Intro

The Idol was initially hyped up as a scandalous, dark, and erotic new must-see from director Sam Levinson and musician The Weeknd (who is using his real name, Abel Tesfaye) but it turned out to mostly just be… a boring mess. So what went wrong? (And did anything go right?)

The behind-the-scenes issues began early on in production, and only grew as shooting went on. Original director Amy Seimetz was dropped from the project, with Levinson and Tesfaye taking over everything. Levison had already been hit with charges of poor creative direction on his previous sets, especially Euphoria, and had been called out for the often gross way he handles female characters. So as rumors started to swirl about The Idol’s problematic new direction, audiences began preparing for the worst.

Leading up to the premiere, everyone was expecting a scintillating, debaucherous deep-dive into the dark heart of fame and sex cults… but instead were greeted with a slowly paced, poorly written swim in the shallow end of Hollywood’s most boring pool. And then as season one was nearing its end, the show was hit with rumors of being canceled by HBO mid-season due to backlash and low viewership…

But, thankfully, there are also a few good parts of the show that managed to survive through all of the drama and destruction. So today we’re taking a look at everything that went wrong behind the scenes, what actually went down on the show, and the few bright spots that do exist.
The show was beset with issues from the very beginning, with Levinson and Tesfaye butting heads with the original director Amy Seimetz. The drama really kicked off when the pair decided that Seimetz had taken the show too off course from their “vision” and usurped control, despite nearly 80% of the show having already been shot. Allegedly, Tesfaye in particular felt that the show was focusing too much on the “female perspective” of Lily Rose-Depp’s popstar Jocelyn and her experience, instead of on his pimp-turned-cult-leader character Tedros. So the show got a huge creative overhaul through crew changes and very expensive reshoots that completely altered the story (arguably for the worse) with one anonymous crew member telling Rolling Stone, “It went from satire to the thing it was satirizing.”

CH 1: Problems from day one

This new change in direction saw the focus shift from Jocelyn dealing with her trauma , working to overcome the challenges of the predatory industry she was in, and reclaiming her own agency to… a boring torture-porn-adjacent fantasy where Jocelyn actually enjoys the abuse and it makes her a better, more successful artist. This was met with objections both from the audience who had been excited about the show and people behind the scenes, with another production member telling Rolling Stone, “It was like any rape fantasy that any toxic man would have in the show — and then the woman comes back for more because it makes her music better.”

While Levinson has remained pretty quiet about the blowback to the series, The Rolling Stone exposé definitely hit a nerve for Tesfaye – who posted a pointed, unaired clip with the caption “Rolling Stone did we upset you?” (from a scene which, interestingly, never actually appeared on the show…) Tesfaye has been continually upset about the negative reception the show and his acting in particular have been receiving, doling out catty responses to the few people on Twitter who actually cared enough about the show to tweet about it in any capacity. Some have questioned if Tesfaye’s intense reaction is because Tedros is a closer mirror to himself than he might want to admit openly – Jocelyn’s home in the show is even Tesfaye’s real life house. And while many of Jocelyn’s struggles seem obviously lifted directly from Britney Spears’ life, some viewers have also pointed out parallels to Tesfaye’s ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez – Jocelyn is an ex-child star who had a falling out with her also-a-child-star ex-best friend who didn’t receive the same recognition and has an over-the-top-sexual comeback song, among other things.

Sam Levinson himself is no stranger to behind-the-scenes controversy. His hit show Euphoria was allegedly rife with on set drama, much of it apparently caused by his lack of preparedness. According to reports, working days often stretched to over 15 hours because Levison would show up without a shot list and essentially just wing it. He’s also received a lot of criticism for the intensely sexualized way he portrays many of the characters in his shows. But even given all of his issues, stars like Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney have sung his praises as a director, with Lily-Rose Depp even saying that she’s never “felt more supported or respected in a creative space, [her] input and opinions more valued.”

Given all of the behind the scenes drama ahead of the release, and promo from HBO calling it “sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood,” people went into the show expecting a truly off-the-wall, salacious experience. Seeming to confirm everyone’s concerns, the show opens with a scene in which popstar Jocelyn is very unhappy to be told that she can’t have her nipples out at a photoshoot. An intimacy coordinator points to the contract she had previously signed stipulating how much nudity she wanted to do during shoots – but now she’s changed her mind. The intimacy coordinator is eventually locked in a bathroom so that he can no longer “interfere” with Jocelyn’s “art.” The whole scene is pretty clearly direct commentary from Levison on the assertions that he had too much nudity in Euphoria. And this is essentially the theme for the rest of the show – a very watered down, Hollywood version of “feminism” where buying into the male gaze is Actually So Powerful because it’s secretly how Jocelyn shows she is in control.

CH 2: Aiming for scandalous, landing on… boring

As the seedy cult leader Tedros works his way into Jocelyn’s life, eventually moving in and taking over her house and career, Jocelyn’s apparent desire to give in to his spell is occasionally punctuated by her standing up for herself in a way that Tedros has clearly never had to deal with before with the others he’s drawn into his circle. For most of the show, this just feels like Levinson occasionally remembering that he should put in some Female Agency to take the edge off of the torture porn scenes (like when, in front of the rest of the cult, Tedros beats Jocelyn with the hairbrush that she just shared her mother used to abuse her with.) But eventually reveals itself to be a key part of Jocelyn’s character.

The show drifts on this way, with style-over-substance scenes of people having boring conversations in Jocelyn’s big, empty house diverting into random violence and then back like nothing happened. It’s meant to be a commentary on the way these people trapped in this horrible industry are willing to put up with the worst things for the chance to achieve the next level of success, but it always falls flat due to the murky, ill-defined nature of most of the character’s motivations.

We do see Jocelyn’s darker side peak out more and more as the show continues, hitting an apex when she eggs Tedros on as he shocks Troye Sivan’s Xander into submission with a dog collar. It’s the first real glimpse we get at the “true” Jocelyn that’s been lurking underneath the surface, and soon she’s taking full control – she assumes command of Tedros’ cult, leaving him grappling to regain some power. She fully gains the upper hand during the groups’ performance for the record label, in which she declares that they’ll all be opening for her and Tedros is no longer needed (leading to him being exiled and having all of his dirty laundry aired to the public.)

Throughout the show, there is a clear attempt to make the point that the Industry figures, like Jocelyn’s managers and label heads, are just as bad as Tedros in many ways. Tedros may run a creepy sex cult, but the music industry bigwigs are also totally fine with perversion if it’ll sell. They even spend a lot of time pointing out that they actually think even if he is harming Jocelyn, it might be worth it if it turns a profit. Under more adept creative control, this could have been used to make an interesting commentary on the way that the music industry functions very much like a cult, leading to many of the same terrible things, but is accepted because it makes a lot of people a lot of money.

But Levinson and Tesfaye seem to have identified with Tedros a little too much and so as he loses control, the other characters’ evil is ramped up in an attempt to make him look not so bad in comparison, going so far as to have the main industry execs literally doing a group Evil Laugh as they make fun of how much they totally destroyed him. And the show ends with the reveal that Jocelyn was actually an evil mastermind all along, faking her story to pull Tedros in and now, again, brings him back into her circle to hold him captive. The show seems to agree with Tedros that it was worth all of the pain Jocelyn went through because in the end it leads to the biggest success of her career. And there seems to be a larger implication that the trauma is good for everyone that sticks it out, because they, too, are willing to give up large parts of themselves in their quest for glory.

In better creative hands, the story of Jocelyn getting pulled into (and eventually coming to control) a cult could have been a really engaging commentary on pop stars and cults of personality. But instead it spent too much time falling flat while trying to shock the audience with bad sex scenes, cringe-inducing sex talk, and poorly done attempts to ‘subvert expectations’. After all of the drama and gossip about the possible scandalous content the show might display, at the end of the day its biggest crime was really the lost potential.

Despite the bad press, the show definitely does have some redeeming qualities. While Tesfaye’s attempt at acting has (rightfully) drawn a lot of criticism, both for being bad and poorly copying better performers, others gave capable performances. Lily-Rose Depp did her best to make Jocelyn feel like a real, lived-in character despite the weak script. Da’Vine Joy Randolph (once her character finally becomes more involved in the plot) does a great job conveying a music manager who does on some level care about her client, but at the end of the day is willing to put up with a lot of insanity if it might lead to success. Indie queen Rachel Sennott isn’t given much to do except get yelled at for being annoying for having reasonable concerns but still manages to pull bring some humor to the show as the only character that doesn’t seem to have become twisted by the darkness of the industry and is able to see things for how crazy they really are.

CH 3: Redeeming qualities

While Jocelyn’s music might be an acquired taste, the musical talent present in the cast is undeniable. Chloe and Izaak, two members of Tedros’ cult that go on to open for Jocelyn, are incredibly talented singers. And while Troye Sivan is relegated to sitting around looking grumpy for a large part of the show, he does eventually get to showcase his talents as well! Blackpink’s Jenni was a huge draw for the show, so it was disappointing to find that she barely had any screen time at all. But when we did get to see her perform, it was clear why she’s a star. Finally, there’s Levinson’s singular saving grace: nice visuals. As poorly done as the show might have been in many respects, it was generally very visually appealing. Just as with Euphoria, he manages to cover everything in a beautiful wrapping that almost makes you forget about the other problems… almost.
People were surprised when it was announced that the fifth episode would be the season finale, not the sixth, with rumors of pre-finale cancellation by HBO quickly swirling. In reality, it actually had been released that there would only be five episodes in total months earlier, it just seems that not everyone got the memo. But watching the show, especially the finale, it really does feel like there’s a missing episode that could help to explain so many things, like why Jocelyn so quickly turned on Tedros. Which is just yet another piece that leaves viewers wondering what could have been.

Conclusion

After lots of gloating about how the premiere ratings were sooo good and even out paced Euphoria after a week, the celebration quickly quieted down as more episodes dropped and each seemed to have pulled in fewer views than the last. There were initial concerns among critics that hate watchers would give the show enough of a ratings boost to get it a second season, but it seems like not even the hate watchers held on until the end. So given that, plus all of the show’s other problems and poor reviews, it looks like renewal is still very much on the fence. In the end, the show didn’t become a scintillating must-see or so-bad-it’s-good dumpster fire that people couldn’t look away from – it missed so many marks that people started forgetting about it while it was still on the air. Given Levison’s inability to handle criticism (going so far as to write an entire film just to complain about one bad review) it’s hard to imagine he’ll learn anything from this show’s failures. Tesfaye may return to the lane where he is capable and successful, real life music, and leave acting behind. And, hopefully, all of the real talent in front of and behind the scenes that got swept up in this show’s months-long mess will be able to use it as a jumping off point for bigger and better things.