Sam Levinson’s series, The Idol, made us privy to many intriguing and controversial characters, but Tedros, aka Mauricio Jackson, tops the list when it comes to toxicity and dominating the lives of others around him. In the beginning, it felt like Tedros had met Jocelyn by chance, and both of them instantly started liking each other. But the reality was that Tedros had wanted to meet Jocelyn for a long time, and he had contacted Dyanne to make it happen. Dyanne was one of the talented singers he had found, and he was in a position to influence her and probably that is why she came on board and told him that she would bring Jocelyn to his club. Lucky for him, Jocelyn really liked him, and soon, they became so close that he decided to shift with his entire entourage into Jocelyn’s home.
For the first 4 episodes, it felt like Tedros had the reins in his hands and was the one who was running the show, but that delusion broke when Jocelyn revealed her real face and surprised everybody else. Jocelyn was not only manipulating Tedros, but she was actually manipulating her entire crew, who were vouching for her and who believed that the poor girl needed saving from the bad man. So let’s try to ascertain what Tedros wanted to accomplish had he not been played and used by Jocelyn first, and additionally, how he processed everything when he got to know that Jocelyn had been playing with him all along and not the other way around.
Spoilers Alert
How Did Tedros Try To Take Over Jocelyn’s Life?
Tedros was a manipulative guy, and even though he was tricked by Jocelyn, he tried his level best to completely take over her life and own it, in a sense. Tedros gave Jocelyn the validation she craved, and he had the exact amount of toxicity that Jocelyn liked in a man. We make this statement because the way Sam Levinson portrayed the character of Jocelyn made us believe that she attracted toxicity because she herself was like that. The first thing that Tedros did was brainwash Jocelyn and try to alienate her from all the people, like Leia, who were unconditionally there for her. Tedros gave his strange creative inputs and told Jocelyn to not be afraid to cross the line at times. It started to feel like Tedros was running a cult and had his own strange philosophy, which only Jocelyn and his followers seemed to understand. For the outside world, it was weird to witness what was happening in that madhouse, and it felt like a bunch of deranged people had been kept in one place. Tedros believed that he was the ringmaster, and Jocelyn let him feel that because, apparently, she was deriving inspiration from whatever he was doing.
Tedros enjoyed being in such an influential position in that house that even when he literally tortured Xander in front of everybody, nobody said a word against him. Because Jocelyn was letting him do whatever he wanted and she was consenting to his weirdest requests, Tedros had started feeling that he was really in charge of things and that Jocelyn would do whatever he said. But he forgot that he was able to run the show only because he had Jocelyn’s confidence, and the moment that went away, it wouldn’t take Chaim and Destiny a lot of time to throw him out of the house.
There came a point where we believe Jocelyn felt that she no longer needed Tedros, and additionally, he did some things that really triggered her. Jocelyn got to know from Chloe that Tedros had intricately planned their first meeting, and it was not a coincidence. This was also the time when she got to know that Nikki was going to release her song with Dyanne as the face in the music video and that infuriated her even more. Jocelyn called her ex-boyfriend home, only to show Tedros what she was capable of. Tedros didn’t understand how, after running the show for so long, he became so helpless all of a sudden. But before he could grasp what was happening and understand who Jocelyn really was, the ship sailed. From hereon, Jocelyn came to the driver’s seat, and her actions made it very clear that she was in-charge now and that she didn’t need Tedros any longer.
Was Tedros The Wolf In The Little Red Riding Hood Story?
Tedros had started feeling quite powerful, and he got a lot of satisfaction when Jocelyn did whatever he asked her to do. But as soon as he understood what she was up to, he felt like he was merely a puppet who had been tricked into believing that it was his show. Now that Jocelyn was done with him, i.e., after creating her new songs, she discarded him, and that really made the club owner feel miserable about his state. He started drinking and he was in a terrible mental space where he didn’t know what to do to make her stop. But Jocelyn had made up her mind, and she told Chaim to handle Tedros and throw him out. Chaim was more than happy to do that, as he had been waiting for the time when he would be able to dictate terms to the madman.
Chaim compared Tedros with the wolf in the story of the Little Red Riding Hood. He blamed him for trying to sabotage Jocelyn’s entire career and take over her empire. He told Tedros that the little Red Riding Hood didn’t end after the wolf killed the grandmother and the girl. He said that the wolf had dozed off, thinking that nobody could harm him now, and that’s when a hunter arrived and killed the wolf. Chaim told him that he was the hunter, and he had come to make sure that the wolf’s life was destroyed. We believe that Tedros might have come into Jocelyn’s life with the intention of using her popularity to promote his artists, and he may have harbored a desire to control her life just like he did with his other singers. There is also a possibility that Tedros himself wanted to become a singer, but because of a lack of talent or any other reason, he wasn’t able to accomplish his goal. Maybe that’s when he would have realized that he wanted to be in a position to govern the lives of talented singers by opening his own music label.
But we think that he wouldn’t have destroyed her career or her life because, in his own toxic way, he fell for her and did get attached to her. We agree that it was a nightmarish love story like a virulent strain of a virus, and at times, it felt quite absurd, but still, we think that Tedros treasured Jocelyn. We agree that he would have snatched her independence with time, and he would have made her accept that being abusive was part and parcel of a relationship, but he wouldn’t have abandoned her. Well, it is bizarre to even think about the possible directions in which the characters could have gone because Sam Levinson really stretched the limit this time and came up with extremely problematic characters that set the worst precedent. And we are able to make these weird deductions because Jocelyn, at the end of The Idol season 1, accepted Tedros back into her life and declared in front of the whole world that he was her one true love who had helped her cope with her grief and get over her depression.
In the end, Tedros looked like he had woken after a decade-long slumber, and nothing in the world seemed to make sense. It wasn’t like Jocelyn didn’t need him, but Tedros knew that he was not irreplaceable. Moreover, Jocelyn just needed him because she wanted a slave, a puppet who would act in accordance with her whims and fancies, and not because her career depended on him. Jocelyn accepted him into her life, but he knew that he had lost that dominating position that he once held and he would have to play by her rules now.
