Goodbye, angels.
“The Idol” — or at least its first season — came to a close after five Sunday night episodes, but not without the usual dose of dark sexual ups and downs for its jewel-eyed, rat-tailed stars.
Titled “Jocelyn Forever”, the episode opens with Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) working on a song at her house with the prolific Mike Dean (played by himself). As she sings lyrics, Tedros (Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye) urged her to write – “My kinda love / Force me, choke me ’till I out” – it becomes clear that the ex-pimp’s coke habit overtook him. Sweating as his hair begins to fall out of his famous rat tail, he interrupts the jam session to take some notes. Jocelyn informs him not to do that anymore.
“Are you going to kick out your only source of inspiration?” Tedros laughs. Jocelyn shoots back: “I think you’ve served your purpose.”
Their whirlwind romance is over after Jocelyn realized at her recent house party that Tedros had teamed up with her backup dancer Dyanne (Jennie Kim) to not only steal her single ‘World Class Sinner’, but also infiltrate Jocelyn’s life and home. In revenge, she slept with her ex-boyfriend Rob (Karl Glusman) while Tedros listened through the door.
But knowing that Tedros and his crew’s entry into her orbit was orchestrated à la Taylor Swift’s “Mastermind” isn’t a total loss to Jocelyn, who adores the followers who have come to live with Tedros in her home. Later in the episode, when Live Nation executive Andrew Finkelstein (Eli Roth) says he’s coming over to discuss Jocelyn’s upcoming tour (and if she’s mentally stable enough to do it), Jocelyn invites Izaak (Moses Sumney), Chloe (Suzanna Son) and Ramsey (Ramsey) to be her opening act. Tedros is furious that he was not informed of the meeting or consulted about the openers, but none of the subordinates respond when their leader lashes out. Jocelyn stole his cult from under him: “These are my people now.”
There’s one outlier: Tedros has a quiet conversation with Xander (Troye Sivan), whose trust he gained at the end of the last episode, telling him he couldn’t let Jocelyn pull him out of the tour.
Jocelyn is cast under a spell as the rest of the house prepares for the meeting, wearing as little clothing as possible as instructed by Tedros. Bianca (Bianca Ghezzi) plays cocktail waitress for the night and practically gives Finkelstein a lap dance. Upon literally meeting record label manager Nikki (Jane Adams) for the first time, Tedros calls her a “Judas” and a “cunt” for signing Dyanne without consulting him first. Fink squirms and threatens to leave if Jocelyn doesn’t show up soon, but one of Jocelyn’s managers, Destiny (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), convinces him, her co-manager Chaim, and Nikki to stay and watch Jocelyn’s new openers perform. The impromptu amateur showcase is awkward at first, but the talent on display is undeniable and Fink starts drinking the Kool-Aid.
Meanwhile, Jocelyn’s assistant slash BFF Leila (Rachel Sennot) is in crisis. She’s been trying to get Jocelyn’s attention all day, and we see why when she steps outside to take a call: Rob, an upcoming superhero movie actor, has been accused of raping someone at the feast of Jocelyn. Leia promises Rob that she believes his innocence, and panics when she realizes it’s Xander’s “boyfriend” who framed him.
Back inside, Chaim and Destiny whisper about how to make money with the talents of Chloe, Isaac and Ramsey, while Nikki and Tedros do the same on the other side of the couch. Leia confronts an apathetic Xander, and soon Nikki reads a headline about Rob aloud to the group, which now includes Jocelyn. A single tear rolls down Jocelyn’s cheek as she looks at Tedros, who can barely hide his grin. She doesn’t know about Xander’s involvement, but it’s still clear to her that the whole scheme goes back to Tedros. Jocelyn freezes as everyone discusses Rob being digitally removed from his movie, and at Tedros’s mark, Xander takes the opportunity to make his big return to singing after Jocelyn’s mom (and possibly Jocelyn herself) has long since had that dream of him taken away. Jocelyn runs out of the room, grabs Tedros to confront him about Rob, and tells him (for the third time this episode) to get out of her house. She goes back into the playroom and whispers to Chaim to pay [Tedros] wherever he wants to come from [her] live forever.
As Fink declares that Jocelyn’s will be “the tour of the century”, she pulls Xander into a hug as she makes eye contact with Tedros through the doorway, indicating that she controls Xander’s career, not him. She prepares to put on a performance of her own as Chaim Tedros makes a potion and narrates a souped-up version of “Little Red Riding Hood”, casting herself as the huntsman who rescues Red and brutally kills the Big Bad Wolf.
Jocelyn performs one of her new singles and performs her own choreography, choking herself, pulling her own hair and giving Fink a second near-lap dance. With Fink looking thrilled and terrified at the same time, armed guards pull Tedros outside in a car, where he ceremoniously tears up a $500,000 check that Chaim has offered in exchange for them leaving their lives forever. Chuckling, Chaim initiates what he calls “Plan B.”
Chaim tells Jocelyn that he paid Tedros, but instead meets with Vanity Fair journalist Talia (Hari Nef) and promises her a big story. Leia grabs a bag and leaves a note on Jocelyn’s bed, presumably quitting her job. And Nikki meets Dyanne and tells her that for undisclosed legal reasons the label can’t release her single after all. As the elevator doors close on her, a heartbroken Dyanne asks, “It was Jocelyn, wasn’t it?”
Then we jump six weeks into the future. At the SoFi stadium in Los Angeles, Chaim, Nikki and Fink laugh at the fact that they used Talia to get rid of Tedros, who apparently lost his club’s property after Vanity Fair’s big story about his criminal past. But he’s not as far away as they think. As Chloe, Izaak, Ramsey and Xander repeat their opening performance, a meek Tedros checks into the stadium with a pass left for him by Jocelyn – under his real name, Mauricio Jackson. Fate awaits him, warning that she doesn’t care about his past, but will kill him if he hurts Jocelyn.
The couple get back together and Jocelyn says, “None of this means much without you.” After they hug, Tedros sees something on the counter: “Did you say this was the brush your mom hit you with?” It’s brand new.” Jocelyn just smiles. The implication seems to be that her stories about her mother weren’t entirely true and she was in control all along.
That’s how it feels on stage. She shocks her team and starts her concert by introducing her fans to ‘the love of [her] life,” and brings Tedros to the stage. They kiss and pleased with herself she says to him, “You are mine forever. Just stand there now.’
He looks defeated and complies.