Why You Season 5’s Ending Brings Back That Original Character Explained By Showrunner

You season 5 may have brought a number of familiar faces back for the show’s dramatic conclusion, but one returning character was central to ending Joe Goldberg’s story. Based on the series of novels written by Caroline Kepnes, Netflix’s hit serial killer drama has repeatedly seen Penn Badgley’s homicidal Joe Goldberg escape justice for his many crimes. However, in the You series finale, Joe is finally arrested and tried for his crimes, with Madeline Brewer’s Louise Flannery (aka Bronte), the close friend and former teaching assistant of his season 1 victim, Guinevere Beck, delivering him to justice.

Speaking with Variety following the recent streaming release of You season 5, co-showrunner Michael Foley explained why putting Beck’s character as a central figure in Joe’s comeuppance was so important. Foley said that Beck’s murder was the “original sin” in which the show’s audience became complicit, despite Joe’s earlier murders. In posthumously rewriting Beck’s book, The Dark Face of Love, Foley also explained that Joe had stolen her voice, and it was important to have Louise return it to her. Check out his comments below:

Because we asked the most of the audience when Joe kills Beck, and we asked everybody to return for Season 2. Nothing against Peach or Benji, but ultimately, that was the original sin that we, the audience, became complicit in by sticking with the show and rooting for Joe.

It felt right to us that if he’s back in New York, we would come full circle, going back to that original sin of not just killing Beck, but stealing her voice. Then we got into the idea of using “The Dark Face of Love,” of having Louise bring her voice back by having him redact what he had done to the book.

Beck Reminds Audiences That Joe Is Not To Be Admired

Over the course of You’s 5 season run, Badgley’s character has racked up an impressive body count in his warped bid to maintain his deluded vision of a perfect romance. While You season 1 also saw Joe kill Beck’s friends, Peach Salinger (Shay Mitchell) and Benji Ashby (Lou Taylor Pucci), the audience was largely invited to view those murders as a necessary sacrifice to win over the object of Joe’s romantic obsession. However, it was Beck’s murder in the You season 1 finale that truly began to strip away any pretension that Joe’s actions were in any way justified.

Related

Every Character Who Dies In You Season 5

You season 5 marked the end of Joe Goldberg’s story, but he had plenty of time to add a handful of new names to his long list of tragic victims.

Even right up until You’s final moments, Joe remained unrepentant as ever, even attempting to deflect the repugnant nature of his actions on the audience. Louise, however, was at least able to restore the appropriated voice of her murdered friend, forcing Joe to redact everything he had written in The Dark Face of Love at gunpoint. In doing this, Louise essentially forces the audience to revisit the same story where they had first become complicit in Joe’s crimes and strips any last vestiges of Joe’s delusions and warped self-justifications away from his version of the events.

Our Take On Joe’s You Season 5 Fate

The Show’s Finale Shows Him As The Monster He Really Is

Having been forced to retell the truth of Beck’s story, the You season 5 finale reveals Joe as the monster that he truly is, and his subsequent brutal attack on Louise is one of the most frightening moments of the show’s run. Stripped of all his pretensions, the frightening and truly monstrous reality of Badgley’s character is revealed before his manhood is also taken from him by Louise’s well-aimed gunshot. Denied the death he begs for, and forced to be ridiculed and locked behind bars with no hope of release, is a fitting and poetic ending to his bloody rampage.

You

7/10

Release Date

2018 – 2025-00-00

Showrunner

Sera Gamble, Greg Berlanti

Directors

Marcos Siega, Lee Toland Krieger, Cherie Nowlan, DeMane Davis, Kellie Cyrus, Marta Cunningham, Martha Mitchell, Victoria Mahoney, Erin Feeley

Writers

Justin W. Lo

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  Penn Badgley

  Joe Goldberg

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  Elizabeth Lail

  Guinevere Beck