‘The Idol’ Episode 3 Ending Explained: Tedros Is Taking Control of Jocelyn’s Life, but Why Does She Let Him?
Welcome to Ending Explained for the third episode of HBO’s latest limited series ‘The Idol,’ in which we follow the life of young pop idol Jocelyn (Lily Rose-Depp) and the music producer and cult leader Tedros (Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye). In two previous episodes, we watched how Jocelyn struggles to get her career back on track after her last tour was canceled after her mother’s death. We witnessed her nervous breakdown in the second episode while filming the music video.
At the end of the second episode, we saw how Tedros moved into Jocelyn’s villa, and they started a relationship. While it’s obvious that Tedros is a very shady person, he is succeeding in taking control of Jocelyn’s life, and even though she doesn’t always agree with him, Tedros still gets what he wants. That’s one of the countless situations where a manipulative person like Tedros is taking advantage of someone who is emotionally unstable. The only person who actually wants to help Jocelyn is Leia, but she won’t be able to do it alone.
Tedros takes control of Jocelyn’s life and career.
Even the birds on the branch know this series has sparked many controversies since it premiered with its first two episodes at Cannes Film Festival last month. The critics panned the series for its sexual content, writing, and direction, although Lily-Rose Depp’s performance was praised. And if the first two episodes didn’t explain why this series is so controversial, the third one certainly will. Viewer discretion is definitely advised in this case.
The episode starts with Tedros waking Jocelyn up in her bed, and just like the first two episodes, this one also isn’t missing an opportunity to show us that Jocelyn sleeps naked. After that, we jump into a montage scene where Leia drives Jocelyn and Tedros into the city. We see those usual streets and palm trees of Los Angeles, as well as Jocelyn and Tedros making out in the back seat while Leia drives.
Tedros takes Jocelyn shopping. While they’re at the store, Leia calls Jocelyn’s manager Chaim to express her concerns about Tedros. We find out that Tedros fired Jocelyn’s cook, Andres, and he also provides jealous outbursts to the store employee. In those scenes, The Weeknd’s acting abilities were of a lot more than usual.
A couple of scenes later, we see Jocelyn and Tedros having sex in the store’s changing room, and of course, the employees can hear it, but why would anyone bother with calling the cops or something like that? To make things worse for Tedros, Jocelyn doesn’t let him go all the way, so he’s forced to “finish the work” on his own while she’s waiting outside.
After returning home, Jocelyn and Tedros find Chaim and Destiny, Jocelyn’s co-manager, in front of her villa. They meet Tedros and tell Jocelyn she has two weeks to create three new hit songs if she wants to go on her next tour. Although they’re playing it cool in front of Tedros, the moment Chaim and Destiny get back in the car, they start sharing the same concern for Jocelyn, just like Leia.
Okay, allow us to fast-forward because the middle of this third episode didn’t depict much, apart from the fact that in Tedros’ cult, we find out that no one is allowed to say no, to anything. Then we have a long scene at dinner where Tedros says how Jocelyn’s career won’t get back on track until she starts taking risks and stops caring what other people might be thinking.
During that (if you ask us) overlong conversation, we find out that Jocelyn was physically abused by her deceased mother, who used to hit her with a hairbrush to keep her motivated in her career and life in general. Tedros asks Jocelyn does she miss that motivation, and for some reason, Jocelyn says yes. In the next scene, she lets Tedros hit her with a hairbrush in front of the other cult members. After that, we get a quick glimpse of Jocelyn and Tedros having a bath together, after which Jocelyn says: “Thank you for taking care of me” (!?).
What is Tedros’ endgame?
While this episode provided how Tedros is taking control over Jocelyn’s life and career, we still don’t know anything about his endgame. Does he only like to abuse Jocelyn while she’s completely unaware of that, or there’s something more to it than meets the eye?
We can obviously see that Tedros is not a good man, but somehow Jocelyn is still okay that he’s treating her like she is something less than him. Leia is still concerned about her best friend, but how much can she do? Although Jocelyn’s managers have also met Tedros, we’ll need to wait and see their plan to get Jocelyn out of this cage.
The preview video for the next episode shows how Tedros and Jocelyn are working on new songs while he’s also introducing her to whatever he and the rest of the cult members usually do in their spare time. Chaim and Destiny are trying to find out more about Tedros and his past, and Destiny even has a radical idea of how to remove Tedros from Jocelyn’s life.
The first three episodes of ‘The Idol’ are now streaming on Max. There are only two episodes left.
