Like the candy known as circus peanuts, no one of sound mind is yearning for more of The Idol. Critics have panned HBO’s nipple-core fantasy since its premiere at Cannes in May, and audiences have responded similarly, with some wondering how bad this show truly is, how much worse it can get, and who thought this was a good idea. But suddenly, with the fifth and (barring a miraculous renewal) final episode on Sunday, people want one more episode — if only to dunk on the show one last time.
The Idol’s not-shortened season, explained in less than 500 words
HBO knows you don’t like The Idol. But it didn’t shorten the season because of it.
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
Thanks to some over-zealous reports that called a fifth-episode finale a surprise or abrupt end, an urban legend has been born: that HBO has six episodes of The Idol in its vault and decided, because of how poorly the show has been received, to cut bait and cancel it an episode early. Given the lack of character development in the series, especially of the eponymous idol Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), the shoddiness of co-creator Abel Tesfaye’s (a.k.a. The Weeknd) acting, and how the series’s limp writing squandered the promising premise of the pop stardom machine, the notion that HBO would put The Idol out of its misery isn’t difficult to imagine.
That just isn’t the case, however. This is more accurately an example of schadenfreude getting the better of people. The actual story of how The Idol went from six episodes to five is a lot less bombastic and not a surprise at all.
Back in 2021, HBO ordered six episodes of the series, which was to be directed by She Dies Tomorrow auteur and The Girlfriend Experience co-creator Amy Seimetz. In April 2022, Seimetz departed the show and it was reported that Euphoria showrunner Sam Levinson would be overseeing an overhaul of the series’s tone and scope, which would include directing duties. Then, in March 2023, an in-depth Rolling Stone feature reported that Levinson and Tesfaye’s vision for the show had veered into torture porn.
When the show premiered at Cannes in May — and HBO’s hopes were still presumably high — it was listed as a five-episode series, ostensibly signaling that part of the overhaul would be trimming the show from six to five episodes. Tesfaye, in an interview with GQ in June, also referred to the show as a “five-hour” experience. While it may make for a juicy story and affirm some beliefs that The Idol is as bad as (or even worse than) its haters say it is, the show, since its premiere, was always going to end after five.
The finale will air on Sunday as planned, with no second season in sight.
