The Idol's big finale twist makes no sense (2024)

But for some reason, on the night of her show, Jocelyn has left him a backstage pass. They meet in her dressing room and, in one of the most on-the-nose examples in recent cinematic history, Levinson and Tesfaye, who cited Basic Instinct as inspiration for the series, have decked Jocelyn out in a sleek up-do and all-white turtlenecked dress. Squint a little, and that's Sharon Stone right in front of you.

In Basic Instinct, Stone's Catherine is in a constant state of cat-and-mouse with Michael Douglas's Nick. At the end, thinking he's got a final one-up on her, a last-minute twist reveals she's the one in control. In The Idol, that twist comes in the form of Tedros seeing Jocelyn's hairbrush on the side in her dressing room. “Did you say this was the brush your mum beat you with?” he asks. “I did”, she replies, with lingering, stone-cold eye contact through her vanity mirror. “It's brand new”, he then says, a flash of realisation moving across his face. Jocelyn then turns to him, maintaining eye contact, and smiles knowingly. In this moment, Tedros realises everything Jocelyn told him about her abuse was a lie, a trick to make him think he was in control while all the while she was pulling his invisible strings. It's supposed to be a moment of awe, the biggest “dun-dun-DUN” of the show. But, really, it doesn't make any sense.

The Jocelyn we've come to know for almost the entire run of the series is tormented and fragile, hanging on by a thread and being lifted up by people she needs but knows she can't fully trust. Depp does a great job of interspersing Jocelyn's vulnerability with icy resolve, but Levinson and Tesfaye seem to think that harshness is interchangeable with Machiavellian tendencies rather than being a trauma response. Call it a fault of the writing or the fact the pair crammed months-worth of story, most of it relying on slow-burn coercion tactics, into five episodes, but nothing about Jocelyn's late reveal as a secret mastermind rings true.