Directed by Sam Levinson, the controversial HBO series The Idol is going to end this coming week, and there are a lot of things that will come to light, and we will get to know where the storyline leads. With the teaser for the 5th and final episode already out, let’s try to understand what is in store for the characters and if Jocelyn is able to bring her career back on track and see through the intentions of the lecherous club owner, Tedros.
Though we have an idea of what Tedros wants to do with Jocelyn, there are a million things about him that we are still unaware of. He has his ways and means of dealing with the people around him, and he thinks that he is able to bring out the best in them using his tactics, but it is an undeniable fact that he is an extremely toxic man. We somewhat understood in the 4th episode of The Idol why Jocelyn wanted him to be around and how she had a side to her personality that was equally toxic, if not more so. But still, we believe that she was far better than him because she never tried to control other people’s lives or play all kinds of shrewd games with them. Tedros is the kind of character whom we want to see losing at his own game because he has the capacity to get on your nerves. The helplessness that people like Leia feel while being around him just because Jocelyn is blinded by his love makes us even more irritated. We had seen in the last episode how Jocelyn called her ex-boyfriend, Rob, to her place to make Tedros jealous because she had gotten to know that he and Dyanne had a thing before she came into the picture. It made Tedros really insecure and miserable, as he realized that unless and until Jocelyn vetoed his decisions, he wouldn’t actually have any power in the house. Tedros had been able to take charge of things only because Jocelyn trusted him blindly, and that is why Destiny and Chaim weren’t saying anything against him because they didn’t want Jocelyn to think of them as her enemies.
The biggest problem that Destiny and Chaim were facing was that apart from World Class Sinner, Jocelyn had not produced even a single song, and that is why the music label, and the organizers were finding it difficult to sell tickets for her upcoming concert. Up until now, Andrew Finkelstein, the representative of the Live Nation firm, who was handling the organization of the concert, was dealing with Chaim and Destiny, and he had not tried to contact Jocelyn directly. Jocelyn was unaware of what was happening at the backend and how Chaim and Destiny were bearing all the heat and covering up her acts by lying to the organizers that Jocelyn was on her way to creating multiple new songs. In the teaser of The Idol Episode 5, we saw that the organizers contacted Jocelyn directly, and we believe that they would tell her about the ongoing issue. Jocelyn might receive an ultimatum that if she doesn’t deliver, then her comeback tour will be canceled. We think that the warning will make Jocelyn realize the real state of things, and she will snap back to reality and understand what Tedros is up to.
Jocelyn was slightly taken aback in the last episode when Chloe told her about Dyanne and Tedros having an affair before she arrived at the scene, and the revelations had adversely impacted Jocelyn, though she controlled her emotions at that moment and pretended as if it was all fine. We believe that in the season finale, we will see a confrontation between Jocelyn and Dyanne, where the former would want the latter to confess her real intentions. It would be interesting to see what route Destiny and Chaim end up taking and whether they confront Jocelyn and tell her that she is sabotaging her career by being with Tedros. In the teaser, it becomes evident that Jocelyn eventually gets to know the real intention of the club owner, and she addresses the issue with him.
We believe that one of the reasons Tedros was with Jocelyn was that he wanted to promote his singers and, through them, earn money and create a name for his music label. Maybe he found that the easiest and fastest way to climb the ladder of success and make his music label known to people is if he signed a well-known singer who already had a huge fan base. Maybe he was collecting artists like Izaak and Chloe so that one day, he could launch them by using an established star like Jocelyn. But we believe that apart from this, there is more to Tedros that we don’t know about, which will hopefully get revealed in the last episode of The Idol. We got a glimpse of Jocelyn standing on the stage in what seemed like a concert, and so we believe that in the end she managed to convince the organizers not to cancel it and let her perform. Maybe Jocelyn also entered into some sort of arrangement with Tedros, where she promoted his singers, but not before making sure that she benefited from the entire proceedings.
There is no denying that Sam Levinson knows how to build up a narrative and engage us through the conflicts scattered all across the screenplay, but the problem lies in the fact that his characters not only validate toxic behavior but seem to glorify it. Here is a man who is abusing a woman, and she seems to think that it is bringing out the best in her and helping her be more creative. Tedros is literally assaulting her in front of everybody, and nobody except Leia has a problem with it. We can’t unsee that and just accept that behavior of the characters and give them the benefit of doubt, just because it is shown that they had gone through alot in their lives. We don’t question whether there are people like this or not, but our main concern is people trying to sensualize and authenticate the proceedings and hide behind the fact that it was all consensual. We believe that Sam Levinson is capable of much more, and after The Idol, we would want to see him create better characters and be more socially responsible through his work.
