If nothing else, amid all the political Sturm und Drang, the Eurovision competition made for astonishing television this year. Sets of characters, each with their own backstories, motivations and aspirations all colliding in one place, after the thing only one of them could get. 

Such dynamics have characterized modern entertainment from The Traitors to Game of Thrones, and their playing out on Alan Cumming’s Peacock streaming home, with maximum pyro and musical showmanship, could only leave viewers wonderstruck. (If you didn’t watch, you missed out.) That all of the characters were countries compelled further. A character far from Europe that had never won (Australia) against a character that, depending on your politics, stood as villain or hero (Israel), versus characters not even present because of alleged villain-hero (five boycotting nations), against a plucky forgotten character many couldn’t find on a map (Bulgaria). When the villain-hero surged into the lead over the non-Euro, only to be overtaken at the last second by the plucky forgotten (who was trying to start a dance craze), you couldn’t turn away. Not for nothing did 160 million people tune in, at a time when most shows can’t get 1 million.

Reducing vastly complex nations into single characters has been an enduring television tradition, dating back decades to everything from the Olympics and World Cup to Cold War broadcast news. Of course, cheering for countries without consideration of the people occupying them also feels morally risky. But still we do it, anthropomorphizing and projecting rooting interests like it’s no big deal.

Only in this case, the risk may be exactly why we stop doing that. Eurovision is in trouble, at the exact moment we truly need it.

Born of a postwar bid for unity — of the idea that something as shared as music would make everyone set aside everything else ­— the competition has, in fits and starts, built a consensus on a continent that for too long had seen it shattered. The first group of European nations that came together in 1956 would slowly add members over the years, each year the union and reunion growing stronger. The contest eventually crested with a jaw-dropping 42 countries in the post-Soviet, post-Amsterdam Treaty Europe of the 2000s. You could read Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History. Or you could watch Eurovision and get the same effect. That’s how sprawling and powerful the contest had become.

In the two decades since, though, so much has changed about the world. With individual countries defining themselves against their neighbors with movements like Brexit and Grexit and America First; with media’s dominant use shifting from education to outrage; with far-right politicians routinely raging against the melting pot; with tech companies dividing us on social media instead of legacy companies uniting us on traditional media.

In one sense, that makes Eurovision and its offbeat philosophy of unity-through-spandex more important. Watching Eurovision 2026, you could feel surges of much-needed humanity — from the Greek rapper coping with 20 years of economic hardship by parodically yearning for the bling life to the titillations of Romania’s S&M song (of course) to, yes, the universal feelings brought on by Israel’s Noam Bettan alternately crooning and wailing about a toxic romance with a woman named Michelle. We’ve all been in a bad relationship we couldn’t escape, and what do constructions like liberal and conservative mean in its face?

More often, though, the competition didn’t heal wounds — it reminded us of them. The roll call of countries to announce their jury votes seemed less like an artistic assessment and more like an ideological score-keep — “Who is giving Israel points? Who is refraining? What about Ukraine?” When Israel surged into the lead, you could hear alternating supportive and deriding chants in the Viennese arena. (Opting for a warts-and-all verite, host broadcaster ORF decided against anti-booing technology.) And when Israel surged into second and then Bulgaria surged past it, comments on YouTube evoked The Lion King’s shadowy place — you must never go there.

And then, of course, there was the boycott. Spain, Slovenia, Ireland, Iceland and Holland decided not to participate because Israel was participating. The European Broadcasting Union that runs the contest dodged a bullet when Israel finished in second; had the country won, it would have been slated to host next year and surely prompted more boycotts. But even with the competition now set to take place in non-fraught Bulgaria, the boycotting countries don’t seem likely to change their tune; Israel is not going to voluntarily take itself out of the competition (would you?); and the pre-event drama will play itself out all over again, possibly to the financial undoing of the whole event. 

Oh, and Bulgaria has been in the throes of a five-year political crisis that has seen a surge of the far-right Revival party and just elected a pro-Putin government. 

The demise of Eurovision would be a shame, but it wouldn’t be a surprise. This is the end of point of algorithmic outrage and politics-as-sport and the fears peddled by nativism. A singing competition doesn’t stand a chance.

Organizers hold out some hope of a shift in the continent’s politics toward more moderate voices that might lower the heat and restore the contest to glory — they point to the stunning downfall of Hungary’s far-right populist Viktor Orbán in April, or even an Israeli election later this year that could (maybe) swing the country back to the center. Of course, what happens when the next country goes through the cycle — if France elects a far-right government in 2027, or Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. continues to surge in Britain? Who stays and who boycotts? Democracy whac-a-mole is no way to run a competition.

The point may actually have been made onstage. Because Israel’s Bettan, it turns out, was possibly not singing about a woman. 

A growing number of sleuths online have focused on how the performer’s breakup with Michelle sounds an awful lot like his country’s breakup with Europe, as a small Middle Eastern nation that once looked west sings achingly about feeling let down by a patron — a competitor at Eurovision sincerely telling other countries it feels toxically betrayed, and those countries just going on toxically fighting about the right way to respond. A more apt metaphor is hard to imagine. You can’t convene a reunion when everyone comes to argue.

This story appeared in the May 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.