These days, a cable or streaming drama should run close to 60 minutes an episode. Recent HBO shows like “Succession” and “House of the Dragon” followed that formula. After all, there are no commercials. We paid for a subscription.
But tonight’s episode of “The Idol” ran just under 45 minutes. We can be grateful for that, actually. Most of it was soft core porn for juveniles.
In the first twenty minutes there were several sex acts including The Weeknd’s Tedros performing cunnilingus on Lily Rose Depp’s Jocelyn in the back seat of a moving vintage Lincoln Continental. The most offensive part of this was the defiling of a great American automobile.
The next section was a dinner scene in which Tedros got Jocelyn to admit her beloved late mother used to hit her with a hair brush so hard it broke her skin. So he orders Jocelyn to bring the hairbrush so he can hit her while they are having sex. The idea is also raised of putting the photo of Jocelyn with ejaculate on her face on the cover of her new album. Tedros is all for it.
Was there a plot? Yes: Tedros is playing a mind game with Jocelyn, taking over her life and career, getting rid of her inner circle. We know this because everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it.
The worst part of “The Idol” is not porn. It’s that someone writing this crap thinks this is the music business works. In this scenario, no one making records has a work ethic of any dignity or integrity. There are no actual musicians involved. It’s just a game, with a lot of hazy-shot sex.
I don’t know what it’s like for The Weeknd making records. Maybe this is his experience. But it’s certainly not that of any one who’s successful. Yes, there are parties and drugs, etc. But mainly it’s people trying to make music and get it released and marketed. If what happens on “The Idol” were the norm, the radio would be be just white noise.
While “The Idol” was ending, HBO was showing the last two episodes of Succession on another channel. It’s hard to believe these two two things could exist in the same realm.
