NOTE: This is another old ass post, but like I said in the Puffy article, y’all will be seeing a lot of them over the next few days. I felt the need to present this because over the course of the last year, I watched a lot of fantastic TV shows: Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Abismo de Pasión, etc. The Idol was not one of them.

I’ve been a fan of The Weeknd aka Abel Tesfaye since he came out with the song “Earned It” circa 2015. So when I learned that he was going to have a TV show air on HBO Max that spoke on the dark side of the music industry, I was intrigued. On one hand, I approached The Idol with caution, simply for the mere fact that Sam Levinson was working on the series, and there’s been times that I’ve had to have some down time from Euphoria, thanks to the dark subject matter. Also, Abel’s Dawn FM album had some great songs, but the overall theme of listening to the radio while sitting in purgatory triggered me in the worst way. On the other hand, I love seeing my favorite recording artists break out into acting roles, so I couldn’t stay away once the premiere episode aired. I just told myself that if the show ventured into too dark territory, I’d have to call it quits. It turns out I had nothing to worry about.

A day or two before the premiere, I noticed a lot of folks taking trash about The Idol, but I just figured that they were your standard internet haters and trolls. I still wanted to make my own assessment. The night of Jun. 4, 2023, I watched the first episode, and OMG…it was all over the place. Things were happening, but at the same time, nothing was happening, if that makes sense. The episode had no plot. We witnessed days in the life of music mega-star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), and it wasn’t even interesting. Not only that, but the characters all seemed like awful people. However, I wasn’t ready to write the show off just then. After all, there’s a good many shows that I’m a fan of that had less than stellar pilots (The Golden Girls, Star, Game of Thrones, etc.), and the scenes for the remaining episodes of the series appeared to have some promise, so I decided to give The Idol another try. It turns out the editors were just really good at making a trailer.

There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to why The Idol just didn’t work, so I’m just going to section off my talking points.

A Nearly Non-Existent Plot

Remember how I said the pilot episode consisted of what happens in Joycelyn’s day-to-day? That’s pretty much how the entire show went. The storyline was crazy thin: Jocelyn is an artist that’s struggling mentally and professionally, and she meets an enigmatic club owner that may be more of a bad influence than a positive one. I know what you’re thinking: ”That plot actually sounds interesting, and it has potential.” Yes, it did. But it was executed badly. The story is never fleshed out, and the characters are mostly one note. Also, do you ever notice with TV shows that the side characters normally have their own subplots that tie in with the main one? The Idol didn’t do that. All the side characters were merely the background to Jocelyn and Tedros’s (The Weeknd) foreground. Speaking of the characters…

Unlikable Characters

I don’t think I’ve ever watched a show where I disliked nearly every character in it. They were all shallow, rude, conniving, self-serving assholes. The only characters I could stomach were Leia (Rachel Sennot), Destiny (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), and Chaim (Hank Azaria). I liked Chaim and Destiny because they appeared to be the only people that truly cared about Jocelyn and had some common sense. On top of that, Destiny was also hilarious, and she didn’t play games with no damn nobody. Leia also seemed to genuinely care about Jocelyn, but my heart went out to her due to all the verbal and emotional abuse she had to suffer from damn near everyone one the show, namely Tedros and a few of his cronies. And while we’re on the subject of Tedros…Lord, I couldn’t stand him. Abel claimed that they purposely made Tedros a disgusting character. Honey, if that’s the case, I’m happy to say that you succeeded with flying colors. Everything about Tedros is deplorable, from his nasty ass attitude to his peasy ass wig (yeah, I said it. It was stiff and peasy). And whose idea was it for Abel to wear that damn monstrosity? Y’all took a fine, sexy man and had him lookin’ a whole fool on national TV!  Even his old school “pineapple locs” looked better than that shit! 

I will say this, though; it bugged me whenever folks—on the show or otherwise— referred to that abomination as a rattail. A man (or sometimes a woman) has a rattail when the vast majority of his hair is short, but there’s a long part of it in the very back. Tedros’s hair wasn’t cut short. He’d just always pull it back in a stiff, Godawful looking ponytail that looked like it was made with Dollar General grade weave. 

Gratuitous Sex/Nudity and Horrid Dialog

I’m not a prude. I enjoy hot love scenes, and I’ve seen a few suggestive movies in my day. However, there is such a thing as overdoing it. I mean, if I were watching a soft-core porn movie/TV show, I’d expect random sex scenes. The Idol isn’t supposed to be a soft-core porn show, though (or is it?). The show is supposed to be a serious drama. Yet and still, we see Jocelyn and Tedros gettin’ their freak on every time the mood hit, and it didn’t matter where they were. There’s even a scene where the pair are on their way to go shopping, and Tedros just decides to eat Jocelyn out en route to the store…while they’re in a convertible…in the middle of the day…heading toward Rodeo Dr. (did I mention that Jocelyn is an Ariana Grande level type celebrity? Hell, the fans and paparazzi were ready and waiting for her on Rodeo seconds after she finished getting eaten out!). There’s another scene where Jocelyn is recording a song, and the moans that can be heard in the background weren’t “realistic” enough, so Tedros figures it’s a good idea to finger bang Jocelyn in front of all the engineers, Jocelyn’s team, and Tedros’s cult (yes, he had a damn cult). Wow. I probably wouldn’t mind so much if the sexy scenes were actually…sexy. Tedros and Jocelyn’s intimacy is awkward and dry AF, and the scenes were so frequent that I found myself groaning every time another one aired. And Lord have mercy, the excessive nudity was on my nerves, too. I think I’ve seen more of Lily-Rose Depp than her own parents have. There was always a part where a boob in frame because…reasons.

The dialog was trash, too. During the second episode, Tedros and Jocelyn have to have yet another Fifty Shades of Grey moment, and he hollers out, and I quote, “Just fuckin’ stretch that tiny little pussy. Uuhhhhh.” In the pilot, Leia confesses to Jocelyn that she doesn’t like Tedros because he seems “rapey,” and Jocelyn replies, “I think that’s what I like about him.” I can’t think of a woman—myself included—that would ever say some bullshit like that. There’s also Jocelyn’s staff talking about how “mental illness is sexy,” and the infamous scene I posted where Tedros threatens to curb stomp the Valentino salesman for doing his doggone job. Please stop, y’all.

Storylines That Either Went Nowhere or Made No Sense

Earlier I mentioned that there were no side plots in The Idol, but they tried to have one. They tried. There’s a backup dancer named Dyanne (played by Jennie of the K-Pop girl group, BLACKPINK) who makes an impression on Jocelyn’s no-good ass manager, Nikki (Jane Adams), during a particularly harsh music video shoot. Once Nikki learns that Dyanne can sing as well as dance, it’s on. She goes behind Jocelyn’s back and has Dyanne record the song and even re-shoots the video with Dyanne in Jocelyn’s spot. It turns out that Dyanne is one of Tedros’s cronies—as well as his former lover—and her taking Jocelyn’s place worked out even better than he hoped, seeing as he used Dyanne to get closer to Jocelyn from jump street. Unfortunately, this side story didn’t have the best execution. We see only a few parts with Dyanne acting as a wannabe Jocelyn, and by the time Jocelyn learns the truth, it’s only somewhat interesting.

Then there’s the parts of the story that make little to no sense. After much goading, Tedros gets Jocelyn to admit that she was abused by her late mother. We even have to endure Tedros telling Jocelyn that the beatings she had to stomach were “motivation,” and he takes it upon himself to start beating Jocelyn with a hairbrush (her mother’s weapon of choice) to “push her.” *Sigh* However, during the season finale, Tedros notices the infamous hairbrush in Jocelyn’s dressing room, but it’s brand new. When Tedros mentions this, Jocelyn gives him a smirk. So…what? The abuse was a lie? Did Jocelyn get a brand-new hairbrush similar to the old one to be more “motivated?” The abuse couldn’t have been fabricated, seeing as both Leia and Jocelyn’s creative advisor, Xander (Troye Sivan), both confirmed it. However, some folks deduce that Jocelyn was lying the whole time and Tedros is the real victim (hence, the reason Xander mentioned that Jocelyn would use Tedros like she uses everyone else). Sure… I’m not doubting the people saying that, but in hindsight, it makes very little sense. It’d be more feasible for the hairbrush to be a replica of the old one and a symbol of Jocelyn always pushing herself…although that in itself that spits in the face of real abuse victims.

Wasted Potential

The worst thing about The Idol is that it could’ve been one of the best shows of the summer, if not 2023, and they blew it. The second episode of the show proved that. There’s a scene where Jocelyn is shooting her music video, and at first, she seems to have it all together. She’s just pushing herself to be better because she knows she can be better, which explains the reason she instructs the director to keep reshooting the dance scene. However, the facade quickly fades, and we see that Jocelyn is insecure instead of confident, and three takes soon become 10. Those 10 takes later become 20. The director is irritated that Jocelyn is taking over her job, and the crew starts to feel a way due to precious time being wasted on little phantom issues. Jocelyn eventually starts to break down mentally as well as physically, dancing until her feet bleed (I’m not making this up) and calling out for her deceased mother to help her. This part had my full attention. It was well acted and showed a heartbreaking portrayal of a young woman working herself to outright exhaustion when she should be resting and getting the therapy that she needs. After that scene, I saw some hope for The Idol. Then Tedros popped back up and we got more dry-ass Wattpad fan fiction. What a waste.

Apparently, the show was supposed to have more of a female perspective, which makes perfect sense, seeing as the main character is a young woman. Add on the fact that Jocelyn was struggling with mental illness, grief, surviving abuse, and navigating her way through a dark industry, there would’ve been many women out there that could relate, and the story would’ve been much more compelling. However, Abel figured they were focusing on Jocelyns’ character too much, which caused director Amy Seimetz to leave the project, and the storylines to have a complete overhaul. I’m assuming a 13 yr. old boy took over in the writer’s room after that. ”Here’s my idea for the show: Boobs! Swearing! Dirty talk! More boobs! Sex! Boobs and sex!”

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nHr-WtWNnTE

I believe I watched The Idol in its entirety because deep down I hoped the potential I saw in episode two would be realized in the remaining installments in the series. Or maybe it was because I’m a Weeknd fan, and I just wanted to see what he’d bring to the table week to week, even if the show was less than stellar. The actual reason may be because the show was like a train wreck that I couldn’t look away from. Even though I’ve gotten a kick out of the barrage of memes, parody videos, and thinkpieces this show has inspired, I was sorry to see The Idol be such a dumpster fire.

One life lesson I’m trying my best to comprehend is that failure is a great teacher, and man, there’s a lot of lessons to be learned from The Idol. First of all, if you’re going to have a project about women, have some women in the writers’ room. You wouldn’t pitch a TV show about modern-day teenagers and ask folks my age what it was like being an adolescent in the ’90s, would you? Or vice versa—imagine asking today’s teenagers what it was like to be their age in the ’90s, and all they can tell you is what they’ve seen on YouTube. Sex scenes are cool, but show them in moderation. Having too much of a good thing does exist. Make the sexy scenes sexy! Think Outlander, but more contemporary, of course. And for the love of all that’s good and holy, don’t show boobs every five minutes! Your characters have to have a degree of likability. As for your bad guys, it’s even more memorable if your villains are people you love to hate. See Whiterose, Lalo Salamanca, Ana Leticia (even if you don’t speak Spanish you can tell she’s a hot mess), and Gus Fring (to be honest, Gus and Whiterose were more like villains you hate to love). It also helps to have three dimensional characters. Look at Walter White. He was a character with so many facets that to this very day people make thinkpieces about him. Breaking Bad went off the air over 10 yrs. ago. Lastly—and this is the most important takeaway—PLOT. The plot has to be strong. Not only that, but the storylines must be coherent. Give interesting stories to your side characters as well. That way, the audiences will be engaged and come back for more. Just a little something to think about. 

—Written by Nadiya

So what did y’all think about The Idol? Did you like it? Were you not a fan of the show? If not, what turned you off? The lack of plot? The excessive sex and boobs? The horrid dialog? Did you like any of the characters? What did you think of Tedros’s hair? What do you think The Idol could’ve done differently to become a hit show? Let me know in the comments section!