Did You Notice an Homage to Robert Plant's All My Love in The Idol?

Regardless of how good the writers of The Idol are at putting across their ideas (spoiler: they are not very good), it has to be admitted the series is brimming with pop culture references that serve as strong messages in and of themselves.

One such reference was the homage to a famous Led Zeppelin track in episode 3, which, however, some viewers have found to be somewhat problematic.

If you haven't seen the first three episodes of The Idol, a warning is in order: there are spoilers ahead.

In the third episode, there is a scene in which Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) is in her recording studio talking to two Tedros (The Weeknd) followers, Chloe (Suzanna Son) and Izaak (Moses Sumney) and at one point, it is stated that nobody has the right to say 'no' to their leader because, as Izaak puts it, you'd be depriving yourself of an experience, whether it's good or bad.

'Some of the most terrible experiences in life can be the most valuable, like artistically,' Chloe adds, as the icing on the cake in their 'pep talk.'

She cites the All My Love track from Led Zeppelin's 1979 album In Through the Out Door as an example. The lyrics to this particular song were penned by the band's lead singer Robert Plant, unlike all the other Led Zeppelin tracks that the guitarist Jimmy Page wrote lyrics for.

Robert and his wife Maureen Wilson had a second child in 1972, a son named Karac Pendragon, who died at the age of five while Plant and the band were touring North America in 1977. The artist co-wrote this heartbreaking song with bassist John Paul Jones to honour Karac.

Chloe and Izaak use this tragic and deeply personal story as proof that even the most horrible things can serve as inspiration for something beautiful and universally appreciated. Jocelyn scoffs at them, pointing out that Plant would have been happier if he had never written the song, but his son was alive instead, to which Izaak replies, 'And that would be a pretty big loss for the world.'

The notion that the human sacrifice in the form of a child's death was worth it to produce a masterpiece is obviously satirical, and the show in no way romanticises the idea. However, the problem is that it exploits someone else's tragedy, making its ethics hugely problematic. And that's not a complaint about the characters, but rather about the writers who chose to include this dialogue.

Well, future episodes will probably be even more problematic. Episode 4 will be released this Sunday, 25 June.