'The Idol' Episode 1 Recap: Now You Can Sing

Jul 25, 2023

In a sleepy first episode, ‘The Idol’ introduces its leads and tries hard to shock.

The first episode of The Idol, titled "Pop Tarts and Rat Tales," is quite an eventful piece of television. It is also an episode in which nothing seems to happen. Over the course of its 54 minutes of runtime, the series lead, pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), participates in a photoshoot, a Vanity Fair interview, and a rehearsal for her next music video, and also has an intimate photo leaked online. She then goes out to a nightclub with one of her dancers and meets an odd-looking man that will potentially ruin her life. This all happens, however, at an extremely slow pace that makes it feel as if nothing of consequence is actually going on.

Still, if anything can be said for "Pop Tarts and Rat Tales," it's that it successfully positions the pieces on the board for the game that is to come. We are introduced to a Britney Spears-like singer on the verge of a second nervous breakdown, and the guru-like figure to which she will latch on to avoid herself and the pressure she's subjected to. Now, it's time to see how the story will develop.

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"Pop Tarts and Rat Tales" opens with a close-up of Jocelyn's face. Instructed by a photographer, she goes through a series of emotions, from deep sorrow to "pure sex." It's a moment that should be savored: Jocelyn won't show much emotion over the remainder of the episode. The camera zooms out to give us a larger context of what's going on. Jocelyn is kneeling atop a coffee table, wearing a flimsy red robe that leaves her breasts partially exposed. She's surrounded by lights and staff. It's the photoshoot for her next album cover. Things are going smoothly, and Jocelyn's inner circle can't stop talking about how hot she looks. The sole dissenting voice is Xander (Troye Sivan), who raises questions about whether they're exploiting Jocelyn's image and romanticizing mental illness by having her pose suggestively with a hospital ID bracelet on her wrist. It's one of the many moments in which showrunners Sam Levinson, Reza Fahim, and Abel Tesfaye (a.k.a. The Weeknd) try to anticipate hot takes that they are certain will emerge from their show. "Mental illness is sexy," manager Nikki (Jane Adams) assures Xander, and the shoot goes on undisturbed — that is until something else comes up.

The least important issue that arises during the photoshoot is Jocelyn's discomfort with the intimacy coordinator, who says she's not allowed to show her nipples lest they infringe on her nudity rider, a contract that has explicitly outlined how much Jocelyn is allowed to display. This problem is quickly dealt with by her manager Chaim (Hank Azaria), who locks said intimacy coordinator in the bathroom and turns up the house's sound system to drown out his screams. The other situation that emerges, however, requires a little more effort and attention from Jocelyn's crew. The internet is abuzz over a leaked selfie of the singer with bodily fluids on her face. The blame falls on Jocelyn's best friend/personal assistant, Leia (a criminally underutilized Rachel Sennott), who is entirely unaware of how the picture could have been taken despite living under the same roof as the pop star.

Meanwhile, Jocelyn's surrounding managers and publicists set off to do some much-needed damage control. First and foremost, they keep Jocelyn in the dark about what's going on so that she doesn't have another breakdown in the middle of her workday. Then, they have to give the story a feminist spin in the media, turning Jocelyn into a victim of revenge porn and a sex-positive hero to the teenage girls that would buy tickets to her upcoming concerts. The plan works, and it isn't until the end of the workday that Jocelyn is informed of her leaked photograph. There's nothing to worry about, her team is already on it. And, yet, Jocelyn worries. To drown out her despair, she accepts an invitation by one of her dancers, Dyanne (BLACKPINK's Jennie Ruby Jane), to a nightclub, where she first meets her co-lead in the series, Tedros (Tesfaye). She's immediately taken by him, though it's not exactly clear why. Tedros isn't particularly handsome, nor is he charismatic. Still, Jocelyn can't stop herself from making out with him in the back of the club and indulging in an autoerotic asphyxiation-filled masturbation session when she eventually goes home alone.

The following day, after a particularly stressful interview with a Vanity Fair reporter (Hari Nef), in which questions about her dead mother and the aforementioned explicit photo arise, Jocelyn decides to invite Tedros over to her home. Leia isn't crazy about the idea. She’d already been worried about Jocelyn when she disappeared into the nightclub to make out with Tedros. She seems to know that her friend is prone to bad decisions, and she also had a bad feeling about Tedros. "He looks so rapey," she remarks, but Jocelyn isn't bothered by the man's vibe. As a matter of fact, she likes it, and everyone in the audience forces out a shocked gasp as the show that has been portraying its lead as complicit in her own objectification portrays her as complicit in the violence that will undoubtedly be perpetrated against her.

As Jocelyn puts on her sexiest outfit to greet Tedros, poor Leia is left with the task of doing him the honors and showing him around the house. Tedros acts strangely, threateningly playing the piano and practicing pick-up lines in front of a mirror after snorting some cocaine, and it is certainly with relief that Leia is finally given a chance to leave when Jocelyn comes downstairs. After a brief conversation over shots, Jocelyn asks Tedros to take a look at her new single. Though everyone on her team insists that the song is great, she's afraid that they’re lying to her, and she believes that Tedros will tell her the truth. Indeed, after she plays him the unmixed song, Tedros tells her that it's not great. The problem, he says, is her voice: she's singing about being a freak, and yet she doesn't sound "like she knows how to f*ck."

He decides to solve this problem, but not by having sex with Jocelyn. Instead, he merely undresses her and improvises a BDSM mask with her robe, kicking off the episode's second erotic asphyxiation scene. Under the red fabric, Jocelyn chokes until Tedros pulls out a knife and cuts open a hole over her mouth. "Now you can sing," he announces as Jocelyn gasps for air. The episode ends with yet another shot of Jocelyn's face, this time completely covered apart from the vagina-like gash allowing her to breathe. It's a shot that neatly parallels the first one; instead of allowing us to see Jocelyn's faked emotions, it hides her real ones, completely negating who Jocelyn is as a person. In a piece of television that goes overboard to objectify its lead through its camerawork, denying her personhood under the guise of denunciation, this is a shot that works, at least to some extent. The fabric Tedros puts over Jocelyn's face is akin to the directions given to her by the photographer. None allow the real Jocelyn to shine through. Under the fabric imposed on her by her staff, Jocelyn delivers a performance. But what performance will she deliver under Tedros? What kind of voice will emerge from beneath the cloth? According to Tedros, the voice of someone that knows how to f*ck. Sure. OK. But what does that even mean?

New episodes of The Idol premiere every Sunday on HBO and Max.

Elisa Guimarães is a feature writer at Collider. She's a journalist, a translator, a linguist, an aspiring author, a lover of trivia games, and a first time cat owner. Likes science fiction, true crime, coming-of-age stories, teen dramas, and some other things as well. Can also be found at Delirium Nerd, writing in Portuguese.