I’m a Virgo | The new giant Beaupré of TV

It’s a tough TV column to sell well, I’m warning you. Don’t pick up, though the hit show, which is garnering rave reviews, follows a 19-year-old who’s 13′ tall, more than twice his parents’ height.

Yes, it’s strange, bizarre and quirky. Not bad more thanturbulent waters at Radio-Canada, let’s say. But don’t jump into sudoku just yet, because it’s worth trying out. I’m a Virgo of the Amazon Prime Video platform, which offers it in French and English.

This is the most original and confusing series of the current season. Halfway between a Wes Anderson movie and a fentanyl tale, I’m a Virgo revolves around Cootie, a giant-looking 19-year-old black teenager who has not been socialized.

Apart from television and comics, Cootie, who is 4m tall, knows nothing of the outside world, whose cruelty he has been protected from. In the backyard of the family home, away from the prying eyes of neighbours, his adoptive parents have built him a residence to his size, where he no longer smashes his skull on door frames.

In the suburbs of Oakland, the nice Cootie lives recluse (he does dumbbells with an old car) and, like all young people of his age, he thirsts for exhilarating experiences. In secret, he leaves his house and discovers beer, marijuana, friends, burgers, cars and girls, as in any classic initiation story, but for a 13-foot colossus.

Unsurprisingly, each of Cootie’s public appearances sparks a social media frenzy. The special effects that show Cootie in a restaurant, bent double, or in a nightclub crowded with miniature people are stunning.

Although Cootie is gentle, introverted, and peaceful, his stature and skin color make him menacing in the eyes of others. Camped in a surreal universe à la Michel Gondry, I’m a Virgo tackles contemporary themes like racism, capitalism and police repression (there’s even a flying vigilante!) without it sounding like a TED talk.

The first episode (out of a total of seven) is super destabilizing, you have to get used to a) its exploded way of telling a story with, among other things, cartoon extracts and b) the hero himself, not bad more imposing than the giant Beaupré, which was only 8 ft 3 in. It’s weird, yes, but it’s good.

The more we advance in listening to I’m a Virgothe more we discover the richness of this hyper original universe, which also evokes sweettooth from Netflix.

At a time when the shows are full of neurotic doctors, deranged policemen and over-excited lawyers, I’m a Virgo unlike anything else, and it’s perfect the way it is.

Finished, television torture

We thought that The Idol had hit the bottom of the third basement of silliness. The finale of the miniseries, relayed Sunday evening by Crave and Super Ecran, however, made us all lie. It was even worse than the worst of the execrable.

But, like many of you, I had to suffer until the last second of The Idol to hate this series to the end of the ugly rat tail of oily guru Tedros (Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd).

For latecomers, the whistleblower plays here like an ethereal song by The Weeknd, the worst actor of his generation and undisputed master of the whiny pop lament. How are you ?

So, had you decoded the whole “feminist” dimension of The Idol, that its male creators have buried under thick layers of degrading pornography scenes? Not me. It was surely too subtle for my uncle Hugo, who detected nothing woke in there.

So since her first cigarette puff, singer-chimney Joss (Lily-Rose Depp) has been in control of her career and personal life, yes ma’am. It was Joss – not the other way around – who used the oozing Tedros to draw the most inspirational music from deep within. Big anything.

In an hour, the slimy Tedros went from guru to mugger and thief, demolished by the magazine Vanity Fair, to boyfriend, creative genius and muse of Joss, to whom she declared her love in front of 70,000 spectators in a stadium in Los Angeles. Uh, sorry?

Do not look for logic, there are only false notes and confusion in The Idol. And what pop singer in 2023 releases three singles and starts a world tour in less than six weeks? It is technically impossible.

I liked to hate The Idol down to Xander’s (Troye Sivan) last vape cartridge. The script for all five episodes had more holes in it than Chris Tie Dye’s sweater at Survivor Quebec. For example, why the character of Dan Levy (Schitt’s Creek) disappeared after the first episode?

Why didn’t the false rape accusation against Joss’ ex-boyfriend affect anyone? And why did I voluntarily inflict this Sunday television torture on myself?

Because I look like Joss after all. I’d rather inflict pain on myself than wait for pain to befall my poor little self. Keeping control is rock’n’roll, to quote Vilain Pingouin in 1992.