Review: TheIdol offers up enough regular old entertainment to balance out Sam Levinson's aggressive flourish and the bluster of his thematic ambitions.
Unmoored without her mother, Jocelyn is a prime target for some kind of calculating Svengali, which is exactly who, Tedros Tedros, seems to be—based on the two episodes screened on Monday night, anyway. Tedros’s ultimate aims remain unclear, but one short term goal is quite obviously seduction. A solid portion of the first two episodes involves Jocelyn and Tedros beginning a mildly BDSM affair, something of thewas whispered about as a very risqué show.
Depp commits to all the lustiness, but she’s far more interesting when the show is focused on Jocelyn’s career. Those scenes, staged with Altmanesque crosstalk ramble, are engaging and occasionally witty, an ensemble of fine actors deftly synthesizing the behind-the-scenes strategizing that keeps any A-lister afloat.
I’m also intrigued by the mystery surrounding Tedros, who near immediately raises the suspicions of Azaria’s character, Jocelyn’s best friend/assistant , and a handler played with pepper by. It’s no wonder: he’s got a creepy demeanor, arriving at Jocelyn’s sprawling mansion for the first time cloaked in darkness like Count Dracula himself.
Mystery and workplace drama are pretty familiar television formats. It’s surprising how standard, how predicated on formula,Amy Seimetzthreatened to turn it into sexist “torture porn.” It’s telling—deliberately, I’m sure—that in one scene we see Jocelyn watching, one of the crowning jewels of the erotic thriller boom of the last century. Maybe that’s all we’re really being served: a tawdry tale of sex gone scary, dressed up in the visual vernacular of TV’s wunderkind du jour.
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