Review: The Idol, “Jocelyn Forever” | Season 1, Episode 5

A fitfully compelling finale can’t overcome the season’s larger issues

Photograph by Eddy Chen/HBO

From the first scene of The Idol, the extent of Jocelyn’s agency has been an open question. In our very first glimpse of the star, Joss’s impatience with her intimacy coordinator provided some evidence that no matter how closely her team dictated her day-to-day life, she was always in control; this was the existence she chose, and any seemingly mandated sexualization had her full blessing. Almost every episode since that first one offered more clues that Joss was really in charge here, climaxing last week when Xander told Tedros she was using him.

I expected that flip in the power dynamic to really set Tedros off, potentially leading to serious violence in this finale—especially with his intense jealousy over Joss’s reunion with her ex. But “Jocelyn Forever” actually features the least violence (and least sex) of any episode in this short five-episode season. In fact, the Tedros powder keg never really goes off; he uses Xander to falsely accuse Heartthrob Rob of rape, but we never cared about Rob, and the whole event just becomes one of the already-abundant examples of Tedros’s toxicity.