Is Moses Sumney in HBO’s ‘The Idol’? Meet Izaak
After troublesome production, the premiere at Cannes Film Festival, and all the controversies it sparked, HBO’s latest drama series, ‘The Idol,’ premiered last week, and recently we watched the second episode as well. The series follows Lily-Rose Depp’s Jocelyn, an aspiring pop idol who is struggling with her career and mental health after the loss of her mother as she meets a cult leader Tedros, who is played by the singer and the co-creator Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye. Still, he isn’t the only music star in this series, and in this article, we’ll talk about Moses Sumney.
Moses Sumney is a Ghanaian-American singer, songwriter, and actor who plays the character known as Izaak in HBO’s ‘The Idol.’ Izaak is a follower of Tedros’ cult. We meet the character in the first episode when he approaches Leia, Jocelyn’s best friend, and asks her to dance. Izaak is depicted as a supporting character who is a part of Tedros’ inner circle and Leia’s love interest. We could say that Izaak is to Tedros what Leia is to Jocelyn, which is what makes these two couples two sides of the same coin, so to speak.
Sam Levinson, who is best known as the creator of HBO’s ‘Euphoria,’ is one of three co-creators of ‘The Idol,’ which can be seen from the way this new series was made. While ‘Euphoria’ gathered positive reviews, it was still criticized and a subject of controversy because of its sexual content. Now, if you take away positive reviews and turn up that controversy part, you basically get ‘The Idol.’ The series sparked a lot of controversies and was criticized for its themes and depiction of sexual content.
What is Izaak’s story in ‘The Idol’?
Izaak is a supporting character in ‘The Idol,‘ but the first two episodes managed to give us a little bit of his backstory. In the first episode, we meet him as a character that seemed a mere guest in Tedros’ club, where Jocelyn goes with her friends. When Tedros first approached Jocelyn, they danced through the night and later went to the club’s hallway to be alone. While Leia was looking for Jocelyn, she ran into Izaak, who asked her to dance. That’s when we first meet Izaak. Although his role may not seem like a big deal at first, the second episode gave us some bits about his past and how he met Tedros.
After Jocelyn met Tedros and Leia met Izaak, they all stayed in contact. In one of the scenes, we see Tedros talking with Jocelyn over the phone and Izaak doing the same with Leia. During the conversation, Izaak tells Leia that she should take him to New York, where she’s from, since he’s never been there. This scene also shows how Tedros and Izaak know each other since they’re surrounded by women who are also members of Tedros’ cult.
We don’t see Izaak a lot since he isn’t so connected with Jocelyn, but one particular scene later in the episode shows Tedros training Izaak to be a sex slave and torturing him with electrical shocks, which is pretty disturbing to see, especially since Izaak seems to okay with it.
When Jocelyn invited Tedros to come over after her nervous breakdown while filming her music video (which was ultimately scrapped), Tedros arrived and brought Izaak with him. Izaak took this opportunity to get closer to Leia. At one moment, Leia asks Izaak how he met Tedros, and that’s when we get some bits about Izaak’s backstory.
From what Izaak said, he previously sang at a church where both of his parents were pastors. Tedros was at service one day, and that’s where they met. Tedros heard Izaak sing, and he signed him to his label and management. From his talk with Leia, Izaak admires Tedros, saying that Tedros “transformed him by pushing him further than anyone ever pushed him before.” Since Leia still doesn’t know she’s dealing with a cult member, we can only assume how that sounded to her.
While the rest of the episode mainly focuses on Jocelyn and Tedros, we still find out that Izaak and Leia slept together that night. And in one of the episode’s final scenes, we even hear Moses’, well, Izaak’s great singing talent. We don’t know what role his character will have in the upcoming episodes, but it will be interesting to see how his relationship with Leia will develop since Leia doesn’t trust Tedros, and she believes he’s bad news for Jocelyn. Well, she’s right, but three more episodes are left for us to see how all that plays out.
The first two episodes of ‘The Idol’ are now streaming on Max.
