TRIGGER WARNING: This post has mentions of sexual assault, childhood trauma, physical abuse, and possible minor trafficking.
What happens when you take “Girlboss, Gaslight, Gatekeep” a little too seriously? Well, Save Your Tears– The Weeknd is here with an elaborate five-episode exposition.
‘The Idol’ is Abel Tesfaye’s, popularly known by his stage name, The Weeknd’s debut as a showrunner. It was co-created between himself and Euphoria’s Sam Levinson. The story follows our resident Girlboss, Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) preparing to make a comeback after a mental breakdown she had amidst her world tour. Girlboss Jocelyn finds Tedros (Abel Tesfaye)– a club owner who Gatekeeps raw musical talent, and his favourite hobby is Gaslighting everyone into thinking he is their lord and saviour. Let’s delve into what may have been Jocelyn’s Stargirl Interlude or maybe just Creepin’.
And so come The Idol Red Flags. (Ted’s Reds, if you will ;p)
Episode 01: Pop Tarts and Rat Tales
Unprofessional and Dangerous Workplace Environment.
We open with Jocelyn doing a photo shoot for her upcoming album’s cover. She’s dressed in a bathrobe, and while experimenting with various facial expressions with her photographer, she decided she wanted to do a few shots with her chest bare. The decision had ruffled the intimacy coordinator on the set due to her rider’s ‘No Nudity’ clause. The purpose of an intimacy coordinator is to be a liaison between actors and production (in this case, Jocelyn and the photoshoot crew) to ensure rules for intimate/hyper-exposed scenes. These clauses are processed and approved to ensure the safety of the actors. To change such clauses, they must be processed once again with desired changes- provided the actors approve of them as well. When Jocelyn’s intimacy coordinator points this out, he got pulled away from the scene by one of her managers to reason with him about wasted time and money to revise the clause, but the coordinator disagreed since procedures are made for a reason. Since the advocate wouldn’t reason with either Jocelyn or her crew- he got locked in a bathroom so the rest of the crew could wrap the photoshoot up.
Later on in the episode, Jocelyn had gone clubbing with her friends Leia (Rachel Sennot), Xander (Troye Sivan), and Dyanne (BLACKPINK’s Jennie Ruby Jane) which finally led to her crossing paths with Tedros, a self-proclaimed, Starboy with the iconic (is it though?) “Rat-Tail”.
Starry-eyed Joss felt Tedros understood music in a perspective she needed to hear, so she took him home and played her upcoming single, ‘World Class Sinner’. When she mentioned her concern about the lyrics sounding superficial and odd, Tedros said,
“If you’re going to sing a song called ‘I’m A Freak’, you should at least sing it like you know how to f*ck-”
Tedros Tedros (yes, twice)
Rest assured, I’ll let you guess what the new background vocals of the ‘World Class Sinner’ re-recording sounded like- featuring Tedros.
Episode 02: Double Fantasy
Disregard for Artists’ Mental Health and Unethical Teaching Practices.
Jocelyn played the re-recorded version of her song to all her managers who collectively believed that “too much moaning” was definitely a thing.
We watch along as Jocelyn got worked up on getting a dance sequence right while filming her music video, so much so that she had a similar breakdown that had caused her tour to stop. She also seemed to have cuts on her inner thighs- courtesy of a certain late-night visitor.
As for Tedros’ storyline- we observe more about his own professional life. He seemed to be collecting raw and young talent to work for his club and play mentor for those young minds. However, his teaching methods were extremely unorthodox. A brief scene of him using a shock collar on one of his students just to ensure he was doing a dance step right is seen.
Episode 03: Daybreak
Controlling Behaviour and Glorification of Childhood Trauma.
We start with Tedros getting ticked off by Jocelyn’s physical trainer touching her stomach- a gesture Jocelyn was comfortable with. Tedros proceeded to preach about “boundaries” that he set for a person he met not a week ago. Apparently, adult women are incapable of setting boundaries for themselves. Funny.
Later on in the episode, Tedros brought in a band of his students to share dinner with Jocelyn and her friends Leia and Xander. During the dinner, Jocelyn was forced to open up about her late mother who had passed recently in front of complete strangers she had just met that day.
Jocelyn revealed that her relationship with her mother was far from perfect. In fact, her mother was quite abusive to her ever since she was a child to a woman in her early twenties. She added that her mother would hit her with a hairbrush to “motivate” her to do her job as a child actor/singer. Upon hearing this, Tedros nudged Jocelyn into feeling that the reason why she had lost her spark; her passion for her job was that her primary motivator was no longer around. He assigned the absence of said “motivation” as the cause of her mental breakdowns.
To help Joss overcome this predicament, he asked her to bring the hairbrush her mother had abused her with and proceeded to “instill passion” in her again.
Episode 04: Stars Belong To The World
Sexual Assault Disguised as Art.
The beginning of the penultimate episode had Destiny otherwise known as Dee (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) discussing Tedros’ alarming past to Chaim (Hank Azaria), both Jocelyn’s managers. Tedros had not only been lying about his name but he had also been charged with Assault and Battery for kidnapping his ex-girlfriend and torturing her for three days. She claimed that in the four-hundred-page trial transcript, “A whole slew of charges came up during the case [sic]”
Dee got assigned to play spy in Jocelyn’s home as Tedros called a well-known producer to help Jocelyn record a few ‘Hit Singles’. While recording the song, a note Destiny had made was the word ‘Yeah’ sounding slightly off on the audio clip. When Jocelyn wasn’t able to get it right, Tedros took it upon himself to sexually assault Jocelyn in front of everyone in the room to get her to moan the said word. Jocelyn also went on to write a lyric saying, “I don’t wanna make decisions for myself, on my own.” Telling Tedros she just wanted him to rule her life.
Later on in the episode, one of Tedros’ students, Chloe (Suzanna Son) opens up to Destiny about how she was “saved” by Tedros. The child (yes, a minor who is made to lie about her age- this is revealed when she fumbled about it, “seven- no eighteen [sic]”) was shown in a sexual context many times. To put it in Destiny’s own words- “He’s a pimp.”
Whilst Jocelyn and her “crew” hosted a house party, Chloe accidentally revealed that Tedros had deliberately planned to meet Jocelyn in his club during episode one through Dynanne. This of all the things Tedros had done to her, this was a crossed line for Jocelyn to the point where she had dialed her ex-boyfriend to make Tedros jealous.
Episode 05: Jocelyn Forever
Honestly- it was just really bad writing and to me, that’s a red flag.
The finale began with Jocelyn performing one of her songs and taking some executive decisions for her own career with Dee’s suggestions. The action angered Tedros as he began to question her choices before she told him that she didn’t need him. She told him that she only needed his students to be the opening acts for her tour, but he could leave. This inflicts a very quick crash for Tedros’ sanity as his physical appearance got increasingly unhinged over the episode.
The ending confused everyone. The questions about why Tedros ever wanted to cross paths with Jocelyn were never answered. The penultimate scene shows Tedros meeting Jocelyn backstage. He picked up a hairbrush on a desk and asked her if it was the same hairbrush her mom abused her with. She replied saying it was a new one identical to the older. The only way I can interpret that scene is that she was asking Tedros to replace her mom to “motivate” her (Joss, the only thing that starts with T you need; is Therapy).
The final scene of the show is Jocelyn stepping onto the stage and announcing Tedros as the “love of her life”. On Jocelyn’s part- the ending was quite distasteful. It’s okay to show that women can lean on people for support, but that does not mean they should give up their entire autonomy. Although, the real ambiguity came with Tedros. In all honesty- we had the same face on during the entire episode and the expression can be exactly translated to “What the hell is going on?”
Final Thoughts
Holding the glorification of abuse and all the others of Ted’s Reds aside, ‘The Idol’ was easily the worst-written TV show I have ever watched. The plot makes no sense (and I’ve even watched Riverdale until a certain point). The dialogues never hit the mark. It’s tough to watch Tedros speak without contorting your face in disgust ‘cause if the dialogues were bad, the delivery was painfully worse.
Jennie Ruby Jane and Troye Sivan were the marketing face of the show before it got released. Jennie’s character didn’t have much a of presence neither did her character, Dyanne have any significance. Troye’s character was definitely more prominent. His performance in episode four was notable and a great reflection of his skill as a seasoned actor. Lily-Rose Depp’s performance (although her character didn’t have a lot of dimension) was good as well. However, some people, on the other hand, may be better off just sticking to doing what they know best.
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