Was HBO's The Idol really that bad?

13:26Was HBO's The Idol really that bad?

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Idol.

After arriving in a storm of controversy and bad reviews, The Weeknd's sleazy music-industry satire The Idol concluded its five-episode run this past weekend.

In this spoiler-filled conversation with host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, culture writers Nate Jones and Hunter Harris consider whether the show was able to redeem itself in the long run, and how its rocky reception might affect The Weeknd's brand going forward.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: I'm comfortable with us spoiling the show in order to actually talk about what it means, if there is meaning to be found. Nate, I'm going to start with you on this one. You wrote the piece that said, "Hey, The Idol is not that bad. Here's how you might get into the show." You've now had a chance to watch the finale. How are you feeling about your initial take?

Nate: I wrote that story because it was getting so savaged by everybody online and I started to feel bad for it. These are two people I am not generally fans of. I think The Weeknd is fine; I really haven't cared for Sam Levinson's work at all before this. And yet something about the vitriol made me almost want to, like, befriend it — like when there's a kid at school who's getting bullied, and you're like, "No, I'm going to stand up and be this kid's friend." And then you take him home and you're like, "Oh, this kid's maybe a little unpleasant."

WATCH | Official trailer for The Idol:

So I will say that on an individual scene level, I think there are parts of the show that work. I think whenever the show aims for comedy, for industry satire, [or] this kind of black-hearted acidic tone, I think that it lands. When it's trying to do the other half, which is the erotic thriller elements of it, I think those ones kind of don't work. 

Elamin: I think that's a pretty generous reading of it, to say these scenes do have a heart, do have something to communicate. What about you, Hunter? Did the finale work for you at all? 

Hunter: I think the finale was one of the better episodes for the first half of it. I liked more of the music stuff; that is definitely the strength of the show — seeing the performances, seeing people who actually make music for a living like Moses Sumney and Troye Sivan. But then, the stupidest twist at the end. To Nate's point, I didn't think it was as bad as people were saying. The stuff that was going viral, I think, were mostly intentional choices by The Weeknd…. It's just that The Weeknd is not very good at acting that sort of insecurity, maybe. But I think that the twist at the end was just so stupid — like actually, what are we doing here? It seems like such a retrofit: "People think the show is anti-feminist, so we'll make it super feminist." And by making it super feminist, it was not.

WATCH | Official preview for The Idol Episode 5:

Elamin: Nate, is this show a disaster? Is this show trying to be aware that it's a disaster? I mean, there was so much controversy leading up to this show that I kind of feared nothing that actually happens on the screen could live up to the stories that we had before the show actually aired. So you finally arrive at this point where the show comes to air, and the big twist that we're talking about in the finale is we find out that actually Jocelyn, who's been disempowered for this whole show, suddenly has the upper hand over Tedros Tedros. Did the show feel earned to you, or did that ending kind of feel retrofitted to the backlash that it received earlier on in the chaos of the production?

Nate: I think the whole show was probably written and shot before all of that backlash happened, so I don't think it was a purposeful response to that. But I sort of agree with Hunter where it does get at the fundamental flaw of the show, which is we don't really know how Jocelyn feels about Tedros. And the fact that this character was able to do a complete 180 from the beginning of the episode to the end of the episode, and both felt equally plausible character choices?... It's like what Hunter said: the first half of every Idol episode is kind of fun, and the second half of the episode is like, "OK, now we're going to get to Jocelyn and Tedros," and those scenes just kind of fall flat because they never were quite sure — is she totally in love with this man? Did she like him but resist him? Is she totally under his sway? The show seemed to toggle between those three modes sort of willy-nilly.

Elamin: So Hunter, Suzanna Son plays this character, Chloe — you're making a face. I haven't even gotten to the question and you're like, "I don't know about this." But Chloe was supposed to be this "pure heart." There is something about the way Sam Levinson actually chooses his cast members fairly well, to the point where a Sam Levinson show never completely fails based on casting, because these people, I do think, are able to carry the scenes. The songs that she performs in the show are kind of wonderful to me? But then narratively, it kind of completely ends up failing these characters. Is that what we just expect from Sam Levinson at this point?

Hunter: I think for everything that makes a Sam Levinson show bad, it usually doesn't fail visually or in terms of casting, or even production design. I think … he excels at managing those aspects. 

WATCH | Official audio for World Class Sinner / I'm a Freak:

Elamin: So I'm a Freak is the big Jocelyn song. And Nate, I'm a Freak is doing numbers, as a matter of fact. There's something about the success of I'm a Freak outside of the context of the show — was this the whole point all along? Are they having a laugh at us?

Nate: Excuse me? The song is called World Class Sinner, which —

Elamin: I apologize.

Nate: — if you listen to the full version, you'll note the lyrics from the bridge, which we never hear in the show. You asked earlier, was the hubbub around The Idol going to be bigger than anything that happened in the show? And I think maybe that was a possibility if not for World Class Sinner, which I think in a strange way does have this weird cultural life in that it's not good, and it's not like bad enough to be ironically bad. It's in this weird liminal space where you're just like, what is this? But … once you hear it, it does have that pop thing where it doesn't really leave your head.

Hunter: I think it has that sort of TikTok quality where I don't really know what the song is talking about or why it's so good, but it's just digestible enough that I want to hear it five times in a row.

Elamin: Hunter, we should talk about The Weeknd if we must. You wrote this hilarious piece about The Weeknd and how he's been defending The Idol on Twitter. He's been responding to normal people who are like, "I'm not sure I like the show." And then he'll quote-tweet them and trash talk them back. This is a guy who's built the entirety of his career on being unavailable, on not doing interviews, on the mystique … and suddenly he's extremely accessible, and we have his opinion at every turn. What did you make of the way that he kind of undercut his own aura?

Hunter: I mean, The Idol is a bad show, but [an] incredible level of posting — like, truly Hall-of-Fame posts from The Weeknd. I think what we're seeing is that he's embarrassed. I think he wanted to be taken seriously as an actor. I absolutely believe that he really cared about the show, and probably thought it was magnificent. And then you watch it; I don't even know how you could feel satisfied as a viewer, but I'm sure as someone who made it, you're feeling a little bit spurned. He's only been very successful, and this I would say is a major misstep that he can recover from. But when you're online responding to some guy in Arizona who has 500 followers, something has gone very wrong. 

Elamin: Something is very wrong. And that is why Nate will bring you home and try to be like, "I'm sorry they're bullying you, but it actually turns out you are a little bit annoying." Hunter, Nate, I really appreciate your time.

Hunter: Thank you. 

Nate: Oh, you're our family.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Stuart Berman.