“The Idol”: When the brush brushes breasts, art comes out

So now it’s over. The famous car accident you can’t look away from. The six-part that was cut down to five episodes. The planned pop-business satire, this lasted maybe ten minutes. Because otherwise it was as funny as the video of the live pig being fed to fifty alligators. So not at all.

“The Idol” was the biggest crash of the quality series giant HBO. He had just delivered perfect business with “The Last of Us”, “White Lotus” and the completion of “Succession” and showed how it works with the big screenplays and ensembles. “The Idol” lacks both.

Protagonist Lily-Rose Depp, the quintessential Nepobaby, may have all the spectacular physical features of his (once) beautiful parents, Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, but is a one-hit wonder of expression, everything about her looking the same, or she is now angry off, arrogant, thoughtful, sad or passionate. And how musician Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) came up with the idea of ​​being an actor is written in stars unseen.

“The Idol” was “torture porn”, which the series was accused of, torture porn. That is exaggerated. “The Idol” is simple erotic sado maso. “Fifty Shades of Grey”, but the torture is not with beautifully designed luxury toys, but with mother’s hairbrush and a so-called “dog training collar” with an integrated electric shock absorber. The woman is not always tormented, but most of the time it is. So the pop star Jocelyn (Depp). She needs this to get the creative juices flowing.

Because Jocelyn isn’t just any pop potty, Jocelyn actually sees herself as a female prince. The more bizarre the sex, the better the song. The metaphorical gold from which, well, real gold can be made is only found in the sick, as their cynical management knows. It is one of the great myths of the culture industry. In the end, Jocelyn sounds at least a bit like Lana Del Rey.

Her tormentor is Tedros (Tesfaye), a sleazy producer and guru who gets to do Jocelyn’s laundry. Lily-Rose Depp has emphasized time and time again in interviews how much she loved to photograph naked, that this was almost her (French free-spirited?) will, one should respect this and not act prudishly. Nevertheless, the result is a brutally displayed young female body, with which everything is done that occasionally causes nausea in the mental cinema (fortunately you don’t see that much). But that was certainly an artistic intent.

Tesfaye co-wrote the screenplay with “Euphoria” showrunner Sam Levinson and “entertainment entrepreneur” Reza Fahim and also donated his $70 million mansion for the shoot. A great villa! And no doubt, “The Idol” showbiz know-how is considerable.

Equally doubtless, the three men couldn’t decide what they wanted: satirical critique or sentimental glorification, a stern story or creatively stoned chaos, cliché or art? For the most part, The Idol is sentimental cliché mayhem, and Depp and Tesfaye fail to play convincing leads. Leaders are different.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph is stunning as Jocelyn’s manager/bodyguard Destiny, with her the project satire could have been realized effortlessly, unlike Depp and Tesfaye, she has a sense of rhythm, punch line and a dangerous street wisdom. Moses Sumney (as Isaak) and Suzanna Son (as Chloe), two musical foundlings of Tedros, are almost unearthly. Sumney has been considered an angelic genius for several years, Son sings like the very young Tori Amos. They bring much needed magic, are characters with a secret. And the fact that Jennie Kim is, of all people, a princess from the K-Pop tank Blackpink who plays Jocelyn’s adversary is, of course, a joke.

For four episodes, nothing meaningful happened in “The Idol” that saw ratings drop by the hundreds of thousands. But they increased the streaming offer. Millions wanted to see what no one supposedly wanted to see. The criticism was bad, the social media opinion was scathing, but the calculation still worked. The word enemy is not far behind fan in the alphabet.

And then, towards the end of Episode 4, you suspected something. That there wasn’t really a simple story to tell. That behind the muesli-dumb facade of “The Idol” could actually be a pretty good thriller about sophisticated and coolly calculated manipulation. That something really interesting and ambivalent could have come of it with a tough, brushed screenplay and real protagonists.

So much: Episode 5 exceeds many expectations, except for a few sloppy details. The twists are cool and everything is a bit scary like in old Hitchcock movies where the ladies were at least as blonde and beautiful as Lily-Rose Depp.

“The Idol” runs on Sky Show.