‘The Idol’ Finale Ending Explained: How Jocelyn Beat Mauricio Jackson

The Idol Episode 5 “Jocelyn Forever” ends the first, and perhaps only season of the HBO series with a perplexing detente. While it seems that the folks around pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) have managed to ruin Tedros (Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye) once and for all, the rat-tailed creeper manages to crawl back into Jocelyn’s good graces. He is given a backstage pass to her first stadium show and then guided on stage. Jocelyn introduces Tedros as the love of her life and kisses him in front of the crowd only to then tell him he belongs to her forever and he needs to go stand in a corner while she commands the stage.

So what does it all mean? What does it mean that Tedros can’t find his backstage pass under his chosen name, but that of Mauricio Jackson? What happened to Dyanne (Jennie Ruby Jane) and what did she mean when she said, “It was Jocelyn, wasn’t it?” What exactly does the ending of The Idol mean for the overall themes of the controversial HBO show? And is the door open for Season 2?

Here’s everything you need to know about the ending of The Idol Season 1 finale on HBO and Max…

The Idol Finale Ending Explained: Who Wins? Jocelyn or Tedros, aka Mauricio Jackson?

If there’s one key theme to The Idol it’s that Tedros wasn’t the real cult leader after all. It was Jocelyn.

Let’s back up for a second. While it seemed that Jocelyn was falling increasingly under the spell of cult leader Tedros, something happened in The Idol Episode 4 “Stars Belong to the World” that shook her out of her complacent routine. Jocelyn learned that Dyanne was usurping her at the record label immediately after Chloe (Suzanna Son) let it slip that the former backup dancer had been working with her lover Tedros to get Jocelyn to his club. Realizing that she’d been played, Jocelyn hooked up with her ex Rob (Karl Glusman) to make Tedros jealous. In The Idol Episode 5, she goes a step further and takes over Tedros’s cult of talented superstars in the making, explaining that she’s the one who can make them famous — not Tedros. Tedros is seemingly cut out of Jocelyn’s world until he isn’t.

While Jocelyn’s team crows about destroying the former pimp, Tedros finds a backstage pass to Joss’s LA concert under the name Mauricio Jackson. As we learned in a previous episode, Mauricio Jackson is Tedros’s birth name. The fact that Jocelyn has left him a ticket under Mauricio Jackson immediately tells Tedros that she sees past his self-made mystique.

Before Tedros can even see Jocelyn, he is mocked by her security detail and threatened by Destiny (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). When Jocelyn finally sees him, she plays up the heartsick ingenue, but it soon becomes yet another display of power as Tedros realizes the hairbrush she claimed to be abused by her mother with is actually brand new. There are two ways to read this. Either she made up her story of abuse — which would explain why neither Rob nor Xander (Troye Sivan) seemed to know about it — and/or she is inviting Tedros back in for their sex games. (As those helped inspire her misogynistic hit singles.)

The two ride to the stage in a golf cart in a scene that evoked Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) and Shiv Roy’s (Sarah Snook) final moments in Succession. They hold hands, but it’s clear a power shift has occurred in the relationship.

When Jocelyn takes to the stage, she greets the crowd the same way Tedros once greeted her: “Hello, angels.” She then uses the same language Tedros used to control his cult in reference to her fans, calling them her family. Although she horrifies her team by bringing Tedros on stage and kissing him, Jocelyn uses this moment to control her lover. She says he belongs to her forever and then shunts him off to the side. He is clearly overwhelmed and out of control in the situation. The final shot of Jocelyn standing like a goddess alone on stage cements the message that she is in control and arguably has been this whole time.

If you go back to the opening shot of The Idol, Jocelyn was able to mimic the full gamut of human emotions at the drop of a hat. In last week’s episode, Xander revealed his belief that she was even more conniving than her stage mom. Her goal was to cement herself as a once-in-a-generation icon and “World Class Sinner” just wasn’t going to do that. Recall how stressed out she was about the subpar music video. Basically, it seems that Jocelyn invited Tedros in to leech his star-making talent for herself. She took inspiration from their games and stole his roster of talent. And she will continue to use him in that capacity.

Also if you have any doubt that Jocelyn won, consider the fact that she outed a publicized pimp as her boyfriend to a crowd of her fans. Do you think Jocelyn’s stan army is going to let Tedros off easy? Even if Tedros gets his “happily ever after” with Joss, his life is going to be a living hell.

Of course, there are still a few loose ends…

What Happens to Dyanne at the end of The Idol?

While it seemed that Dyanne was going to take Jocelyn’s place at Magistrate Records, Nikki (Jane Adams) breaks the news that there’s been a “hiccup” with her single, “World Class Sinner.” It seems there’s a legal dispute with one of the writers so the song will not be released. Nikki callously suggests Dyanne, who has hitherto not been revealed as a songwriter, write her own song inspired by the niche problem. Basically, Dyanne’s big pop career is dead before it can even begin.

As Nikki pushes Dyanne on a down elevator, the singer and dancer says, “It was Jocelyn, wasn’t it?” Meaning, Jocelyn was the credited songwriter who objected to Dyanne getting the single. While Jocelyn was all fake smiles and support in Episode 4, she has clearly used her power to ruin her rival’s chances.

Since Dyanne is not one of the Tedros acolytes we see open for Jocelyn on her tour, it’s implied that she is basically ruined and will neither have a pop career nor a place in Jocelyn’s camp.

It seems the title “Jocelyn Forever” isn’t a cutesy nod to fandom, but a terrifying reminder of the pop icon’s totalitarian power.

Will There Be a Season 2 of The Idol?

We still don’t know if HBO will renew The Idol for a second season. A few weeks back, Page Six reported that backlash to the series and The Weeknd’s onset behavior had killed any renewal chances. However, HBO immediately fired back at this report on Twitter, stating “It is being misreported that a decision on a second season of The Idol has been determined. It has not, and we look forward to sharing the next episode with you Sunday night.”

The original pitch for The Idol was for a limited series and the Season 1 finale seems to wrap up the narrative rather neatly. So maybe this really is the end of The Idol or perhaps The Weeknd and Sam Levinson have a longer saga in mind. We just don’t know yet.