‘The Idol’: Lily Rose-Depp’s Jocelyn Is No Pop Diva
Beneath the tepid dirty talk and torture porn, The Idol is simmering with one big source of tension: Can pop star Jocelyn (played by Lily Rose Depp) make her big career comeback?
We see the chaos of a pop star trying to get back on track before choosing to go off the rails again. Prior to the events of the series, Jocelyn had suffered a breakdown following her mother’s death. She had to cancel a tour and take time off to recover. In the first episode, she rehearses for her comeback single’s music video and locks in plans for a new set of live shows and even a Vanity Fair cover story. For all this supposed hype behind the scenes and assumedly by the hungry fans they’re hoping, the Jocelyn on screen is a tepid incarnation of a pop diva, lacking the spark to push boundaries in the way she professes she can.
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The Idol gives sparing details on what kind of pop star Jocelyn was before the “nasty pop girl” comeback she’s gearing up for. So far, we can glean she was a child star (the Vanity Fair reporter brings up a show she had done as a kid) and that she had been planning to play Madison Square Garden before she needed to step away. She’s also famous enough to pull up on Rodeo and readily have a mob of fans waiting outside the store her and cult leader Tedros (the Weeknd) go to shop and masturbate at.
The Idol fails at many things — notably, selling the Weeknd as a leading man — but most egregiously, it’s also failing at selling Jocelyn as the type of pop star who could sell out a venue like MSG or ensure a Number One hit with the jokey “World Class Sinner,” a bop in its own right in need of a vocalist with more flair to make it work. There’s no drama in Jocelyn’s performance to make such perfectly silly and self-effacing lyrics work well — like how Lady Gaga’s Ally in A Star Is Born made the fictional singer’s vapid pop turn still feel marketable, if over-the-top even by Gaga pop song standards. On top of that, it seems that during the sparse performance scenes, the direction for Depp was to look as bored by her pop career as possible, even when exhibiting body-breaking perfectionism.
Without enough evidence to pull from her early career, Jocelyn’s Main Pop Girl energy must be determined by who modeled the framework for her character. The Vanity Fair reporter (Hari Nef) compares her to Britney Spears, which feels like a massive stretch in terms of pop power. Given the Disney-sounding TV show and desire to sex-up her image, it’s more likely writer and director Sam Levinson is pulling some inspiration from Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato and their own journeys with mental health, public shaming, and career revamps. (TikTok has been in a tizzy of late over comparisons between Jocelyn and Gomez in particular, due to the real life star’s rumored relationship with the Weeknd while in the midst of her own public struggles with mental and physical health).
While Depp is certainly carrying the show with her acting performance, Levinson’s take on a Main Pop Girl is giving C-List star at best. There’s narrative and backstory lacking, and the songs don’t help much. Jocelyn’s energy and the music they are hoping will get her back on track would barely cause a rumble on the charts, let alone sell out an arena tour. If this is meant to be a huge shift for the star in how she presents herself, some light nudity and a hospital bracelet would barely cut it. While “World Class Sinner” is trying to give off pristine radio-friendly energy, the lyrics about wanting to get with a hot dumb guy are barely shocking. The Tedros remix and the Mike Dean-produced tracks later are also alarmingly tame — and corny — compared to what’s happening in the vocal booth as they’re being recorded. Of course, this is largely an issue created by the show’s dismal writing and structure: to make Jocelyn’s nasty pop girl pivot convincing we would probably need more on her character and career overall. If this is meant to be the world-shifting change needed to put her back on top, where the hell was she at before?
The real test of Jocelyn’s pop prowess will come in the finale (which could very well be the last we see of Jocelyn’s world, given the show’s abysmal ratings). She and Tedros are putting on a big concert. We will also likely hear a third version of “World Class Sinner,” this time performed by Jocelyn’s back-up dancer-turned-sudden-rival Dyanne, played by Blackpink’s Jennie Kim. Could the real life pop star elevate the track to its full-diva potential?
It’s hard to believe Jocelyn is big enough to cause the type of stir and scrambling that moves the plot forward, but at least the sleazy, greedy industry antics at play around her keep the show interesting enough — until the Tedros plot muddles it. Too bad the writers couldn’t make the central pop star seem like a convincing enough megastar to produce such antics in the first place.
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