry to reclaim her own agency.
The acting of the all-round cast was to a decent standard. Hank Azaria, Eli Roth, and Jane Adams turn in energetic, high-presence performances as industry figures, though the portrayals often come off one-dimensional and at worst cartoon supervillain-like in the show’s final scenes. Da’vine Joy Rudolph gives a more nuanced performance as Jocelyn’s co-manager Destiny, showing a maternal protection over her and in turn a coldness towards Tedros, while also showing a sympathetic side towards those that have fallen under his spell.
The acting turns from Tedros’ following are largely strong, particularly when showing off their singing talents, though their characterisation becomes muddled as the show can’t seem to decide whether or not to commit to the cult aspect of the story. Troye Sivan as Xander, childhood friend of Jocelyn, also puts in a genuinely stunning performance in the penultimate episode as his character is tortured by Tedros with a shock collar.
Jennie Kim appears as a backup dancer to Jocelyn who orchestrates her meeting with Tedros in the first place. As a Blackpink fan myself, I’d liked to have seen her character, Dyanne, get a bit more screen-time, though I did appreciate seeing her crush some choreography in the first two episodes. Perhaps the best cameo however comes from record producer Mike Dean, playing himself, as it’s very much believable that no one told him he was acting in a series and he sincerely just showed up to make some music. The only issue is it’s not once explained how Tedros, the nightclub owner, happens to know him, rather, we just have to accept that he’s here because The Weeknd, The Weeknd knows him. Still, the show’s better for it.
The Idol isn’t afraid to delve into some sinister themes, much more afraid to use them appropriately. The abuse suffered by Jocelyn at the hands of her mother could have been a familiar issue for many stars who enter the industry at a young age, but this merely becomes a point of contention later on as its hinted that Jocelyn has lied to Tedros about several details of the story of her mother. In the penultimate episode, we also get Tedros hatching a little scheme to have Jocelyn’s ex-boyfriend Rob accused of rape by having a ‘suggestive’ photo taken of him with another girl (she stands in front of him on a staircase), all of which works to a both miraculous and mind-boggling effect, as Rob’s career is in the toilet and he’s been ‘digitally replaced’ in the film he’s starring in by the very next episode. Really quite sorry to announce that I didn’t make any of that last part up.
In picking out the highlights of episodes, I would pick out the closing credits. Now bear with me on that one because I know usually people say that just to be mean. The credits act as a showcase for several original tracks created by The Weeknd and Mike Dean, with several cast members of the show featuring, and many of these tracks I found to be very enjoyable. The sounds are very reminiscent of The Weeknd’s After Hours album, cinematic, atmospheric, with sinister undertones. I might say The Idol may have been better existing in the format of a concept album, rather than a show, if I wanted to be really really cynical about things.
Ultimately though, there is a story here. We all crave things that aren’t good for us, and Jocelyn craves the thought of being able to shape her career and output to her own will, something she only feels capable of once she meets Tedros, but she overestimates the respect that a character of Tedros’ nature and background will ever have for her. Tedros craves Jocelyn as a project, an opportunity for creative expression, and a ticket to something big, but he underestimates the industry forces that solely exist to shut out an influence like him.
The extent to which something close to true love ever did exist between the two is unclear, and rather, their reunion come the end may be due to each realising they were only the best version of themselves (or rather what they wanted to be) when they were together. With this in mind, it’s hard to see their re-coupling at the end as anything other than a looming disaster for mankind.
The theme of control plays a large role in The Idol and its one of the clearest ways of tracking the trajectory. At the start, we find Jocelyn with no control over her life, about to lose her tour, unable to contain a photo leak. By allowing Tedros to take control over her life, she is able to build a better creative environment, refine her musical output, and confront the demons in her own past. Once the tour’s won back, she gives the green light for a smear article to be published against Tedros. When the tour comes round, Tedros is a ruined man, with Jocelyn seeming to have taken everything from him. She publicly takes him back on stage*, as an f-you to the management and executives to inform them that they don’t have the control over her personal life they thought they did, before reminding Tedros that she’s now the one in control, telling him to ‘stand in the corner’ so she can do her show.
The building blocks are there which is why I maintain that the intent was never to make a bad show. In the right hands, a story about a walked-over star regaining agency over her life and career may have felt like a triumphant one. What hinders this and makes an ending that should have been a satisfying ending on paper ultimately feel so-so, I feel is down to two things: a lack of impactful moments and a lack of character work.
Regarding the former, this essentially means that the lows weren’t low enough and the highs weren’t high enough. The fact we rarely see characters one-on-one and vulnerable means we don’t feel the weight of their struggles, and on a similar vein, no character at any point in this show seems to be having anything close to a good time (maybe Mike Dean). The fallout of this is that moments that the show has been building up to ultimately feel anti-climactic, for example, the impact of Jocelyn’s best friend resigning as her assistant in the final episode is lessened as we’ve never seen them truly enjoying each other’s company.
With the latter, this show is let down by a lack of likeable characters. As an analogy, HBO’s The White Lotus gets away with having a largely unlikable set of characters by exploiting their biggest vulnerabilities, creating empathy at the very least for them, and showing clearly their biggest flaws, meaning you know what must be resolved for their storyline to be complete, and can anticipate the next steps accordingly. In The Idol, we are sparsely afforded this intimacy with any of the characters, meaning that even as we’re watching it, it’s hard to know what a satisfying ending would look like as we don’t really know any character well enough to know what needs to change for them.
The Idol is a show that is very easy to watch, but difficult to engage with. The visuals and scenery at times are gorgeous, with the show’s final credits a lovely testament to the technical aspects of the show, as well as the work done by the show’s cast. It is these aforementioned issues however, combined with a slow pace, repetitive episode structure, and meaningless sex scene after meaningless sex scene that make it a hard show for audiences to form any real relationship with.
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* Okay, if you’re still here, I’d like to outline my grievances with the performance scene at the very end that seem so petty that it didn’t seem worth putting them in the main body of the text. Nonetheless, here they are.
Jocelyn takes to the stage in this scene, in front of a packed arena, and professes her love for Tedros, whom she promptly brings out to show everyone. Firstly, if you’re bringing ‘the love of your life’ onto the stage, and it’s the same person who just had a vanity fair article published about them, exposing them as a tax fraud and a serial pimp, I’d be seriously surprised if the crowd were as supportive as they seemed to be in the show.
More importantly, let’s talk concert semantics. Now if you’re a singer, you surely don’t come out on stage and just start talking. Everyone knows you ease the audience in with 2 preferably fast-paced songs, then you give it the ol’ “What’s up [LOCATION X], how’s everyone doing tonight?,” prompting rapturous whooping from the crowd at the fact you’ve acknowledged them. Then you give them 2 more songs…and THEN you’re more than free to begin unloading your life story onto them. It’s a tried-and-tested routine and it must be respected!