Few shows have been hyped as adroitly this year as the idolHBO’s sleek new drama from euphoria Creator Sam Levinson and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye. In recent months, the series has been discussed and promoted in the most spectacular way. Heralded by HBO as a “twisted, tumultuous love story.” followers fell off with defining lines like “When was the last bad pop girl really fucking bad?” The show premiered at the Cannes Film Festival – a statement in itself – and Reports from the festival described the show as a work of shock-jock lasciviousness. the idolIt appeared to be a scandal in the form of a prestige drama.
The reality is much more boring.
“Pop Tarts & Rat Tales” the idolis divided into two parts: The first half reads like a one-act play about Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), a pop star of the same name on the day of a PR crisis. This is the best the idol
Over the course of an afternoon, Jocelyn does a daring photoshoot, rehearses choreography for the music video for her new single, and sits down for an interview with Vanity Fair. Meanwhile, in the background, the cogs of modern celebrity revolve around her. An intimacy coordinator has an absurd argument with a manager over nudity on set. PR people discuss how to improve Jocelyn’s image after her breakdown – “Mental illness is sexy,” says one. Finally, a real publicity crisis ensues when a private, explicit photo of Jocelyn surfaces online and her team tries to figure out the best way to handle it before breaking the news to her.
The first half of Pop Tarts & Rat Tales has the beginnings of gripping drama, maybe even dark comedy veep with more nudity: a cynical farce that portrays everyone in an artist’s orbit – from executives to intimacy coordinators to best friends – as amoral vampires who have somehow made themselves necessary to the human they commodify for profit. (In the episode’s darkest and funniest scene, Jocelyn’s team tries to figure out what angle the leaked photo was taken from.)
Unfortunately, Tedros (Abel Tesfaye) arrives to keep Jocelyn and the audience from the show. If the first half of the idolThe premiere is a gritty Hollywood satire, the second half is the dingy love story that the marketing promised but delivered without much conviction. Tedros meets Jocelyn at a club he owns, which is menacingly lit all the time, while whispering to her that being a big pop star means she should have a lot more fun.
To Jocelyn, Tedros is a knife that cuts through the crap, an impulsive and diabolical seducer who has no interest in telling her what she wants to hear. To the audience, he is an obvious manipulator trying to interfere in Jocelyn’s life and art. Most of the time though, he’s just plain boring, that sort of thing the idol
Like the modern work of The Weeknd, which features carefully constructed characters and lavish concerts tuned for a tightly controlled experience, the idol is too over the top to really provoke, arouse, or start a conversation. It surrounds its characters with chaos but doesn’t show that they are chaotic; His transgressions amount to cheap digs at progressives, and his main character has a weakness. Maybe there could be another good TV show here. But right now it just feels like bait.