“Will you let people enjoy sex, drugs, and hot girls, okay? Stop trying to cock-block America.” – Nikki High art, high sleaze. 35mm Kodak beauty tainted by Ryan Murphy-esque provocations and The Weeknd playing a rattail-wearing, switchblade-wielding villain who feels out of place in the modern world. The Idol belongs in 1986 and should have committed itself to that lofty aesthetic ideal, because at its best, this series reminds me of Yann Gonzalez’s Knife+Heart and Tilman Singer's Luz – real arthouse sexploitation that can subvert referenced themes rather than pay superficial homage. What The Idol is missing is exactly what Tedros diagnoses in Jocelyn: Sam Levinson needs to ‘block out the world and feel it’ instead of taking insecure potshots at the wider culture.