‘The Idol’ Was So Bad It Just Might Become ‘The Room’ in a Few Years

Now that the first (and maybe only?) season of HBO’s The Idol has concluded, it can appropriately be assessed, and friends? I hate myself for admitting it, but I kind of love this show now. Over the course of its run, it became must-see viewing because every week, it felt like we, the viewers, were in deeply incapable hands steering us through a narrative that maybe at one point had something interesting to say, but any nuance was lost once multiple men’s egos got involved in the filmmaking process. The end result, now that the big reveal of the final episode is out, borders on the precipice of performance art, so much so that I now wonder if The Idol will be regarded as a camp classic in the vein of Showgirls or The Room a few years down the line, once the dust has settled and people embrace it for the “so bad it’s good” piece of trash it just might be.

Spoilers below!

The Idol’s finale was bonkers

So in the final episode, it is revealed with the subtleness of a toddler trying to whisper a secret to you that Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) was in the driver’s seat the entire time (whoa!), making up a story about abuse at the hands of her mother with a paddle brush, in an attempt to lure in Tedros (Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd)—who was already trying to lure her into his cult, by the by—to help her make better music, poaching his cabal of medium-talent singers in the process.

At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what the show was trying to tell us, loudly—albeit with food in its mouth, so it was a little unclear. Just assume I got the gist right. The show ends with Jocelyn making out with Tedros on stage, in front of a crowd of tens of thousands, before telling him, “You’re mine forever. Now go stand over there,” while her management team freaks out because they had spent much of the episode getting rid of Tedros. LOL. Cut to credits.

Now, the show clearly wants you to think this swap in power dynamics at the last minute is actually empowering, as if we didn’t spend the five previous episodes watching Jocelyn get degraded in basically every scene while Tedros was seemingly calling the shots. However, the final episode opens with Tedros drunk, sweaty, and lacking in all power while Jocelyn barks orders at him and the group of singers he moved into her home. It’s a total tonal shift, with no groundwork laid and completely unearned, so you know, I loved it.

See, one of the things that elevates the terrible into the sublime is the complete ineptitude of the people making it; I am speaking specifically here of Sam Levinson and Tesfaye, who—if you believe the rumors, and I do, because this show was a nonsensical trainwreck—completely sidelined the originally planned narrative of The Idol to insert themselves further into it, firing their female director in the process and restarting the show from scratch.

Unearned payoff being treated as a huge gotcha moment in the narrative arc is one of my favorite examples of ineptitude, and The Idol has that in abundance.

Another example of this comes from the finale, as well, when Jocelyn has Tedros’ disciples (who have now switched allegiance from him to her with not one line of dialogue between them to signpost this) Chloe (Suzanna Son), Ramsey (Ramsey), and Izaak (Moses Sumney) perform for her management team, who came to Jocelyn’s home presumably to cancel her tour but are instead absolutely blown away by everyone’s performance skills and music.

This is a hilarious juxtaposition for you as the viewer because you’re sitting there wondering what everyone is on, because the performers and music are just fine. This is not a knock against any of the actors; it’s more an indictment of whoever was in charge of coming up with the original music in the show (*cough* The Weeknd and Sam Levinson *cough*) because sitting here 20 hours later, I do not remember one hook or lyric—not great for a show about a superstar in the music industry, with original songs!

Here’s something else I loved about the show: How a world-class music producer like Mike Dean (played by music producer Mike Dean, meta!) has the time to move into Jocelyn’s home like he did in the last episode and just sit around, smoking, making quips with his producing buddy like they’re Waldorf and Statler from the Muppets. Doesn’t he have places to be?! I mean, I know I do, and I am not even close to being the “best” like Dean is supposed to be! I just apparently value my time more than him!

Let’s talk about the wardrobe because it’s bananas. Jocelyn spends the entire series overdressed and yet underdressed (literally, Depp had to have been cold for most of filming), culminating with her silver sparkle nude dress in the final, where she sings her newest song for her team to save her tour from getting canned while simultaneously dancing on the floor like a fish flopping around on the shore, desperate to get back into the water. You can see a glimpse of the fish dance at 0:17 in this video:

Speaking of inappropriate wardrobe choices, my favorite character is obviously Destiny (Da’vine Joy Randolph), who is part of Jocelyn’s team, because she’s always dressed for a different show that is not The Idol. Business-casual corsets seem to be her go-to, and I love that for both of us. Destiny is also awesome because she just casually mentions killing Tedros multiple times as a means of character-building. (I think?) To be honest, I was always on board with her and this plan, which most likely colors my view of her positively.

We also need to give a special mention to Xander (Troye Sivan), whose entire career was derailed by his frenemy’s (Jocelyn) mom telling him as a child star that he had to give up his career for reasons, as a way to ensure Jocelyn became a superstar, which we established in episode 5. Xander just went along with this plot, and I’m sorry, but I went to a high school in Anchorage, Alaska, a far cry from anything resembling a smash hit kids’ show like Jocelyn and Xander were supposedly on, and even the theater kids in my school would cut a b**** just to get cast as the understudy in the school’s production of Grease.

Xander’s actions are so far out of the realm of anything that resembles the human condition that we either need to embrace it for how unhinged it is or die mad. Before episode 6 tying everything together with the clunkiest bow possible, I would have chosen the latter option, but now, I’m solidly in the former camp. It’s so absurd that it actually works because, as I said, this is not how people act!

Also, there is the rape plot line in the finale that began at the end of the previous episode, where Xander frames Joceyn’s actor ex-boyfriend Rob (Karl Glusman) for a rape he did not commit, and not only is that storyline not resolved, but it is met with a shrug once the news leaks to the media and is not mentioned again. Don’t worry; Xander gets rewarded for his part by being handed the slot to be one of Jocelyn’s opening acts on her tour. This mirrors a plot line from The Room almost exactly (sans tour, obviously) so I’m not saying that The Idol is going to end up being a cult classic like The Room, but it certainly has plot elements it’s borrowing heavily from it.

This plot line only serves to get rid of the “soul” of the show, Leia (Rachel Sennott), who just wants Jocelyn to be a good person and mediocre friend. Goals! Only Leia spends the entire show mooching off Jocelyn, living in her home rent-free, and driving her places while simultaneously offering Jocelyn nothing of value, so I’m not sure how great Leia is. Also, naming a character Leia is … a lot. I know that the name existed before Star Wars, but in the year 2023, naming a character Leia carries so much baggage. Why would you do that?! Don’t question the choices The Idol makes. Just be glad they were made.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention The Weeknd, specifically all the choices he made to play Tedros. First off, the character has a rat tail that is frequently mentioned with derision by other characters. The only man in music that can pull off a rat tail is circa late-eighties Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block, and The Weeknd is no New Kid on the Block. Secondly, we’re supposed to feel like Tedros is some dangerous guy for the run of the series, and yet he is so comically angry almost all the time that it’s hard to take that seriously.

He flies off the handle over nothing, my favorite example of which is when he and Jocelyn go shopping in episode 3, and he corners a poor unsuspecting sales guy and just yells obscenities at him and physically threatens him. We’re supposed to think Tedros is a bad guy, but it’s so overdone that it’s hilarious. Finally, Tedros is universally regarded by the characters in this show as an unholy a-hole but also a genius when it comes to discovering and nurturing musical talent, and as I’ve pointed out, the music in this show is forgettable at best.

Take all of these traits together, and you have a rich tapestry of nothing, and yet? I can’t look away and want eleventy-million more episodes of this show now. As long as everyone is bonkers, the character names terrible, and the clothing choices inappropriate, I’m in!

I think it’s likely that The Idol will go through a renaissance eventually, where people go into the show knowing it’s terrible trash, and embrace it for the train wreck it is. Here’s what we can’t allow to happen if that becomes the case, though: Sam Levinson and The Weeknd acting like they were in on the joke the entire time. It’s clear they were not, and while it was OK to let Tommy Wiseau to revise The Room as if it were a comedy the entire time, we can’t let those two mediocre men pretend their magnum opus to stupidity, feebly attempting to masquerade as something deep, was intended to be a trashy ode to camp. It clearly was not; you only make something this terrible (but also possibly spectacular) if you didn’t set out to in the first place.

History may revise The Idol’s genre, and those two must be held accountable. They made this show with the sincerity of men not understanding their own artistic limits, and holy cats, does it show.

(featured image: HBO)