You
Warning: The following article contains spoilers for theYouseason 5 finale.Youseason 5 brought a number of familiar faces back for the shows dramatic conclusion, but one returning character was especially central to ending Joe Goldbergs story.
Based on the series of novels written by Caroline Kepnes, Netflixs hit serial killer drama has repeatedly seen Penn Badgleys homicidal Joe Goldberg escape justice for his many crimes.
However, in theYouseries finale, Joe is finally arrested and tried for his crimes, with Madeline Brewers Louise Flannery (aka Bronte), the close friend and former teaching assistant of his season 1 victim, Guinevere Beck, delivering him to justice.
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 hes 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.
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Beck Reminds Audiences That Joe Is Not To Be Admired
Over the course ofYous five-season run, Badgleys character has racked up an impressive body count in his warped bid to maintain his deluded vision of a perfect romance.
WhileYouseason 1 also saw Joe kill Becks 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 Joes romantic obsession.
You is a psychological thriller that follows a dangerously charming and intensely obsessive young man who manipulates his way into the lives of those he fixates upon, using extreme measures to pursue his unsettling aims.
However, it wasBecks murder in theYouseason 1 finalethat truly began to strip away any pretensionthat Joes actions were in any way justified.
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 untilYous 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 inThe Dark Face of Loveat gunpoint.
In doing this,Louise essentially forces the audience to revisit the same story where they had first become complicit in Joes crimesand strips any last vestiges of Joes delusions and warped self-justifications away from his version of the events.
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The Show’s Finale Shows Him As The Monster He Really Is
Having been forced to retell the truth of Becks story,theYouseason 5 finalereveals Joe as the monster that he truly is, and his subsequent brutal attack on Louise is one of the most frightening moments of the shows run.
Stripped of all his pretensions,the frightening and truly monstrous reality of Badgleys character is revealed before his manhood is also taken from himby Louises 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.
Source:Variety
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You is a psychological thriller that follows a dangerously charming and intensely obsessive young man who manipulates his way into the lives of those he fixates upon, using extreme measures to pursue his unsettling aims.
