If it wasn’t already obvious from The Idol‘s controversial premiere on HBO and Max, The Weeknd‘s sketchy nightclub impresario Tedros Tedros doesn’t have the best intentions when it comes to Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp). Over the course of The Idol Episode 2 “Double Fantasy,” we learn that Tedros is essentially a cult leader. He’s made sure that acolytes Dyanne (Jennie Ruby Jane), Izaak (Moses Sumney), and Chloe (Suzanna Son) have swarmed around the fragile Jocelyn at a pivotal moment in her career. Dyanne seems to be quietly undercutting her “friend” and employer while Izaak is tasked with seducing, i.e. distracting Jocelyn’s closest friend Leia (Rachel Sennott). Chloe, on the other hand, seems to represent something of a potential cautionary tale. While she first seems like a sexed up doll, stripping her clothes and scampering around Jocelyn’s manor like a pixie, it’s soon revealed she is an exceptionally talented musician, singer, and songwriter.

Is Tedros luring Jocelyn into his world to transform her into another Chloe? Is he actively trying to supplant her with Dyanne? Or does he truly want to help Jocelyn find her voice? What is the deal with Tedros’s cult and what is his master plan for Jocelyn?

The Idol was co-created by Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, Euphoria showrunner Sam Levinson, and LA night-life mogul-turned-EP Reza Fahim. The series found itself under intense scrutiny following a report in Rolling Stone that the show had devolved into “torture porn” and a “rape fantasy” following the abrupt departure of original director Amy Seimetz. Early reviews from the show’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival seemingly confirmed these concerns, but so far, The Idol‘s depiction of sex, abuse, and control is a bit more nuanced than that.

In The Idol Episode 1, Jocelyn lets her dancer/friend Dyanne take her out to a club to decompress after a difficult day. It conveniently turns out to be Tedros’s club. Tedros zeroes in on the troubled pop star, going so far as to ask Izaak to dance with Leia so she won’t interrupt his game. By the end of the episode, Tedros is erotically asphyxiating Jocelyn while directing her to re-record her lead single, “Number One Sinner/I’m a Freak.” In last night’s episode of The Idol, Tedros’s and Jocelyn’s relationship escalates to where he’s taking over her house and ordering her to masturbate for him in crude terms.

That’s not all that’s going on, though. When Jocelyn calls Tedros to vent about professional disappointment, he lies to her, saying he is alone. In fact, he is surrounded by his followers, namely Chloe (who is writing music) and Dyanne. When Tedros hangs up, Dyanne reveals that she didn’t know it was a “set up.” She worries that Jocelyn is a “better fuck” than she is and is openly jealous that Tedros wrote music with her pop star boss. Dyanne says that Nikki (Jane Adams), the record exec at Jocelyn’s label, wants to sign her and Tedros coldly says he can finally get that return on her.

When Izaak and Leia hook up later in the episode, he lets it slip that Tedros isn’t just a club owner, but a manager with his own label. He apparently found Izaak singing in his parents’ church and signed him, transforming him by pushing him further than anyone had done before. This revelation is intercut with Tedros getting closer to an increasingly vulnerable Jocelyn. Tedros is clearly a cult leader, but instead of hooking his followers on god or religion, he’s selling them pop music. His “ultimate Trojan Horse.”

There’s something interesting about who The Idol has cast to play Tedros and his disciples. Dyanne, who is a dancer waiting in the wings to take Jocelyn’s spot, is played by Blackpink’s Jennie Ruby Jane, literally one of the most famous pop stars in the world. Izaak, the church singer-turned- boytoy, is played by critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter Moses Sumney. Chloe is played by Suzanna Son, a singer and actress best known for her scene-stealing N*SYNC-covering work in Red Rocket. And of course, they’re all orbiting around The Weeknd. While Tedros Tedros might be a black hole of charisma, The Weeknd has been a creative supernova, dominating charts and directing pop culture, for over a decade.

Is it possible that Tedros has been collecting talented artists to hoard and control and Jocelyn is simply his next target? Like many cult leaders who prey upon people in vulnerable states, he is latching onto Jocelyn right when she’s aching the most. Is Tedros’s ultimate goal power for power’s sake? Does he simply get off on the amount of control he has over these talented artists? (For a lot of cult leaders, that’s the endgame.) Or does he want to weaponize pop music to communicate a darker message to the masses? (Why else call pop music “the ultimate Trojan Horse”?)

One thing’s for sure: Jocelyn is in danger and Tedros is not her savior. What’s going down in HBO’s The Idol isn’t a rape fantasy so much as it’s pure horror. The show has made it clear that Tedros is a villain. The question now is Jocelyn doomed to be a victim or can she reclaim her voice before the cult leader literally and figuratively suffocates her?