SPOILER ALERT: This story accommodates spoilers for the sequence finale of “You,” now streaming on Netflix.
Joe Goldberg is lastly in a cage for good, and never the one among his personal making. Within the sequence finale of Netflix’s stalker-rom-com-thriller “You,” Joe, Penn Badgley‘s charismatic serial killer, will get his long-overdue comeuppance by the hands of his former victims, who be part of forces to place him behind bars as soon as and for all.
Once we choose up with Joe at first of Season 5, he’s fortunately married to the uber-rich Kate Lockwood (Charlotte Ritchie), who’s used her household’s sizable assets to grab Joe’s son Henry (Frankie DeMaio) from the adopted fathers he was dumped with on the finish of Season 3 after Joe flees Northern California, having murdered Henry’s (additionally murderous) mom, Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). Now that Joe has returned to New York Metropolis a free man, he desires to play home with Kate and Henry.
Joe putters alongside making an attempt (but once more) to take pleasure in married life, utilizing a brand new vampire novel he’s writing as an outlet to excise his violent impulses. However simply because it looks as if he’s put his previous methods within the rearview mirror, Joe’s world is upended as he meets Bronte (Madeline Brewer) a phenomenal younger girl trying to interrupt into his bookstore. Although one thing about her appears too good to be true, Joe begins an affair with Bronte, solely to seek out out that his instincts had been proper — she’s a catfish named Louise, who created the “Bronte” identification to try to seek out out what actually occurred to her good friend and mentor, Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail).
Although Louise/Bronte and her pals efficiently catch Joe on digicam killing Clayton Angevine (Tom Francis) — the son of Dr. Nicky (John Stamos) from Season 1 — Bronte has fallen, sadly, in love with Joe, and finally ends up testifying in his protection, getting him freed. With Bronte seemingly unable to take Joe down herself, Kate then takes issues into her personal arms, liberating Joe’s good former scholar Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman) from jail and recruiting his ex-girlfriend-turned-victim Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) to assist her kill Joe.
Collectively, Nadia, Kate and Marienne efficiently entice Joe in his personal cage underneath the bookstore, and are capable of file confessions exonerating Nadia and implicating him in Love’s homicide. Joe escapes the cage and plans to run away with Bronte and Henry (if he can pry him out of Kate’s custody), however unbeknownst to Joe, Nadia, Kate and Marienne had been capable of get via to Louise and persuade her to activate him.
As Louise and Joe drive off to start their new life collectively, they cease to remain the evening at a secluded cabin. Simply earlier than they’ve intercourse, Louise comes clear to Joe, explaining how a lot Beck meant to her as a good friend and mentor, and forcing him (at gunpoint) to redact his writing from Beck’s e book, “The Darkish Face of Love.” Joe redacts himself from the e book, however lunges for the gun and the encounter turns violent.
Joe, bare and bloody, chases a terrified Louise into the woods, the place the 2 face off one final time. Louise manages to name the cops within the scuffle, and as Joe hears sirens blaring, he begs Louise to shoot him. She refuses and he rushes her, so she fires — taking pictures his genitals off simply because the police arrive. Dick-less and in handcuffs, Joe is arrested and charged with life in jail.
The “You” sequence finale ends with Joe alone in his cell studying fan letters, and studying Norman Mailer’s “The Executioner’s Tune.” “Why am I in a cage when these crazies write all these wicked issues they need me to do to them?” Joe wonders, having already reached his response. “Possibly the issue isn’t me. Possibly it’s You.”
And so ends the Netflix hit, which was created by Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti, and first premiered on Lifetime in 2018 — solely to be rescued post-cancellation by the streamer. Over the course of 5 seasons, “You” was a satire of romantic fiction, an indictment of poisonous masculinity and, above all a personality examine of the character of Badgley’s Joe Goldberg, whose charms might by no means cover his psychosis. Viewers who fell for Joe alongside the way in which discovered that impulse questioned, if not spoofed, many occasions all through the present’s run, however definitively so in Joe’s remaining voiceover.
Forward of the “You” sequence finale, Selection spoke with co-showrunners Justin Lo and Michael Foley about why Beck is so necessary to Season 5, the inspiration behind Joe’s literary tastes and the way the writers’ room discovered the precise ending for a killer we like to hate.
Was jail the plan for Joe all alongside?
Michael Foley: We had the final plan by way of the truth that Joe wasn’t going to get away with issues, and that he’d have his comeuppance. The precise seize versus demise and whatnot, that was a choice that went all the way down to the wire. The query we requested for the ultimate season was: “What does Joe deserve?” He deserves to not get away with what he’s performed. We don’t need to redeem him. We would like him to face these whose lives he’s ruined. However most of all, we wished to have him face himself.
Sera, Greg and all of us writers, our plan was to have Joe so horrific that we wake everybody as much as what we’ve been co-signing and rooting for all this time. There was no method he was going to get away with it. He was not going to trip off into the sundown, ever.
Louise asks Joe what ending he deserves. What conversations did the writers have concerning the ending Joe deserves?
Justin Lo: Neil Reynolds, one among our writers, proposed that we put aside two days, take the weekend, and every particular person take into consideration what they thought Joe deserved. Once we got here in on Monday morning, all of us would sit and hear to every particular person, and nobody was allowed to interrupt one another or touch upon what we had simply heard, all of us simply stated our piece.
That evening, we formulated our opinions, and the subsequent day, we got here in and had been capable of speak about the whole lot. It was very emotional. There have been tears. Individuals have such robust emotions about it. Individuals had been speaking about their private experiences, and it did go all the way down to the wire, however from that day, we had this wealthy stew of concepts we might take from. That was a very powerful a part of our course of.
Courtesy of Netflix
On condition that he’s beforehand manipulated the system — he even boasts about it to Louise within the finale — how is jail a satisfying ending for Joe?
Foley: In these conversations we had, we determined that demise was too straightforward, that we would have liked Joe in a cage. Not only for the picture of it, the robust visible, but additionally we wished him to not know the sensation of a lover’s contact. Past not having his freedom, it will be extra punishing for him to finish the sequence alone.
In jail, we see Joe studying letters from followers and turning his nostril up at them. Are you able to speak concerning the fan letters and why he was so dismissive of them?
Foley: That’s a part of Joe’s self-delusion, that individuals would root for him. He’s been uncovered for what he’s, however there are nonetheless individuals on the market writing them letters. He has contempt for them as a result of he thinks he’s above that. It’s a critique of the viewer, to some extent, nevertheless it’s extra to level to the truth that ultimately, Joe can’t be held accountable. The issue is at all times any individual else and never him.
There was a pitch early on that he would turn into obsessive about a type of individuals who’d written him a letter, however we wished to broaden the ending and have him chatting with us the viewers, as a substitute of 1 one who wrote him.
What did you need to discover by placing Joe ready of wealth and energy in Season 5?
Lo: Joe has at all times had a little bit of hypocrisy in him. Because the starting of the sequence, he’s railed towards wealth and privilege, however he himself is a white man and he enjoys that privilege. Within the fifth season, one of many issues we wished to do was give him cash and see how that might affect him. And he makes use of his privilege in a extremely harmful method.
Various Joe’s earlier victims, together with Nadia and Marienne, return for Season 5. Why did you need to revisit their tales?
Lo: We actually wished to let these girls, these victims of Joe, have an opportunity to have their voices heard. For them to have the ability to stand exterior a cage with Joe in it, and inform him what he did to them and to see if he would take any accountability for it. We additionally simply love these characters. Nadia and Marienne, we wished to offer them the chance to shut their tales in a satisfying method.
We additionally revisit Beck within the finale. Why was it necessary to heart her in Season 5?
Foley: As a result of we requested the a lot of the viewers when Joe kills Beck, and we requested everyone to return for Season 2. Nothing towards Peach or Benji, however finally, that was the unique sin that we, the viewers, turned complicit in by sticking with the present and rooting for Joe.
It felt proper to us that if he’s again in New York, we’d come full circle, going again to that unique sin of not simply killing Beck, however stealing her voice. Then we acquired into the thought of utilizing “The Darkish Face of Love,” of getting Louise deliver her voice again by having him redact what he had performed to the e book.
Louise has one other nice second within the finale, with Joe at gunpoint within the yard. What went into writing her monologue?
Foley: Louise was studying Joe for precisely what he’s. He considers himself a feminist when he’s the other, as a result of he takes energy away from girls. He tries to inform them what they are often. He tries to be the architect of their identification, and that’s disgusting.
How a lot of “The Darkish Face of Love,” Beck’s e book, is definitely written?
Foley: It’s a type of issues that you simply by no means need to present the viewers, so there was simply sufficient for the digicam. Within the sequence finale, as Joe is redacting, in the event you acquired your arms on the e book, you may even see some Latin in there, gibberish that the props individuals begin with, repeated pages and whatnot. We labored very carefully with our on-set props particular person when Joe was redacting to be sure that as he turns pages, he was going to land on ones he might redact if the digicam was over his shoulder.
All through Season 5, we see Joe engaged on a vampire novel. When did he get into fantasy?
Lo: Joe’s flip into style writing, he’s doing it at first of the when he’s having these fantasies about homicide — writing about homicide as a substitute of doing it. He focuses on style as a result of that’s essentially the most surface-y strategy to do it. We wished to say at first of the season that Joe will not be a profound author by any means. In order that’s the place he begins.
Then he meets Bronte, and Bronte is desirous about darkish, romantic literature and style fiction. The style fiction, the allusions to “Dracula,” we had been capable of lean into it and to suit the theme of Joe being a monster. In Episode 9, when he bites into his personal arm, that picture, all of it simply match for us.
What went into creating the sequence the place Joe is bare, bloody, and chasing Louise via the pouring rain?
Foley: There was nothing Penn was hitting more durable than the truth that he wished Joe to be at his most horrific within the sequence finale. He was like, “I want individuals to see what they’ve been rooting for. Let’s make him as horrific and monstrous as doable.” Therefore the dearth of garments that counsel civilization, therefore the blood.
We’ve traditionally shied away from instantly displaying his violence in direction of girls, however within the bed room and on the garden, we’ve him very violent with Louise. It was him at his most horrific, pulling no punches, to splash chilly water on all of us and say “He’s a fucking monster.”
“You” has a long-running relationship with pop music, and we hear “Responsible as Sin?” in Episode 10. Why was that the precise Taylor Swift track for the finale?
Foley: It was much less concerning the message and extra about matching the second. Up to now, on the prime of the Season 4 finale, we had “Anti-Hero,” which is an enormous cheeky wink on the viewers. When it comes to hitting the message of the sequence on the nostril, it was extra “Creep.” Even the duvet we used, which was barely atonal within the music and lyrics, matched the tone we wished to go away the viewers with.
Cardi B pops up just a few occasions throughout Season 5 by way of social media. How did her half within the sequence come collectively?
Foley: It actually took place as a result of on social media, they’d acknowledged one another and that they had been followers of each other’s work. When it got here time to do Episode 7, and we thought the world could be “popping off” about Joe Goldberg, we thought “Oh, after all, Cardi B, we might have her pop off!” There was no friction in any respect, I’ll put it that method.
What’s going to you miss most about engaged on “You?”
Foley: That is my tenth present, and I’ve by no means been with a present the place the writers keep the identical over the course the whole present. We’re a detailed group. Past the writers, who genuinely look after one another, Penn’s simply good. There’s no higher No. 1 on the decision sheet than Penn Badgley.
Lo: It was such an exquisite group of writers. It’s a really touchy-feely writers’ room. As darkish because the present was, it was a room stuffed with love and kindness and actually considerate writers, extending to the producers and actors and crew. Mike’s proper, Penn is the perfect No. 1 you possibly can ask for. So conscientious, socially accountable. This present additionally blends the entire issues I like most about tv: it’s good, horny, humorous, scary and it’s uncommon that you simply work on a present that hits all these issues in such a profitable method.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
