Goodbye, you. After seven seasons and serial killer hopping from New York to Los Angeles to Paris and back to the streets of NYC once more, Joe Goldberg’s whirlwind story of obsession finally comes to a satisfying close. Chasing a neverending fairytale woman, Joe may have his biggest safety blanket yet in the form of obscenely wealthy Kate. Why not reopen the doors of Mooney’s bookstore? For those pining for justice for Beck—Joe’s season one first love—worry not: the creatives bring the series full circle. Penn Badgley once again returns as Joe in all his shaggy-haired, adorable-yet-creeptastic glory. For season five, the storytelling is a true return to form. Twisted marriage counseling, soapy twin melodrama, typewritten erotic fantasies, and more rounds in Joe’s glass cage of horrors—You closes out a riveting final season in a lively crescendo revisiting its greatest hits.
Three years on from the events of season four, Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) has helped Joe build a new life for himself. This includes snatching back the child of Joe and Love, Henry (Frankie DeMaio), and raising him together as a family. Joe no longer has to hide his true form. At last, he can be Joe Goldberg instead of his other identities. On paper, Joe and Kate could be a perfect match—she, too, has killed, being responsible for the deaths of many children to have a pipeline built. Kate, now CEO of her father’s company, channels her power for good to atone for the sins of the past. With the Lockwood power and wealth shouldering the two of them, their bond shows no signs of dimming as they become a veritable “it couple.”
A golden age in romance for Joe, perhaps? Surely yes, until Kate’s shady family—including twins Reagan and Maddie (both played by Anna Camp)—conspires to ice her out of the company. Can Joe stifle his tendencies even in the face of definite obstacles for his newfound family’s happiness? To make matters even more complicated, a vital artifact of Joe’s past reawakens when the dust settles: Mooney’s bookstore, the very same place Joe was working when he first met Beck. There, Joe stumbles upon a whip-smart squatter named Bronte (Madeline Brewer). In Bronte, a reflection of Joe’s past emerges. She is the type of woman that the old Joe would have been absolutely smitten with. Can he just channel his obsession through typing up pages of a manuscript rather than acting on his urges? The jury’s out on that one…
As the season at large begins to take shape, Joe’s narration continues the trend of insightful observations. At first, it really does appear that Joe wants to be a better father, husband, and person. Joe’s fresh start, however, may become less of a restart than a resurrection. He falls into old patterns, crushing on Bronte despite the very real family he has back home with Kate. He struggles with attempts to keep Henry shielded from the awful upbringing Joe himself experienced. He opts to reopen Mooney’s with Bronte’s help, and that glass cage in the basement filled with antique books may soon hold a captive or two inside. Joe’s masturbatory voyeurism fantasies return full-force, teetering near the edge of a complete fulfillment of his base desires. Knowing that season five will be the last allows a level of creative freedom to take chances on this character. Where season four presented for a deep dive into Joe’s past and his actual motivations, this one underlines that real change may be harder than it seems for a murderous misogynist.
Beck’s specter looms large over You. Though she was Joe’s first major infatuation, she has become the one he cannot escape. Other characters from previous seasons may pop in for a surprise or two, but this last impulsive foray into Joe’s psyche feels refreshingly focused on the matter at hand. Joe Goldberg is not a character to be admired or to lust after, but rather a deeply flawed individual with a serious savior complex. We peel back the layers here as Joe’s antihero fully fills the mold of a dastardly villain. The female characters are a compelling foil to Joe’s charms, including Kate and the surprisingly complex Bronte. Bronte may be the most formidable opponent for Joe since Love was poisoned to death. Every twist and turn in their relationship has been expertly played by Brewer. The personal MVP for me this season though has to be Anna Camp, whose deliciously awful Reagan and flirty but adrift Maddie are full of surprises. Camp is generally great in everything, and her lengthy You arc makes a perfect addition to her filmography during the lengthy wait for Scream 7.
So how do we say goodbye to You, then? What started as a pulpy Lifetime thriller has evolved over the years into a Netflix gem, part bloody Dexter and part weirdly romantic drama, but in essence totally its own demented concoction. The popularity of the series may come as little surprise in an era when so many of us rabidly consume the next true crime saga or serial killer thriller. Despite his warm looks and toothy smile, Joe is just as vicious under the hood as Ted Bundy. Why then do so many people put him on a pedestal? The finale, notably filmed at a gorgeous lake house in my town of Pound Ridge, New York, puts a meta cap on the whole affair. Badgley acts his ass off in Joe’s final hour. Ending any series will no doubt leave a subset of viewers in disarray; however, the closer of You is one of my favorites of the entire series. A haunting final line of dialogue lingers as Radiohead’s “Creep” persists. Perhaps the reason Joe’s story resonates relates to the very experience of falling in love, a fairy tale we should all be so lucky to experience. But seeing it fall apart, one decaying corpse at a time, is so much more entertaining to watch—and there are plenty more Joe’s out there.
Welcome back to New York, You. Season five drops in full on Thursday, April 24th.
