A Jocelyn Forever Recap:
As the housekeepers clean the entryway, Jocelyn sings One of Your Girls in Mike Dean’s studio setup. Tedros sits at the bar in the adjacent room looking worse for wear, and that may be an understatement. He goes into the studio and asks to hear a part of the song again. Joss tells him to go. He “served his purpose.” Didn’t Xander warn us just last week that Joss uses people and drops them?
Tedros was using her too which Jocelyn candidly recounts to everyone in earshot. He was obsessed with her for years while he was in prison. He had his friend (her backup dancer) bring her to his club where he points her out on the dance floor. Then he starts talking about Prince because Dyanne told him about the giant Prince poster at her house. He’s a “fucking con man and a fraud.” It was all a set up, and it worked. Mike even comments “that’s some super LA shit” and calls Tedros a vampire.
Then Joss asks devil horn-clad Chloe when Tedros first mentioned her. Chloe and her innocent self reveals Tedros had been “manifesting this for forever.” Joss stands up to Tedros (literally) and tells him his artists can stay, but he needs to go. Leia gleefully smirks in the corner that this day has finally come.
In the next scene Joss walks into her label’s office, a pop diva on a mission. Though we don’t see Nikki, Joss gets back into the elevator and tells Leia she loved the new song.
The next day Leia wakes Jocelyn up. Finkelstein is on the phone. He has concerns about the tour and needs to meet with her face-to-face after his “meeting” (i.e. his spa appointment).
Joss goes into her bathroom. Leia pensively sits on Joss’s bed and tells her she needs to talk about something important. Joss asks if it has anything to do with the tour. When Leia says no, Joss tells her nothing else matters right now. Sorry girl. It’s Joss’s world, and we’re all just pawns within it.
Jocelyn goes downstairs to wake up the family. She ignores Tedros who is once again drinking at the bar. (Just be glad he changed his outfit.) She tells the family her team is coming over at 1pm to discuss the tour. She announces she wants Chloe, Ramsey, and Izaak (who’s somewhere doing a yoga routine that we’re sadly not getting to see) to be her opening act.
Tedros starts saying “that’s very funny” to which Joss responds with what we’re all thinking: “Are you still here?” Tedros reminds Joss his people are an extension of him. Joss sets him straight. These are her people now and he’s just a “sweaty, drunken, fucking, pathetic mess.” Looks like there’s a new cult leader in town. Joss says he’s a distraction. She’s trying to get ready for her show that’s in danger of being canceled. Tedros corrects her and calls it “our show.” Joss sets him straight again. The difference between her and him is she can actually make the family stars. Well, she’s not wrong.
When Joss leaves the room, Tedros calls Xander over. He whispers that he shouldn’t let Joss walk over him again and cut him out of the show. He needs to use his gifts. Xander sits down and smirks to himself. What is this boy thinking?
Tedros turns on boss mode as they prepare for Joss’s team’s arrival. He orders his people to look sexy. If they’re getting attention, lean into it. And clean this place up!
Suddenly we see Jocelyn at her vanity obsessively brushing her hair. Here we go again. She pauses for a moment when Heartthrob Rob calls. but doesn’t answer. Back to brushing!
One-by-one Finkelstein, Nikki, and Chaim roll up to the mansion. Destiny’s already there waiting outside for the trio. They’re all greeted at the door by shirtless Izaak who Fink calls “a really hot Targgaryen.” (Two points for shameless MAX cross-promotion.) Izaak hugs them which instantly throws off Nikki and Fink. As they’re led into the studio, here comes Chloe and the rest of the family greeting them in various states of undress.
Tedros tries to take control and tells everyone to have a seat. As usual, he overdoes it trying to be taken seriously and yells for Bianca to get everyone’s drink orders. Fink asks for water, Chaim asks for whiskey, D asks for a Long Island Iced Tea, and Nikki doesn’t want anything. Bianca asks Fink if she can get him anything “a little more fun,” then whispers in his ear to meet her upstairs. Fink looks terrified.
Chaim introduces Tedros to Nikki and Fink. Tedros says it’s critical that they’re all able to trust each other and “there’s no fuckin’ Judas in the room” directing his gaze at Nikki. Tedros tells her what she did with Dyanne was f’d up. She has no taste, imagination, or vision. He even calls her a “TikTok-obsessed fucking algorithm cunt.” Chaim whispers to D, “He’s got a point.” Nikki tries to defend herself by saying that’s the “pot calling the kettle black.” Tedros tries to turn this into a race thing, but Fink cuts him off. He’s leaving in 5 minutes and taking the tour with him if Jocelyn doesn’t appear.
Mitch goes to get Joss while Nikki and Fink get antsy. Nikki whispers this feels like a cult, and she wants to leave. Chaim tells them to chill, then asks D if this is going to be okay. D reassures him she wouldn’t bring them here if there was some BS going on. Then she asks Chloe to play Like a God on piano. Chloe starts singing. Chaim is impressed. Fink won’t stop talking about the cult giving him Manson family vibes. Chaim tells him to shut up.
While Jocelyn makes her slow descent down the stairs in a beaded white minidress, Leia is getting yelled at on the phone by Heartthrob Rob. It seems there are career-ending allegations about him raping someone at Jocelyn’s house. Leia tells him everyone’s at the house today so things are crazy. Rob reveals Xander asked him to take a photo with his “friend” who jumped into his lap and is now accusing him of rape. He needs Joss to make a statement saying he didn’t do anything. This Xander detail is news to Leia. She tells Rob she’ll call him back. She goes inside and asks Xander to step outside with her. It’s an emergency. He tells her to “shut the fuck up” so she leans against the wall sulking.
Jocelyn finally makes her grand entrance as Chloe ends her song. Fink wants to speak with Joss in private, but she tells him he needs to hear Izaak next. Tedros tries to talk to her, but she tells him to stop. Izaak starts singing with his sexy self. D calls him a “fuckin’ god.” Chaim says his talent is undeniable. Fink questions if Joss is mentally stable from what he’s seen in the last 20 minutes. Izaak starts singing to Nikki and dry humping her. Tedros tries to apologize to Joss again, but she tells him to stop looking at her. She’s busy pitching the family as her opening act to Fink.
Leia once again asks Xander to talk to her for a second. Mitch instantly appears and puts his arm around her. She asks to speak to Xander alone, but Xander says Mitch is family. Leia tells them Rob’s been accused of sexual assault and the news is about to go public. Xander sarcastically says, “Oh no, He’s got that huge movie coming out.” Leia says she can’t get Joss to listen to her. Then Xander tries to plant it in her head that Joss already knows what Rob did and isn’t taking his calls. When she says she really doesn’t think Rob’s capable of this, Xander counters. “You don’t think people are capable of hiding who they really are?”
Ramsey performs next. The family is 3 for 3 with Joss’s team. Chaim is shocked none of the artists are signed. Fink can’t believe Tedros, a.k.a. “Scarface Miyagi,” found these talents yet can barely string together a proper sentence.
Now let the real games begin.
On one end of the couch Nikki tells Tedros it’s amazing he found all these artists on his own. Tedros admits Joss is trying to take credit. Nikki reassures him that she can see he’s the one behind all this. For once, Tedros gets the acknowledgement he craves. Nikki warns him the rest of Joss’s team are going to screw him over so he needs to come work with her. Tedros tells Nikki it’s all about the art for him, and he’s not into the politicking and propaganda. She wears him down by calling him brilliant repeatedly. She even goes as far to say he was right for calling her a cunt earlier. She’s really doing the most right now.
On the other end of the couch, Chaim is trying to convince Fink that Jocelyn has been mentoring all these young artists all along. Nothing would be happening without her. Well half of that is true. Destiny whispers to Chaim that they need to do this shit on their own without Nikki. D points out she’s been here every day with these kids getting to know them, and she won’t let Nikki take them away. Points were made.
Suddenly Nikki gets an alert on her phone and announces to the group that Rob was accused of rape. The movie studio states that Rob is only in 5% of his new movie so they will digitally remove his face. Joss glares at Tedros with tears in her eyes. She knows he’s behind this. Nikki asks Joss if Rob was ever weird with her. She says no. Here comes Tedros stating he’s heard “violent things” about Rob, yet he never shares any details of these “things” he speaks of. Instead he whispers to Xander to take the stage.
To Jocelyn’s surprise and dismay, Xander tells the group he’s going to sing something. Are we sure it was just Jocelyn’s mother who didn’t want Xander to sing? I’m starting to think it was just Joss herself. Chaim asks Joss if she planned this. Unsurprisingly she uses this as an opportunity to take credit. “Well, we decided to put on a show.” Everyone’s impressed that Xander’s still got it.
While Xander continues to sing, Joss angrily drags Tedros out of the room. She tells him she knows he’s behind Rob’s allegations. Once again she wants him out of her house. She threatens to call the cops, and he says that he’ll keep her hostage. She threatens the cops will kill him, and he threatens to kill her first. Joss storms back into the showcase and whispers to Chaim, “Pay him whatever the fuck he wants to get out of my life forever.” “Say no more. Say no more.” Chaim cheerily goes over to Tedros and walks him to the bar.
Leia suddenly storms out of the showcase. Later we see her quietly quitting. She packs up her room, leaving a note for Joss behind. She’s clearly tired of being used and who can blame her? Joss won’t listen to her. No one has her back here, not even Xander. Who’s a girl to trust at this point?
Back in the studio Joss says Xander’s opening for her and even hugs him tightly to sell her story. Joss tells Fink there’s one more performance to go. She goes outside and … prays while watching Chaim talk to Tedros inside. Guess she only answers to God after all. (IYKYK.)
Chaim pours himself a drink, recounting the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The hunter cuts open the wolf’s belly and saves Little Red Riding Hood and her grandma. Little Red hatches a plan to fill the wolf’s belly with rocks which ultimately kills him. Basically Joss is Little Red Riding Hood. Tedros is the wolf. Chaim is the hunter. Got it.
Joss returns to the showcase and does what she does best, puts on a sexy hell of a show. She’s all over Fink as she performs Dollhouse. It’s Lily-Rose’s best choreo in the whole series. Tedros watches from the bar before getting dragged out by security. He’s led to the back of a SUV where Chaim writes him a check for $500,000 made out to his government name Mauricio Jackson. Tedros rips up the check and says Joss is worth more than money. Chaim exits the vehicle and tells him now they move to Plan B. Umm, what’s Plan B?
Fink is impressed with Joss’s growth and the family. The tour is back on! He and Nikki leave, and the family celebrates.
The SUV with Tedros in the back leaves the mansion. Chaim goes back inside and finds Joss smoking by the outdoor pool. He tells her he paid Tedros “a lot” to go away. Umm, that’s not what just happened. And WTF is this Plan B of his?
Back at Magistrate, Nikki tells Dyanne that there’s suddenly a “legal problem.” They’ll be holding the release of her new single. Dyanne is upset and asks what happened to all the legal support she was promised. Nikki tells her to write her own song and promises they’ll still make her a star. As the elevator door closes, Dyanne says, “It was Jocelyn, wasn’t it?” Girl, you already know.
Joss is prepping for her big comeback tour. She’s swimming, working out, playing piano, looking at her hairbrush, and smoking.
Meanwhile Chaim initiates Plan B. Talia walks into a parking garage. Chaim rolls up asking when her story is due for Vanity Fair. She tells him Friday. He tells her to hold it. He has a bigger story for her. “My girl’s in a lotta trouble, and I could use your help.” This should be good.
Suddenly it’s 6 weeks later. Joss is in the back of a golf cart being driven through SoFi Stadium. The family is on stage rehearsing their opening set. Fink, Nikki, and Chaim watch from a balcony. Apparently revealing your mental health issues is good for business. Joss dropped 3 hit singles in 6 weeks, the tour is sold out, and Fink’s employees staged a walkout because Joss’s new sound is “misogynistic.” The latter isn’t all that bad. Fill the Void jumped 8000% that day alone. And most importantly, Talia took down Tedros with her article about his pimping past. He even lost his club. Guess Plan B worked.
As the team celebrates Tedros’s demise, here comes Tedros asking the stadium box office attendant if Jocelyn left an artist pass for him. Tedros isn’t in the system, but Mauricio Jackson is. Now why would Joss leave this man a pass after she had her team end him six weeks ago? Is that who she was texting in the stands earlier?
When Tedros asks security to see Jocelyn they tell him she’s never heard of him before. Just kidding! They let him right in. Except it’s Destiny who’s waiting for him in the dressing room, not Joss. This should be good. D tells him she doesn’t care about his pimp past. It’s all about what he’s going to do now. She warns him she will hunt him down and kill him if he hurts Joss. Then she leaves, and Joss walks in.
Jocelyn tells Tedros she misses him and nothing means much without him. She holds his face in her hands, then touches up her makeup at the vanity. Tedros notices the brush on a table and picks it up, curiously inspecting the bristles. He asks Joss if that’s the brush her mom beat her with. She says yes, and he tells her, “It’s brand new.” She turns around and coyly smiles at him. Tedros realizes it was all a charade.
They hold hands as a golf cart takes them to the stage. Joss’s glam squad touches up her makeup, and she walks onstage. She uses Tedros’s vernacular as she calls the audience her “angels” and “family.” She thanks them for their support and introduces the “love of her life.” As Tedros joins her onstage, Fink, Chaim, and Nikki are having a meltdown in the audience. Looks like there’s no getting rid of Tedros despite all their efforts. Joss and Tedros kiss and she whispers to him, “You’re mine, forever. Now go stand over there.”
Who’s the cult leader now?
Cue the closing credits montage soundtracked by The Weeknd’s Like a God. And with that, The Idol mini-series comes to a close!
I’m honestly not surprised Jocelyn is the villain and Tedros is the victim. We were given so many hints about Joss since episode 1. Girl was way too good at looking vulnerable and emotional in that opening scene with the photographer. She had tears streaming down her face, and it was clear she could easily deceive people.
Another hint at the ending was when Joss and Leia were watching Basic Instinct. We saw the scene where Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell tells Michael Douglas’s Detective Curran that the woman in her book kills the man in the end.
To top it all off, in the last episode Xander confessed mid-torture that Joss likes to control people. This was evident when she suddenly called over Heartthrob Rob to make Tedros jealous after finding out he used Dyanne to get to her.
Yes, Joss threw us off her scent with that whole abuse story. However, if you connect all the dots, she was the villain the whole time!
What was interesting was that Destiny was the only one on Joss’s team who knew she wanted Tedros back in the end. I’m dying to know how that post-concert convo with D and Chaim went down!
The Idol was clearly meant to be a limited series. The storyline was fully wrapped up with no loose ends. Joss gets Tedros back. The family opens the tour. Xander gets to sing again. Dyanne got screwed over. Leia left. Joss’s team is in crisis mode. And we have new music from the show to listen to all summer. The end.
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