Posted by The Idol has finally come to its ending: the HBO series finale aired on July 3, allowing us to see the conclusion of the weird adventures involving Jocelyn, Tedros, and all the people around them. Many elements need to be explained: is Jocelyn really in love with Tedros in the end, and how should we interpret their “tough love”? Who manipulated who? Let’s analyze the plot in this article.
You can watch the official trailer for HBO’s The Idol here on Youtube.
The Idol finale explained: Jocelyn, Tedros & their “tough love”
The most exciting part of The Idol is how the perspective shifts while the series progresses. As the plot of The Idol kicks off, we are introduced to Jocelyn as a popstar who’s having a breakdown: her mother died recently, she doesn’t seem able to have control on her life, and she cannot focus on her music career. She appears in an explicit condition of weakness. And we can clearly see how Tedros enters her life with a purpose, trying to conquer space in her home and her mind.
As the plot of The Idol goes on, especially in the first half, we have the clear sensation that Tedros is a manipulative, aggressive personality. We explored their relationship exhaustively in the article below.
While Jocelyn appears weak and unable to lead her own life, Tedros offers her a powerful, confident, authoritative figure. He arrives as a savior in a moment of need: Jocelyn cannot handle her life; she needs to delegate control for a moment. She needs someone to guide her. And Tedros does precisely that: he appears behind our eyes as a clear manipulative personality who uses aggressivity to keep all the people around under his control. From time to time, Jocelyn says all this explicitly, asking him to lead her life.
However, as the series gets closer to its finale, things need to be explained from a different perspective. The change starts at the end of episode 4, where Jocelyn takes the initiative without consulting Tedros, doing something that obviously bothers him: she invites Rob, her ex-boyfriend, to her home, spending the night with him. At that moment, we start having doubts, and things change completely in the series ending, where Jocelyn casts Tedros out of her life, stealing from him the artists he discovered and using them in her tour. Ultimately, who manipulates who in The Idol?
We can safely say that both Tedros and Jocelyn are manipulators. You can clearly see how Tedros holds control over his people, trying to do the same with Jocelyn. He wants everyone to follow his order; he drives the others so they do what he wants. He declares he’s guided only by his artistic drive, which may be true. But it doesn’t change the fact that he sees all others as pawns at his service. However, in The Idol finale, we have clear proof that Jocelyn was also a manipulator: she used Tedros for her career, using his artistic talent to produce the best songs she released in months. She allowed him to temporarily control her, establishing that kind of extreme, submissive relationship that would work perfectly for her music. We discover that she even lied about her mother and the hairbrush. And as soon as Tedros served his purpose, with three excellent singles ready for release and three of his artists agreeing to join her tour, Jocelyn no longer needed Tedros, and she expels him from her life.
However, the series finale shows a surprising element, revealed in the ending scenes of The Idol: when Jocelyn’s tour starts, while her management laughs about how they destroyed Tedros after the articles their journalist published, we discover that Jocelyn left an artist pass for Tedros’ birthname, Mauricio Costello Jackson. Tedros enters his room, and Jocelyn admits that success has a different taste without him. In front of her management’s astonished faces, she invited Tedros on the stage, presenting him to her fans as “the love of her life” and kissing him in front of the others. Then she orders him to stand aside, telling him: “you are mine forever.”
Is Jocelyn really in love with Tedros, or is it some form of “tough love,” like her single is about? You can listen to One of The Girls, the “tough love” single below.
Give me tough love
Leave me with nothin’ when I come down
My kind of love
Push me and choke me ’til I pass out
Surely, Jocelyn is now acting like the master who can keep Tedros in his place. Tedros is the weak half of the couple now: he lost everything and knows Jocelyn’s entourage can destroy him at any moment. He appears to still be in love with Jocelyn, and hearing that she returns his love is enough to submit himself to her. Even if she’s doing all that only for an artistic purpose: we now know that Jocelyn is as manipulative as him, and we definitely doubt she sincerely loves him. Most likely, she’s using Tedros’ presence to boost her career, triggering the mediatic buzz about her new boyfriend and taking advantage of his artists and his talent for her music.
In the finale of The Idol, the roles are switched, now Jocelyn is the manipulator and Tedros her victim, and there is no other way the ending can be explained. Jocelyn allowed all that to happen for her personal advantage, overcoming her inspirational block and securing her tour with a new series of emerging artists opening for her. Tedros is there, loyally following her moves, waiting for her love crumbs like a dog next to his master.
