As a die-hard Dexter fan, the moment I queued up the very first episode of You back in 2018, I instantly drew the comparisons. Both are about serial killers. Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) rationalizes his actions, and reveals his dark thoughts, through an inner monologue in the same way Dexter does. Joe puts on a special “disguise” when he’s ready to kill (a baseball cap) like Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) wears his green “kill shirt” when he’s about to do the deed. Joe keeps victims locked in a specially made cage while Dexter brings his to a plastic-wrapped “kill room.”
You does a lot of things differently from Dexter, too, most notably in focusing on Joe’s motivations. While he fashions himself a vigilante, his kills always centre around a new woman who has become the object of his affection, desire, and deep-seated obsession. His victims are often not bad people, usually just victims of his damaged psyche. He believes they are or will get in his way, or they will no longer love him.
The series has finally come to an end with its fifth and final season, and I got an advanced look. Note: light spoilers for season five.
A Quick Catch-up on You Seasons 1-4
The story begins with Joe Goldberg working in a local bookstore, living a seemingly quite life. When he catches the eye of Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), he’s smitten. At first, he seems charming, sweet, and caring. But his obsessive tendencies start coming out when he stalks her, hacks into her socials, follows her, and creeps around in her life. If something (or someone) gets in the way of their love, he eliminates them. When things come to a head, it’s time for Joe to get out of dodge.
In season two, Joe relocates from New York to Los Angeles where he meets Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), a sultry young woman who is just as taken with him as he is with her. He’s not only on the run from what he did, there’s also an ex-girlfriend he thought was dead who understandably has it out for him. Once again, his relationship starts wonderfully with Love until he can’t help but go back to his old obsessive ways. However, Joe met his match this time, and Love has a darkness, too.
Season three picks up with Joe and Love now officially married, and she’s pregnant. But Joe’s wandering eye means he can’t help but notice someone else. It starts with his neighbor then switches to Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), a local librarian who shares a love of literature. Love isn’t a fool, and she recognizes what’s going on. She isn’t going to stand for it, and resorts to desperate measures to keep her man. Once again, the relationship ends in tragedy, Joe faking his own death to create a narrative that suits him as he goes on the run again.
Now going under the assumed identity of Jonathan Moore, Joe is working as an English professor in London. Why there? He followed Marienne to Europe, convinced they were destined to be together. He’s surrounded by wealthy, arrogant socialites, the types of people he loathes. He does find one man interesting, an author named Rhys Montrose (Ed Speelers) who purportedly had a similarly troubled upbringing.
Once again, Joe can’t help himself and he falls for Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), a wealthy art dealer whose one of the more intelligent, down-to-Earth of the bunch. When people start dying, however, and a supposed killer is on the loose, Joe becomes the hunted versus the hunter. The killer is taunting him, supposedly trying to frame him. There’s a massive twist in the end that sees Joe reach a breaking point. He’s somehow saved once again, and though Kate recognizes some of his darkness and accepts it, she doesn’t know the full extent.
He and Kate move back to New York, get married, and in a twist of fate, Joe is viewed a hero. The narrative was crafted to make it sound as though Love tried to kill him, and he escaped her wrath. Now he’s back where it all started. He can be Joe Goldberg once again.
But there are lots of loose ends, and these come back to haunt Joe in the final season.
You Season 5 Review
The fifth and final season of You sees Joe go from the top of his game to hitting rock bottom, a fitting trajectory to close off the story. But it’s all the drama that happens in between that will draw you in.
This season dives deeper into exploring the motivations behind Joe’s actions and troubled obsession. It all stems from the lack of love from his mother, of course. But what many come to realize is that hidden within Joe’s perceived desire to protect the women he loves is deep-rooted misogyny.
That theme becomes evident not just in Joe’s actions, but also in the way people react to him once some of his misdeeds come to light. “It’s like clockwork,” he says at one point, describing the “reliable misogyny of the internet.” Even when Joe does the most heinous things, social media finds a way to either spin it such that it’s the woman’s fault, or glorify Joe, honing in on his good looks and charm that seem so counter to what he’s being accused of doing. Conversely, however, the show also gives these women a chance to fight back, taking over the final pages of the narrated novel of Joe’s life.
Despite killing many other people through the years, it’s actually Joe’s first beloved victim, Beck, who proves to be his undoing. It involves the addition of Madeline Brewer to the cast in a major role as Bronte/Louise. While Brewer is a wonderful addition to the season, it takes some attention away from Joe, even giving Bronte her own inner monologue to counter his at one point.
As a character who only just joins now, it feels out of place at times to have so much focus on the next perceived damsel in distress he wants to save from the tower. But it also fittingly makes the season a tragic love story, a steamy page-turning romance novel with Joe at the centre as a twisted Prince Charming.
What’s especially cathartic about the way the story ends is that it ties into Joe’s love of literature, his desperate need to love and be loved, and his constant fear that he won’t get that. He lives a sick version of a fairy tale and he’s desperate for the story to end the way he needs it to. He’s more Ted Bundy-like than ever as it becomes clear how easily so many fall for Joe’s charms. This isn’t just potential romantic interests, but even friends, family members, anyone who crosses his path.
While season four dove into how Joe dissociated from himself during murders, season five looks further at how he rationalizes his actions. He truly does believe that when he murders, he does so for a justifiable reason. It’s to protect someone he loves, sometimes, himself. When he can’t explain that, he believes it was someone else inside him, not the “real Joe” who did it. In his distorted mind, Joe thinks there is a side of his story that would somehow make people sympathetic to him. Believing every murder he committed was to save these women, Joe is a villain with a hero complex. And based on social media reaction to some details revealed, society fuels this delusion.
The story in season five drags a bit in its final episodes. But while somewhat predictable, the ending is bittersweet. It is, however, too much of Bronte and not enough of Joe. Her inner voice overpowers his in a way that feels unearned. But that’s sort of the point. It’s symbolic that one of the women Joe so terribly hurts is able to take back that power and control the narrative, even if fans might have preferred it was someone else like Marienne (Tati Gabrielle).
Bronte was shoving Joe away from the metaphorical typewriter, whiting out his words, and replacing them with hers on behalf of all of the people he hurt, women and men. She wasn’t going to allow him to tell his story anymore. In having Bronte be that person, she was able to represent one entire chapter, Joe’s final chapter in a book that already had ones dedicated to Beck, Love, and Kate. Bronte suffered through the ups and downs with him, too. Most importantly, she became a voice for Joe’s very first victim, Beck, who couldn’t fight for herself.
Still, Joe needed to get the last word. And his final line is a call to action about the current social culture, a theme that was explored throughout the season. The words are a wake-up call to anyone who idolizes and romanticizes serial killers, putting them on pedestals, glorifying their actions, and pretending they’re lust-worthy, not deplorably cruel. Don’t. They don’t deserve it, and you deserve better.
There’s nothing groundbreaking about the finale of You that will have you frantically calling friends to discuss it. It won’t leave you shook nor feeling especially emotional. But it’s full circle, satisfying closure, a fitting end to Joe’s final chapter, no epilogue needed. Goodbye, You.