Note: This article contains spoilers from “The Idol” Episode 2

Last week, “The Idol” held true to its Cannes reputation and shocked audiences on HBO as much it shocked viewers at the film festival. And this week was even more scandalous.

From “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson, Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and Reza Fahim comes HBO’s latest Sunday night drama. “The Idol” follows a pop idol by the name of Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) whose career is in the decline after a recent nervous breakdown. Her desperation to regain fame leads her into the arms of Tedros (Tesfaye), a self-help guru and modern-day cult leader.

The first two episodes of the series debuted at Cannes to mixed reviews. Many called out its use of sex and nudity, criticizing the series for falling into male fantasies. But the drama was already being heavily scrutinized well before its premiere. When it wasn’t being written about for its costly reshoots, a deep dive by Rolling Stone published months before its release described the series as “torture porn.”

Directed by Levinson, Episode 2’s “Double Fantasy” primarily revolves around Jocelyn returning to the stage. But when the music video for the song she hates turns into a living nightmare, this pop star turns to Tedros and his crew for support. Don’t let that straightforward plot fool you; “The Idol’s” second episode was full of jaw-dropping moments:

Jocelyn’s new song started with audio of a woman having sex.

“The Idol” isn’t necessarily one for subtly. When the episode began with Jocelyn (Depp) in a tiny crop top and low rise jeans talking about her new sound, it was clear that sex was on her mind. But when that new song literally started with a woman — presumably her — elaborately moaning, it was a bit on the nose, even for Levinson.

Also Read:
‘The Idol’: Cast and Character Guide to the Divisive HBO Series (Photos)

Jocelyn choked herself again and had an intimate moment with a drinking glass.

While trying to figure out the next step for her song, Jocelyn thought back to her night with Tedros. That memory quickly led to Jocelyn pleasuring herself with her glass full of ice cubes and choking herself. By the way, this was the second time Jocelyn had choked herself while masturbating is just as many episodes. Naturally, she called Tedros to set up a round two in the next scene.

Story continues

The pop star was three hours late to set because makeup had to cover her self-harm scars.

Most of Episode 2 revolved around Jocelyn recording her first music video after her mother’s death and her resulting mental breakdown. As everyone was gauging to see if Jocelyn still has “it,” the pressure was on for this celebrity. But before she even made it to set, Jocelyn was three and a half hours late. In hushed whispers, several members of her team reveal the delay was so that her makeup artist could cover up the self-harm scars on her thighs.

The HBO series didn’t shy away from Jocelyn’s self-inflicted injuries. After a particularly athletic take, Jocelyn threw in the towel for a second and took off her shoes, revealing her bloodied feet and opening her bloody thighs.

The Idol (Photo Credit: HBO)

Tedros used a shock collar on one of his followers.

As Jocelyn tried to power through her music video, the episode temporarily checked in on what Tedros was doing, showing us our first glimpse of his headquarters. As half-naked people laid around him, Tedros instructed Izaak (Moses Sumney), a man in a skin-tight suit, to sink lower to the ground. Every time he failed, Tedros shocked him with a collar. Somehow this was all part of Tedros’ plan to turn this ordinary man into a star.

Dyanne was secretly working for Tedros.

Jocelyn may have been unable to complete her music video, but the day wasn’t a complete bust for her manager, Nikki (Jane Adams). After noticing one of the back-up dancers, Nikki asked Dyanne (Jennie Ruby Jane) to sing for her. That impromptu auditions turned into a management offer from Nikki.

The only hiccup in this corporate synergy plan is the fact that Dyanne is working for Tedros. When she mentioned the offer to him, he responded that this deal will help cover what she owes him. Exactly why she owes him and how much remains a mystery.

Also Read:
HBO’s ‘The Idol’ Debuts to 913,000 Viewers

Chloe secretly watched Jocelyn and Tedros have sex.

As Jocelyn and Tedros hooked up in Jocelyn’s bedroom, Chloe (Suzanna Son) watched them from the closet. That’s only one of the shocking moments centered around Chloe. Tedros’ follower also spent most of her time at Jocelyn’s house wandering around naked, including a naked piano performance.

Tedros and Jocelyn’s sex scene was graphic, even by HBO standards.

This time around, the camera didn’t show Jocelyn and Tedros physically having sex, but it didn’t need to. After instructing Jocelyn to put on a blindfold, Tedros told her to bend into certain positions. Filled with extra skimpy lingerie and a whole lot of closeups of Depp’s body, their second encounter blurred the lines between prestige smut and XXX.

Also Read:
‘The Idol’ Had a Blink-and-You’ll-Miss-It ‘Euphoria’ Cameo in Series Premiere

Source link

The post 7 Most Shocking Moments From ‘The Idol’ Episode 2 appeared first on Minds Valley.

Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn.

HBO

hide caption

toggle caption

HBO

Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn.

HBO

The big questions about HBO’s The Idol weren’t quite answered by its super-stylish, yet oddly inert opening episode Sunday.

The series, starring Lily-Rose Depp as a pop star who has come through a mental health crisis and gets seduced by a hipster club owner/self-help guru/cult leader played by Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, drew savage reviews after two episodes debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in France last month.

And a Rolling Stone expose suggesting the show’s producers amped up the nudity and sex to a disturbing degree, turning it into a toxic, male-oriented fantasy, raised concerns about what story, exactly, The Idol was going to tell.

To be honest, there are moments in Sunday’s episode which seem close to that mark. In one scene, Depp’s character, Jocelyn, pleasures herself while choking herself; in another, after a friend tells her Tesfaye’s character Tedros has a “rapey” vibe, the pop star says “I kinda like that about him.”

Of course, there may be women who feel that way about humiliation, pain and sex. But it also feels a lot like the male gaze in action — what a roomful of guys might think a woman’s reaction would be, rather than a choice that feels authentic.

A story that’s rarely subtle

Euphoria creator Sam Levinson is a co-creator and executive producer of The Idol — with Tesfaye and Reza Fahim — while also directing and writing the episodes. So it’s no surprise that some moments in The Idol recall the steamy, sordid vibe Euphoria’s party scenes conjured so well — including a sequence in Tedros’ club where he seduces Jocelyn to the pulsing beat of Madonna’s Like a Virgin (the episode also features the pop star’s handlers comparing her to Britney Spears, in case viewers didn’t catch the incredibly obvious comparisons to real-life, unpredictable blonde divas).

Abel Tesfaye and Lily-Rose Depp.

HBO

hide caption

toggle caption

HBO

Abel Tesfaye and Lily-Rose Depp.

HBO

“Pop music is like the ultimate Trojan Horse,” Tedros tells Jocelyn, unleashing one of a great many lines in The Idol that sound profound but kinda aren’t.

What may be most surprising about The Idol’s debut is how little actually happens in the first episode. The narrow scope of the action reveals a story stuck in a claustrophobic bubble, offering bursts of nudity and sex to distract from how little is actually happening onscreen.

This is a show that dispenses with subtlety, at least in the first episode. Jocelyn’s handlers — including Hank Azaria and Dan Levy — are as vulgar, focused on commerce and oblivious to their client’s pain, as you would expect, even as they try to gauge how she’ll react to news that an explicitly sexual picture of her is public and trending on Twitter.

(Her eventual reaction is so blasé it doesn’t make much sense, especially when she frets later about whether her new single is so pandering it makes her look bad. Isn’t revenge porn worse, especially for a pop superstar?).

Every scene laboriously ladles out hunks of backstory. Jocelyn is aiming for a comeback after what is described as a “nervous breakdown,” possibly brought on by the death of her mother. But the pop star hates the new single her handlers are pushing, feels worn out and unenthusiastic about her work and is ripe for seduction by a dangerous man her assistant/best friend derisively calls “rat tail club guy.”

Some may focus on the bizarrely erotic scene that closes the first episode, where Tedros covers Jocelyn’s head with her robe, whips out a knife and cuts a hole in it where her mouth is (like I said, this show is not subtle). But that moment seems so cartoonishly provocative, that criticizing it feels like playing into the producers’ hands — spreading word about the show by fixating on a moment that’s mostly undercut by awkward storytelling.

Larger concerns unanswered

Still, the larger concerns about The Idol — is it an exploitive male fantasy posing as an empowerment tale, or an ode to power, wealth and fame masquerading as a critique of it — are tough to judge from the first episode. Put simply, not enough happens to truly know where this story is headed just yet.

What is obvious: The inventive and surprising storytelling that made Euphoria so special is nowhere to be seen here. And it will take a heaping helping of that small screen magic to salvage the next five episodes of this too-predictable story.

Source link

The post HBO’s ‘The Idol’ offers stylish yet oddly inert debut episode : NPR appeared first on Minds Valley.

The Idol is about to become the biggest TV show on the planet. I don’t know if it’s any good – those who weren’t at Cannes Film Festival haven’t been given previews of the show at the time of writing, for reasons I’m sure will soon become clear – but I trust critics, and most of them have not just panned it, but eviscerated it.

It’s “the most chauvinistic series in recent memory”, wrote i‘s film critic Christina Newland, one of the unlucky ones present in the Cannes audience, who added: “The entire logic and aesthetic of the programme seems to be driven by a shallow, overinflated egotism on the part of its creators.” Those creators, Euphoria auteur Sam Levinson and Abel Tesfaye (better known as pop star The Weeknd), don’t care that the bulk of the conversation surrounding their six-episode series (described as a “rape fantasy” by an unhappy member of production, more on that later) is pejorative. They just like that people are talking.

Related Article

The drama follows Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), a pop star famous enough to be mononymous but who is worried about staging a comeback following a breakdown. As she prepares to release new music, she falls in love with (or more likely, is groomed by) a creepy, self-help guru-come-cult leader, Tedros (Tesfaye). By all accounts, it’s sleazy and unnecessarily promiscuous, diving headfirst into the world of oversexualisation and exploitation of women it purports to satirise. Scenes include Jocelyn masturbating while choking herself (though crucially, not to orgasm), revenge porn of the pop star with bodily fluids on her face, and frustration about the concerns of an intimacy coordinator.

All this to say, such depravity is bound to draw audiences in, at least for the first episode. Something as widely hyped and then obliterated as The Idol is almost irresistible to television viewers, myself included. It’s why, as young teen I stayed up past my bedtime to secretly watch Skins and Sex and the City. It’s partly why I was pulled in by Game of Thrones and why erotic thrillers – Fatal Attraction, Cruel Intentions, Netflix’s Obsession – are having a moment. Sex sells, and Levinson and Tesfaye are more than willing to flog it.

There’s nothing wrong with that: TV reflects life and sex is an unavoidable, important part of it. What is troubling is the intention behind it. The Idol was originally to be directed by a woman, Amy Seimetz (The Killing), until Tesfaye watched the near-completed series and decided it was “leaning too much into a female perspective”. The entire show was reshot, Seimetz left (reportedly due to scheduling issues) and Levinson took over. According to an explosive Rolling Stone article, the series “turned into a show about a man who gets to abuse this woman and she loves it” according to one crew member. Another source called it “Euphoria season three with pop stars”. Some said Levinson was never on set until Depp and Tesfaye had their first sex scene.

The Idol centers on a self-help guru and leader of a modern-day cult, who develops a complicated relationship with an up-and-coming pop idol (Photo: Sky Atlantic/SEAC)

Morbid curiosity will draw us in to The Idol and there’ll certainly be plenty to talk about. Levinson and Tesfaye see the upset as pearl-clutching nonsense. In response to the Rolling Stone piece, Tesfaye linked to a scene from the show in which his character calls the magazine “irrelevant”. In the Cannes press conference, Levinson said the article made him realise they were “about to have the biggest show of the summer”. At first, the marketing for the show leaned into this egotistical, Andrew Tate-esque attitude, proudly hailing the pair as having “sick and twisted minds”. Post-backlash, newer trailers for The Idol tone down their involvement and ramp up what is left of Jocelyn’s point of view. Too late.

Depressingly, Levinson is probably right: he will have the biggest show of the summer… but for all the wrong reasons. Shock value might get you eyeballs on screens, but it certainly won’t get you respect.

Source link

The post The Idol has been panned as misogynistic and toxic, but it will still be one of the biggest shows of 2023 appeared first on Minds Valley.