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Oh, rats.
Fans — and hate-watchers — of the first, freaky season of HBO’s controversial “The Idol” said goodbye to the weird, controversial world inhabited by wannabe pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) and her creepy mentor, the rat-tail sporting Tedros (Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye), after the show’s fifth and final episode, “Jocelyn Forever.”
After struggling under ex-pimp/cult leader/star maker Tedros — Tesfaye is a co-creator of the show, along with Sam Levinson (“Euphoria”) and Reza Fahim — last night was all about Jocelyn demonstrating her power.
Dwindling audiences of the show, said to have contributed “the worst sex scene in history” in an earlier episode, we are finally given access to the badass, pop diva lurking underneath, ready to strike with the same venom being poured into her by Tedros and company.
Jocelyn, it turns out, is ruthless.
The shift in power balance is clear from the start — while everyone gathers at Jocelyn’s house for a tour meeting, a disheveled Tedros is kicked out of Jocelyn’s life, seemingly forever.
And why not? She has his singers. She has his twisted inspiration etched into her songs. She has record producer Mike Dean. Tedros has been drained of all his purpose, leaving him a battered, lost, in-need-of-a-perm loser.
To deal a final cutting blow, co-manager Chaim does what any person trying to ruin another person would do — he weaponizes the media, this time in the form of Vanity Fair reporter Talia (Hari Nef), promising her a career-making story that’s designed to destroy Tedros forever.
But while Jocelyn may have read Tedros the riot act, it soon becomes clear that he’s not going anywhere — even if others, like the double-crossed Dyanne, her also-aspiring assistant, are.
One minute, Tedros is toast; the next Jocelyn is confessing to her audience — her “angels” — that success isn’t going to mean much without him.
