The Idol’s po-faced self-seriousness could have been punctured by The Weeknd’s sense of humor. Instead, he’s the mopiest character in the HBO drama.

While The Weeknd spent the last few years proving he has some considerable comedic chops, his role in HBO’s The Idol is not helping the show’s dire critical reputation. It is tough to criticize The Idol without slipping into prudish pearl-clutching. The Idol is a sleazy series filled with explicit sex and problematic elements, but this content is not a bad thing in and of itself. However, the grim tone of the series and its humorless, plodding pacing make The Idol tough to like. Unlike the superficially similar Euphoria, The Idol gives viewers little reason to care about its cartoony characters.

While many of The Idol’s terrible reviews focused on its adult content, it is the delivery that is the show’s biggest issue. The story of Lily-Rose Depp’s teenage musician Jocelyn slowly succumbing to the charms of The Weeknd’s creepy nightclub owner Teddy, The Idol is a slog where Euphoria was a rush. Despite some comedic relief from Rachel Sennott and Dan Levy, for the most part, The Idol takes its overly familiar story extremely seriously. This isn’t helped by a central performance that not only undoes years of audience goodwill toward one lead actor but also jeopardizes the series as a whole.

In recent years, The Weeknd gained a reputation for having a sense of humor about his stardom. However, this charismatic self-deprecation is nowhere to be found in The Idol. It is hard to imagine that The Simpsons guest star of 2022 is the same scowling, brooding bore found in The Idol. In The Simpsons season 33, episode 15, “Bart the Cool Kid,” the pop star played a vapid TikTok teen star and the character’s equally vapid superstar father. The role proved that The Weeknd could mock the entertainment industry that made him famous while also poking fun at his own pouting stage persona.

In American Dad season 17, episode 2, “A Starboy Is Born,” The Weeknd deservedly won critical acclaim for taking an even more pointed jab at his persona. In the episode, The Weeknd played a parodic take on himself who, despite all his raunchy R&B ballads, was secretly still a virgin at 30. Even the musician’s Uncut Gems cameo saw The Weeknd getting in a childish fight with the movie’s hero, a scrappy scene that leaves both characters looking ludicrous. However, what makes The Idol so disappointing is its wholesale failure to build on this surprising career trend.

The Idol Takes Itself (& The Weeknd) Way Too Seriously

Like most of creator Sam Levinson’s work, there are some seriously high-camp elements of The Idol. However, The Idol never revels in this and leans into absurdity a la Ryan Murphy shows, instead aiming for sleazy and sordid and ending up feeling ludicrously self-serious. The Weeknd’s performance is a perfect example of this problem. In The Idol, The Weeknd’s Teddy is intended to be a dark, villainous figure whose grasp over Jocelyn is worrying. However, the Weeknd plays him as an unambiguously evil, unsmiling monster, failing to find any charm or wit that would make The Idol’s lead character gravitate toward this glowering figure.