Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/HBO
Near the beginning of The Idol’s fifth and final episode, “Jocelyn Forever,” a bunch of music executives smushed together on a couch to watch a 20-minute-long, glorified middle school talent show. They were all confused. And as they stared in bewilderment at the naked, dancing 20-somethings, I, too, wondered what in the world I was watching. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, as the last four episodes of this series have been almost equally confusing as this mess.
Last week, viewers of The Idol were shocked to learn that the show would be ending with five episodes. Other outlets had reported the season would be six episodes; however, HBO maintained with the fact that this was always a five-episode-long series. I beg to differ. After seeing this finale, it could be presumed that there was, indeed, a fifth episode, and this was supposed to be the sixth. Because when this episode begins, all of a sudden, everyone—including Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp)—is against Tedros (The Weeknd).
What happened to the sentiment from Episode 4, where Jocelyn was literally torturing one of her closest allies (Xander, played by Troye Sivan) because Tedros told her she should? We’re missing a puzzle piece here. Joss was slightly annoyed at Tedros for splashing Leia (Rachel Sennott) with some water and inviting his ex, Jocelyn’s old back-up dancer Dyanne (Jennie Kim), to her mansion. That’s not enough to fuel the spite Joss has in this episode, though.