“The Idol” has ended its five-episode run, and there’s one question I can’t help but ask: What was the point of all that?
The series finale of Sam Levinson, Reza Fahim, and star Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) had shockingly little to say about pop music or power dynamics. Well, maybe not shocking. Nothing in the first four episodes suggested there would be a brilliant reveal in the eleventh hour, but one girl might hope that we might get something more than a disappointing ending where the baffling character known as Tedros Tedros is exposed as well as the creeped out as he is and eventually forgiven by Lily-Rose Depp’s heroine, Jocelyn.
Of course, if you like, you can argue that there is a transference of who has the upper hand in their relationship. In the finale, Tedros’ backstory as a pimp has been publicly revealed in a Vanity Fair article planted by Jocelyn’s manager Chaim. Tedros loses his club and is apparently under investigation by the IRS. And yet, Jocelyn gives him permission for her tour date at SoFi Stadium. Backstage, he receives a strongly worded warning from her other manager, Destiny, before being hugged by Jocelyn.
“None of this means that much without you,” she says. And then she introduces him onstage to about 70,000 screaming fans as “the love of my life.”
We should ostensibly read this as Jocelyn now in control. In her dressing room, he looks at the wooden hairbrush she claimed her mother used to hit her. “It’s brand new,” he says, realizing she’d cheated on him. She addresses her fans as “angels,” just as he called her. And after they kiss in front of that audience, she tells him, “You’re mine forever.” Just stand there.’
Are we to believe it was all a ruse by Jocelyn? That she used her own story of abuse to manipulate him? That’s what I think Levinson and Tesfaye mean, but it’s more confusing than anything. If Jocelyn were a real pop star, she would undermine her career by joining a man who was going to jail for taking a woman hostage. That’s not power – that’s a man’s idea of what power looks like to a woman.
But let’s go back for a second. For most of this episode, it looks like Jocelyn will kick Tedros completely to the curb, a conclusion that would have been predictable, but at least more satisfying than this one.
Angered that their meeting wasn’t organic, but instead a product of his schemes, she calls him a “swindler and swindler.” She has a plan to take over his empire of young talent by making them all her tour openers. When her team arrives for a meeting about whether this will happen, Jocelyn gets all the scantily clad singers to perform for the label. Despite initial skepticism, everyone is impressed by the vocals and the grinding. They are less because of Tedros, who is wasted and combative.
At this point, it’s unclear what it would take for Jocelyn to kick the patently useless Tedros out of her house. But we get the answer when it turns out that her ex-boyfriend Rob has been accused of sexual assault. The charge comes courtesy of the photo Xander orchestrated in the previous episode that put Rob in a compromising position with one of Tedros’ followers.
Upon hearing the news, Jocelyn immediately recognizes it as Tedros’ work and eventually orders Chaim to look after him. Chaim obliges, while Hank Azaria works his way through a monologue about Little Red Riding Hood. Meanwhile, Jocelyn performs a sexualized interpretive dance to one of her new songs as a proof of concept for the tour.
But once Tedros is gone, Jocelyn is bored again. She swims. She trains. She smokes gloomily. Fast forward to six weeks later: the tour is already underway and the disgraced Tedros is invited back into the fold, much to the dismay of the suits who thought they were rid of him for good.
And that brings me back to the question of what “The Idol” wanted to achieve. Speaking to DailyExpertNews before the series debuted on HBO, Tesfaye said his pitch was “about celebrity culture and how much power they have.” But we never really get to see Jocelyn wielding her celebrity power. Tedros may be “forever” hers, but she still clearly owes him, as evidenced by her welcoming him back.
So I continue to believe that what Levinson and Tesfaye thought they were making was a twisted love story, in the vein of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread.” In that 2017 film, Anderson pulls off a switcheroo in which a demanding mentor is dominated by his adoring apprentice. But over the course of that 130-minute film, we come to understand a lot more about the central couple than we did in five hours of “The Idol.”
That’s the biggest flaw of “The Idol”: After all this, I still don’t know what makes Jocelyn and Tedros tick. Music I guess? But I have a hard time believing that even they care that much.
Liner notes
How do you put together an entire tour in six weeks using three singles? Yes, presumably some of it was in the works before Tedros came along, but these things are monstrous undertakings and Jocelyn is a little preoccupied.
What other songs will she sing during her set? One of the show’s biggest mistakes is that we have no idea who Jocelyn was as a performer before her crisis.
One minute Nikki is trying to recruit Tedros and the next she’s laughing at his passing. It’s totally baffling character behavior. (Similarly, I still don’t understand why Xander has any allegiance to Tedros, unless he’s literally supposed to be brainwashed.)
Justice for Leia, the only character with any sense. I wonder what was in her note to Jocelyn.
Nikki briefly mentions that Andrew Finkelstein’s employees ran out to protest Jocelyn’s misogynistic music. That seems like a bit of an attempt to acknowledge the possible backlash on the series, which has already come and gone.
Will there be a season 2? It’s hard to imagine what that would look like if Jocelyn and Tedros didn’t turn into Bonnie and Clyde. But don’t get ideas, please, HBO.
