It’s barely July, and The Idol is already over.
The series, created by Sam Levinson, Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and Reza Fahim, ended its first season Sunday night with a finale so disorienting that Levinson’s prediction that his latest creation would be “the biggest show of the summer” now seems ridiculous. Conversations around The Idol, which has been met with derision ever since its premiere at Cannes in May, made me wonder if it was, in some twisted way, worth watching. Current speculation about its renewal has altered the question: Is any part of it salvageable?
The Idol’s problems aren’t limited to its gratuitous nudity or juvenile eroticism. The show is dogged by a thin plot and an incoherent narrative. Storylines are blithely picked up and discarded, their remains haunting attentive viewers. Character development? Who needs it. The show is suspiciously incurious about its gallery of maladjusted personas. The acting leaves much to be desired, as does the haphazard pacing. There’s an unintentional aimlessness to the series, which contradicts its projected confidence. Each episode searches for a tone; none manages to feel less clumsy than the last.
And yet the season contains some inspired bits — glimmers of what The Idol could have been.
Take the finale, the faux-ominously titled “Jocelyn Forever.” Mirroring the pilot, the episode opens with our star at the center of a room again. The camera zooms in on Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), surrounded by a team tasked with remaking her image. They look a little different now, though. The invasive photographer barking commands, the diffident intimacy coordinator, the label executives and the crew of production assistants have been replaced by a producer (Mike Dean playing himself), a songwriter (the artist Ramsey playing herself) and the other artists who’ve been living in Jocelyn’s mansion for who knows how long.
With her hands clasped around a standing mic, the singer croons the lyrics of her latest single, a sultry pop song that is supposed to reflect her recent experiences. Her voice stretches each lyric and her eyes hint at a dormant defiance. This is Jocelyn’s reintroduction: She’s always been in control — of her image, her life and her body. If this were a different show, the moment would land with a clever shock, upending The Idol’s premise to say something about the machinations of celebrity.
Instead, Jocelyn’s transformation feels like a cheap thrill. The show wants us to believe she was never a pawn — that the first couple of episodes, in which her fragility is most apparent, were part of a broader con. (Levinson and Tesfaye have giddily hinted at this during The Idol’s press cycle.) But it’s hard to buy a change so sudden.
The bulk of Jocelyn’s pivot happened in “Stars Belong to the World,” a bizarre, kitchen-sink fourth episode that includes tears, torture and tension between Jocelyn and Tedros (Tesfaye). In it, the pop star learns that her record label offered back-up dancer Dyanne (Jennie Kim) her single, and stumbles upon the real reason she met Tedros that night at his club. What seemed serendipitous was actually calculated.
The news maybe breaks Jocelyn’s heart and definitely activates her anger. Yet in pursuing this new thematic thread (the vengeful pop star), the show replaces its earlier questions about complicity — both the viewer’s and that of Jocelyn’s team — with equally basic ones about power and domination. The star, we are told through blunt dialogue, is not who we were led to believe. But of course she’s not. We never really knew Jocelyn, who was presented as an amalgamation of projections. At the start of the show, the singer is trying to remake her image, not out of a sense of duty to herself, but so she can sell tickets. Jocelyn — like her fans — is a serf to fame.
That fourth episode introduced several things worth digging into: Jocelyn’s relationship to Dyanne and her creative director Xander (Troye Sivan) hint at a more sinister side of celebrity, and raise meaningful questions about the star’s motivations. What does Jocelyn gain by putting her friends, some of whom are more talented than she is, on her payroll? How does that maintain the current system, ensuring that it works exclusively for her?
The Idol frequently forgoes its most interesting threads to explore the inert dynamic between Jocelyn and Tedros. Their relationship and its supposed profundity are repeatedly thrust upon us. But, while we come to understand that neither Tedros nor Jocelyn can be trusted, we don’t learn enough about them to make their relationship inspire any feelings.
Wouldn’t it have been more exciting to observe Jocelyn’s manager Destiny (an ace Da’Vine Joy Randolph), a straight-talking boss, or to learn about musician Izaak (Moses Sumney), whose magnetism becomes a running gag? Or Chloe (Suzanna Son), the brilliant singer whose haunting voice dominates the song “Family” at the end of episode 2? And whatever happened to Vanity Fair reporter Talia (Hari Nef)?
Studying any of these characters might have led to more robust storytelling. It might have also clarified anything that happened in the finale, which felt like the conclusion to an altogether different show. Between shots of Tedros tweaking and Jocelyn icing him out, The Idol manages to address its raison d’être: the fate of Jocelyn’s tour.
After the studio session in the first scene, the pop star summons her crew, which includes executives Andrew Finkelstein (Eli Roth) and Nikki Katz (Jane Adams), to the house. Déjà vu sets in as they echo their behaviors from the pilot: They make cutting remarks about Jocelyn’s mental health, worry about shareholders breathing down their necks and fret about sunk costs. There’s a more chaotic and frenzied energy to this meeting as the suits mingle with what has effectively become Jocelyn’s cult.
The script tries to make up for the rushed pacing by wrapping up its major points with throwaway one-liners: “Never trust someone with a rattail”; “Tedros, I’m done with you”; “You don’t think people are capable of hiding who they really are?”
A time jump to six weeks in the future brings us to the first night of Jocelyn’s tour. The singer, dressed in a sheer, white high-neck gown, has recovered her reputation and is back in the glow of the spotlight. “Hello, angels,” Jocelyn says to her fans, co-opting Tedros’ language from the premiere. The unwavering strength of her voice and the flick of mischief in her eyes make you almost want to stick around and see what happens next.
"Hollywood" - Google News
July 04, 2023 at 12:05AM
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Critic’s Notebook: Is ‘The Idol’ Worth Saving? - Hollywood Reporter
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