I’m embarrassed to admit that The Idol has given me brain worms, and I can’t stop thinking about it now that it’s over. Was it so bad it was good, or was it just terrible and gave me Stockholm Syndrome because I stayed through the entire run against my will because I had nothing better to do on Sunday nights, and eventually, it wore me down. I genuinely don’t know.
All I know is that I will never be able to look at Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd, again without stifling a laugh because that’s how brand-damaging this was to him, at least in my eyes. Side note: The name “Tedros,” which is what The Weeknd’s character’s chosen name in the show was, means “award from God,” and my goodness, that is equal parts hilarious and so clunkily on-the-nose that you know he had a part in naming that character. I feel that in my bones. See? Brain worms!
Anyway, I genuinely might be the only one with brain worms about The Idol, because YouTuber @KaylaSays has pointed out, in her video on how terrible the show is, that there is a distinct lack of chemistry between the leads, Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) and Tedros. As a result, there is very little fanfic written about this show—like, five fanfics that all focus on the characters of Dyanne (Jennie Kim from Blackpink) and Jocelyn, with Tedros only coming up as a minor character in one.
Keep in mind almost all of the sex scenes in the show were between Jocelyn and Tedros. Dyanne was a minor character who had none. To contrast this lack of fanfic, there are 9,000+ entries simply for the character of Edward in Twilight, which honestly makes sense since he was far superior to Jacob (who only clocks in with about half the amount of #TeamEdward posts, so the majority agrees there, too.)
Twilight, as a film series, ended its run almost 11 years ago, and yet? The characters of Edward and Bella trended more on Google Trends than Jocelyn and Tedros for all but two days of the last 30: June 13 and 19. See for yourself, and you can find the Google Trends link here:
That’s not great for The Idol, is it?!
We have multiple takeaways here: Edward is by far the best love interest for Bella (yes, I also ran the data on “Jacob Bella,” and while it still outperformed “Jocelyn Tedros” overall, it didn’t do nearly as well as #TeamEdward), people searched more for characters that were last on the screen in 2012 than they did for a current TV show, and I’m now utterly and irrevocably convinced I have brain worms about this terrible show, and this exercise has proven it. The Idol has ruined me, possibly forever. Good thing it’s most likely not getting a second season … or is it? I don’t know what to feel about this show anymore. At least you can save yourself from it.
(featured image: HBO)
