The Idol spends its entire second episode, “Double Fantasy,” hooked on the single fantasy that Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) will magically overcome her mental illness and be able to film the music video for “World Class Sinner.” The dream is dead the moment Joss wobbles onto set, wearing heels that can’t support the weight of the superstar’s ego.
And yet, we’re forced to stay at the video shoot with Joss and her team for half the episode, watching the poor girl crush her toes until they’re bruised and leaking pus, fall crotch-first into the arms of exhausted (and “overly femme”) male strippers, and spiral completely into emotional disrepair. Sam Levinson is kind enough to replay this disarray over and over again for us, until the point is drilled into our minds: Jocelyn is struggling to make this video, and herself, perfect.
There’s nothing wrong with this plotline—in fact, the first 10 minutes of the music video shoot are an enthralling peek into the not-so-glamorous (but still aesthetically pleasing) life of a pop star. Then things become tedious. Every three minutes, another character is required to remind the entire cast that Joss’ mom died. It gets to the point where even Talia (Hari Nef), the Vanity Fair journalist profiling the star, is reminding Jocelyn’s own team of this. “I also think Jocelyn’s context is important here,” she says, “because her mother died of cancer. She had a very public breakdown. She was cheated on by someone who loved her. She’s down.” We get it!
It’s easy to take this music video breakdown as the umpteenth sign that Joss is grappling with the death of her mom a year ago—she even cries about having “never done this without her before.” But Jocelyn’s painful performance on set would be much more complex and interesting if watched through the lens of her inability to process criticism—which may give too much credit to Levinson, who has his own issues with criticism, anyways.
The shoot follows after Jocelyn experiences major rejection, creatively. Jocelyn’s team has been pressuring the pop star back into the limelight, and even though they think this new single is a “giant fucking hit” in the making, Joss doesn’t like the vibes. Instead, she remixes the track with Tedros (Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd), amping up with sexual moans and groans. Her team, after hearing it, passes on it as not “commercial.” Jocelyn then pouts in her room with a cigarette.
After hours spent on-set trying to nail the choreography, Jocelyn’s team—particularly Nikki (Jane Adams), a record label exec—gives up. Nikki instead inquires about the wonderful dancer that keeps checking up on Joss. That’s Dyanne (Jennie Kim of Blackpink), a backup dancer who’s pals with Joss. After singing a bit of “World Class Sinner” to her during a break from filming, Nikki secretly gives the song to Dyanne instead, asking her to record vocals for the track.
Dyanne isn’t the doe-eyed wannabe pop star we think she is, though. Later in the episode, we see Tedros in what is clearly a cult based in a club, telling a disgruntled Jocelyn on the phone that he knows “there’s a powerful voice down inside you” that he wants to “reach down and pull it out.” As he talks to her Dyanne sits across from him. It’s all a set-up. Dyanne is going to use Tedros to manipulate Jocelyn into self-destruction; then, she’ll rise from Jocelyn’s ashes as the real superstar. Tedros will negotiate her record deal, as her manager, and profit off this too. This is the first real exciting development in The Idol, and I’m especially glad to see the K-pop star stepping into what seems like such a large role.
But the episode instead focuses on the more agitating Jocelyn storyline. She’s still panicking over disappointing everyone watching and working with her. Multiple people, from both of her co-managers (Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Hank Azaria) to Tedros, tell her that everyone around her only makes money because she’s famous. That means it’s important for her to keep her career going. “None of these people would be here or employed without you,” Destiny (Randolph) insists. Really, that’s not true. Jocelyn’s listeners are employing these people, not Jocelyn herself, who can’t manage to stay afloat. It’s hard to watch her sink under—does anyone actually enjoy watching women endure psychological and physical abuse?
Plus, none of those people would be employed without the state of whatever fantasy pop music landscape The Idol exists within, where sexuality sells more than any other ethos. The current top song on the Billboard Hot 100 is “Last Night” by controversial country singer Morgan Wallen. Next is “Karma” by Taylor Swift, with sexy lyrics such as, “Karma is a cat purring on my lap ‘cause it loves me.” This show would make far more sense in a world where stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are still on top.
After Jocelyn is sent home—and I breathed a sigh of relief, watching her sink into bed—she invites Tedros over. He brings his posse, including Izaak (Moses Sumney), Chloe (Suzanna Son), who roam Jocelyn’s mansion. Chloe immediately strips down to her bare body to hop in one of Joss’ two pools. Izaak and Jocelyn’s assistant Leia (Rachel Sennott) flirt a few rooms over, which feels a lot like the “distract the assistant” game that Haley Lu Richardson and Leo Woodall played last season in The White Lotus. “He’s very godly,” Izaak tells Leia of Tedros, in an attempt to hush her anxieties about the cult-like “family” invading her boss’ life.
Jocelyn and Tedros have sex, and it’s an experience that is hard to put into words. She asks him to tie up her face with a rope; he slips a silk bandana over her eyes—what? He makes her imagine she’s being fucked, saying things like “You can feel me entering you” from across the room, even though he’s not touching her. I understand these scenes are not supposed to be sexy to viewers (or maybe they are, which is even worse, because they’re failing to be enticing at all), but watching them feels so gross—there’s no artistry, just explicit language. The idea that celebrities are fragile and cults are bad is already hammered into our heads, so I fail to see the upside or intention of viewing such a morbid fantasy.
We end the episode on Chloe singing a tune that is supposed to be better than Jocelyn’s tired pop songs. Her voice is beautiful, but judge the lyrics for yourself: “Eyes like the ocean or a great big blue sea,” Chloe sings. “That’s my family, we don’t like each other very much.” I thought the TikTok-level pop song “World Class Sinner” was irritating last week—now I’ve learned to appreciate it, because things are getting worse.
I’m done with Jocelyn’s freak show. Let Jennie Kim sing. Let her take over.
The Sam Levinson of It All
Sam Levinson, who has already drummed up quite a bit of controversy thanks to his past works like Euphoria and Malcolm & Marie, is the creative “visionary” behind The Idol. Here are the moments we thought really show the audience the man he is.
-Tedros tells Jocelyn what we’re all thinking: “Try not to smoke too much.” What musician’s team is going to allow their big star to chain smoke all day long? But we need to see her smoking, so we know how much of a bad girl she is.
-Jocelyn and her team pull up to the studio to shoot the music video. “Do you ladies have ID?” the security guard asks. Groan: Jocelyn inches her sunglasses down. “My apologies,” the guard replies, opening the gate. How much more cliché can you get?
-Some props to Sam Levinson here, for writing this line that feels akin to his better works: “His name is fuckin’ Tedros Tedros?” Chaim (Azaria) asks, trying to get more information out of Leia. But Leia can’t give them too many details: “He’s a person of color.” That’s it. “What kind of color? Is he Hawaiian?” Chaim shoots back. Leia continues to babble about how he’s a “person of color,” instead of just saying that Tedros is Black. These lines feel so uniquely Rachel Sennott that I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually wrote them herself.
-When Joss is down, Chaim tries to cheer her up with some cheeky exposition. He first saw her perform at Fox Hills Mall when she was 11 years old, where she sang “Fever” (presumably the song by Peggy Lee). The audience “went so crazy, they wanted you to sing it again,” Chaim recalls. This reaction was for an 11-year-old singing in a mall. What an absurd image. Write this down in your list of “things that never happened.”
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