EDITING, EDITING, EDITING! A lot of filmmakers these days really can’t help but indulge themselves. I swear, most of the shows and movies I watch need to be cut at least by 30%. The same goes for The Idol. Out of a 50-minute episode, the first 30 minutes actually move along fine, but then the rest is just sexy sex filler.
Don’t get me wrong, this episode is leaps and bounds better than the first one, but I want the script to be tighter (don’t even joke about this rn).
The good: We get more of a peak into the giant financial operation that is “Jocelyn,” which, despite what Sam Levinson thinks, is the actually interesting part.
The bad: sex
We now understand that Jocelyn is a financial liability. Call me a monster, but I feel like the executives are not these totally horrible, unfeeling monsters.
I also can’t be the only one who thinks Nikki (the record exec with the bob) is completely in the right by veto-ing the song. Get her Nikki!
We also get some nice exposition in terms of how Jocelyn got to this point – her mother passed away and she had a mental breakdown after declining to postpone her tour.
And it’s made clear that Jocelyn is not, in fact, a once-in-a-lifetime singer/songwriter. She is inside the pop machine and about to be chewed up, spit out, and replaced.
Jocelyn: i need to prove to the label that I’m reliable!
Also Jocelyn: immediately does copious amounts of coke and doesn’t sleep before a major shoot.
The way Jocelyn is desperately texting Tedros as he ignores her messages is so annoying. Like, we’re expected to believe this physically perfect pop mega-star is getting ghosted by the rattail with legs? Alrighty…
Mind you, this remix that she worked on with Tedros is so bad lmao — like I’m trying to listen to the song, I don’t need Lily-Rose Depp’s moaning and wailing in the background
We get it, you want to break out of this SHALLOW pop star mold and make music that “matters.” But the issues with this direction are twofold: first of all, it’s kind of trite – she’s not like other pop stars, she’s a deep pop star. Second, it’s so funny how this remix is supposed to represent this deep, dark side of Jocelyn that the world isn’t ready to see and it’s literally just a standard pop song but with porn star moaning. Like, we’re not exactly recording We Are The World here
Again, the issue is not that the remixed song is “not commercial,” it’s that it’s horrible
Also, the original kind of slays. Got me through my workout the other day…
The music video sequence was a great performance on Lily-Rose Depp’s part — she really sold Jocelyn’s whole escalation from slightly nervous to full-on-breakdown. Having said that, there is something so weird and dark about how this show seems devoted to the degradation of Jocelyn’s body – for example, the marks on her thighs & the bloody feet, to say nothing of the ongoing choking thing. Clearly, Levinson/The Weeknd are aware of this dark undertone and they want it that way, but it becomes grating because it’s hard to see what greater narrative the whole torture porn aesthetic is in service of
I understand the commentary, which, again, Tedros spells out for us (you’re not a human, you’re a star etc., etc.), but that’s not the same thing as the actual narrative/plot/storyline.
One thing about Lily-Rose Depp is she’s gonna cry on cue and do it with APLOMB. I’m telling you, those tears spring from her eyes like water from a faucet. I’ve seen rivers with less reliable flow.
I’m going to be heartless for ten seconds, but I think it was a little hammy to have Jocelyn actually say out loud “I miss my mom!” Like, don’t worry, we didn’t forget from the exposition ten minutes ago.
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