Our Sunday evenings are finally free from the clutches of The Idol, but at what cost?
The HBO show’s five-episode first season concluded with a finale that attempted to turn the rest of the series on its head with a baffling eleventh hour twist. After sitting through an excruciatingly long “talent” show and the downfall of Tedros Tedros (Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye), we learn that pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) has been in control the whole time.
The reveal comes on the opening night of Jocelyn’s much-awaited new tour at SoFi Stadium, with all of Tedros’ artists in supporting slots and her creative team happily sitting in their fancy label boxes. Tedros, humiliated after a scorching Vanity Fair article by Talia Hirsch (Hari Nef) and IRS troubles, joins Jocelyn in her dressing room. There, he finds the hairbrush she specifically told him was the one her mother regularly abused her with.
“It’s brand new,” Tedros remarks, to which Jocelyn replies with a coy smirk. And so, The Idol‘s biggest twist falls into place: We’ve thought Tedros was manipulating Jocelyn, but in reality, she was manipulating him.
What’s the deal with the hairbrush in The Idol finale? And more importantly, why doesn’t it work?
Credit: Eddy Chen/HBO
The revelation that Jocelyn’s hairbrush is brand new implies that Jocelyn was lying to Tedros and his entire “family” about her mother’s abuse, presumably in order to garner their sympathy, along with that of her fans through her emotional social media video post. Following Tedros’ realization, Jocelyn introduces him onstage at her concert before telling him quietly that he’s hers forever. Standing there in her white dress, addressing her fans as “angels,” we see her step into the kind of cult leader figure Tedros has strived to be for the whole season.
“Jocelyn is a very calculated and strategic person,” Depp said in an HBO clip breaking down the finale. “She knows exactly what she wants and she’ll stop at nothing to get it. Tedros was her muse, and she got what she needed out of him.”
The role reversal between Jocelyn and Tedros would certainly be an exciting narrative turn if it made any lick of sense. Instead, it falls flat, reading more as an attempt at a buzz-worthy “gotcha” moment than a plausible move on Jocelyn’s part.
The greatest plot twists re-contextualize the story you’ve been watching, making you pick up on clues that weren’t there. In the case of The Idol, all we get is more questions. When Jocelyn lied to Tedros about her trauma at the dinner table, her longtime friends/employees Leia (Rachel Sennott) and Xander (Troye Sivan) were both present. Their reactions to Jocelyn’s stories about her mother make it seem like they witnessed her abuse firsthand. But if these accounts were lies, why react in a way that corroborates them? Does this mean that Leia and Xander were in on Jocelyn’s plan the whole time? Based on Leia’s departure in the finale and Xander’s rage at Jocelyn during the shock collar sequence, it doesn’t seem like there was any collaboration between the group on “project manipulate Tedros.”
(Side note: Wouldn’t Tedros have recognized that the brush was brand new when he used it to hit Jocelyn in episode 3? Or was he just too excited about the situation at hand to notice?)
The greatest plot twists re-contextualize the story you’ve been watching, making you pick up on clues that weren’t there. In the case of ‘The Idol’, all we get is more questions.
More importantly, why would Jocelyn even want to use Tedros in the first place? She’s a global pop sensation, surely she can find a better muse than a rat-tailed creep in underwhelming Blade cosplay. Yet The Idol offers no clarification of Jocelyn’s actions beyond that one smirk, and the result is less compelling ambiguity than it is plain old incompetent storytelling.
No, Tedros is not “the victim” of The Idol.
Credit: Eddy Chen/HBO
On top of failing to make any sense, the reveal of Jocelyn’s true motivations attempts to reframe her relationship to Tedros in a troubling new light. The Idol co-creator Sam Levinson claims in the finale’s behind-the-scenes clip that Tedros “ends up being the victim.” And no, I don’t buy that one bit.
Remember, Tedros and Jocelyn’s first encounter was engineered by Tedros with the help of singer and dancer Dyanne (Jennie Ruby Jane). He quite literally manipulated their musical partnership from the get-go. Tedros then proceeded to move his cult into her house, cut her off from her team, and even re-enact her mother’s supposed abuse. These do not read as the actions of a victim, nor do any of Jocelyn’s reactions read as those of someone who’s in control of the situation.
With one hairbrush, ‘The Idol’ has the gall to expect us to believe that Jocelyn has had the upper hand this whole time.
Yet with one hairbrush, The Idol has the gall to expect us to believe that Jocelyn has had the upper hand this whole time. You can almost see The Idol creators Levinson, Tesfaye, and Reza Fahim smirking along with Jocelyn as The Idol‘s major twist unveils itself. “See? Even though she’s being exploited, she has agency because she’s pulling the strings,” the show seems to say. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. The Idol‘s last-ditch attempt to make Jocelyn a manipulative girlboss isn’t empowering; it’s harmful, lazy, and completely fails to say anything interesting about pop stardom.
Jocelyn may be a “World Class Sinner,” but The Idol‘s worst sin is force feeding us this unearned plot twist and expecting us to lap it right up.
