It’s the story of a wannabe pop star (Johnny’s little girl — Lily-Rose Depp) willing to do anything to achieve fame. This leads her to a self-help guru (The Weeknd) and his modern-day cult. Depending on who you read, the cult either sexually exploits this wannabe pop idol through degradation, or this wannabe pop idol enjoys a sexual awakening to the pleasures of degradation.

Whatever happened to sexy?

Anyway, the prudes at the far-left Rolling Stone labeled the show as “sexual torture porn” and allowed prudish crew members to brutalize the show as “like any rape fantasy that any toxic man would have in the show — and then the woman comes back for more because it makes her music better.”

You would think this kind of uproar would explode the ratings, but The Idol appears to have hit that sweet spot no one was interested in.

[I ducked in for a part of Episode 2, and … yecch. Who thought *that* would generate viewer loyalty? I’m still surprised it flopped this badly, though, because this has become HBO’s oeuvre over the past several years. This just made their usual exploitation of ingenues a little too obvious, I’d guess. Like John, I don’t want to be dictating content for adults, but I’m happier that audiences stayed away in droves. — Ed]