[Warning: This post contains MAJOR spoilers for You Season 5.]
Joe Goldberg’s (Penn Badgley) reign of terror has come to an end. After five seasons of twists, obsessions, and so much murder, Joe got his karma in You‘s fifth and final season. His return to New York City and a girl, of course, led to his downfall. He wound up back where he started — in a cage.
Everything started out great for Joe. He had money, power, and the family he had always wanted, but it wasn’t enough. When Kate’s (Charlotte Ritchie) leadership at her father’s company was threatened, Joe took matters into his own hands by killing off anyone who tried to stand in Kate’s way. As he sought to reopen Mooney’s, Joe crossed paths with a woman named Bronte (Madeline Brewer), who was unlike anyone he’d met before.
In the ultimate catfishing scheme, Bronte (whose real name is Louise) became the female version of Joe, and he fell for that hook, line, and sinker. Bronte wanted retribution for what happened to her friend, Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), Joe’s Season 1 victim. She played the long game, which included not letting him die in the Mooney’s fire, to make sure Joe got what he deserved. In a tense face-off, Joe begged Bronte to kill him, but she refused to let him take the easy way out.
Joe was sent to prison, while Bronte released a new version of Beck’s book, which became more popular than Joe’s version. Kate started a new life after getting custody of Henry (Frankie DeMaio), Nadia’s (Amy-Leigh Hickman) conviction was overturned, and Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) was finally free to step out of hiding. TV Insider spoke with co-showrunners Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo about crafting Joe’s last act, why Jenna Ortega wasn’t in the final season, a possible spinoff, and more.
Clifton Prescod / Netflix
What were the discussions like regarding Joe’s endgame?
Michael Foley: That went on in a really loose way for multiple seasons. We always thought that, in success, we would get to complete the story, that we would likely bring him back to New York, bring him back as a different person than the person he left as. Coming into Season 1, we started to zoom in and discuss, and we found ourselves on the same page with the creator Sera Gamble, Greg Berlanti, and all the writers just in terms of some bigger ideas. Which is, Joe’s going to get his comeuppance. We are not going to redeem Joe. Joe is not going to get away with it. Joe will face some of those people whose lives he ruined. When it came down to, will he die? Will he be captured? Will he be on trial, in prison, and whatnot? That was later in the season, when it was time to make those decisions, a specific shape of it. But the overall ideas were known throughout the season. This was going to be the end for Joe Goldberg.
Was there a debate about him dying in the end?
Justin W. Lo: Yes, that was definitely one of the options. And I would say we operated with that option in mind for a few months before we decided to change it at the very end. So yeah, that was definitely on the table.
Why did you decide to make Bronte the final girl of You?
Foley: We had real concerns that the audience would see Joe falling for a girl once again and think, “Been there, done that. I know what happens to her. She ends up dead,” and therefore not sticking with the show. What helped us was that she was catfishing him so she could create identity that was basically someone Joe would love, which was a wounded bird, a woman who seemed to need Joe to tell her what she could be in life. And more than that, we modeled her after Joe. The plan in the writers’ room was, let’s have Joe fall in love with Joe. So every word out of her mouth about literature, about New York City, her openness to violent nature, and whatnot, that was all obviously very deliberate. Because of the catfish, we could just craft the perfect woman for him.
Kate managed to survive the fire at Mooney’s and a fight with Joe. Did you think about killing her off?
Lo: Kate was a source of great debate in the writers’ room. Some writers wanted her to die and some wanted her to live. We had to really weigh what she deserved, just like we weighed for Joe. I think what prevailed was this idea that she has done very bad things in the past, but unlike Joe, she feels tremendous guilt about it. It’s probably the defining characteristic about her. At the beginning of the season, I think she’s trying to pretend it didn’t happen, trying to forget about it. But then, when she green-lights Joe to kill, I think she has to remember and reckon with the things that she’s done. As she takes responsibility for what Joe does this season and what she’s enabled, we thought that the best fate for her would be that she tries to absolve herself by sacrificing her life, and then, because she does that, she actually gets to keep it.
There were so many cameos of characters from past seasons. Did you reach out to everyone, or were there specific characters you wanted to return?
Lo: In coming up with bringing back these former characters, part of the season was brainstorming everyone and seeing what their opinion would be on Joe, what kind of role they could play in this season. As the episodes were forming, we would find, oh, this would be a great role for Will [Robin Lord Taylor]. Will can get Joe out of the country. We would go to these actors individually and ask them about their interest, and what was really gratifying for us was that these actors were so excited to come back. They loved the show. They had great experiences. So I think we’re really proud of that, and so happy that they contributed to this final season.
Was it just availability with Jenna Ortega, Ed Speleers, and Victoria Pedretti?
Foley: Well, it’s also about just being alive. With Victoria, we had already done that when Joe was in London. He had a vision of her in the cage, and she sort of gets to him. We just thought we’d be going to that well again. With Ellie, she was filming Wednesday in Ireland. So even though we went down the road of trying to figure out a way to get her in, it ultimately just became impossible logistically.
Clifton Prescod / Netflix
By the end, Kate has custody of Henry. You’ve closed Joe’s chapter, but have you thought about a potential spinoff? An interesting concept would be an older Henry and how he deals with what his father has done.
Lo: I think it’s an interesting concept. I think that part of what makes You so successful is Penn Badgley as Joe. I personally haven’t gone down the road of what it would be like for a show centered around his son because I just think that the part of the DNA of You is so much Penn playing Joe.
Foley: When we were doing our London season, we were trying to hire a British writer. A writer that we didn’t hire wrote a brilliant script, which was basically that. I’ve read it. This guy’s pilot was the equivalent of the son of Joe and then reconnecting with his father, and it was brilliant, but I almost feel like that’s another reason why I can’t do it because of a little thing called a lawsuit.
In the end, Joe is arrested and put in prison. We see him receive a letter from a woman named Belinda, who is obsessed with him, and Joe refuses to accept that he’s the problem. Why was it important to include this tidbit and show that he’ll never change?
Foley: That was the point we just needed to make. We thought that being true to character meant that even in the end, with all that Joe has to face and the fact that he was on trial, that he wouldn’t hold himself accountable, right? That’s just exactly the character that we had drawn. We also recognize that in society, there are people who within this sort of Dahmer environment of the last couple years and beyond, but obviously accentuated by the Netflix series, it just felt like a nod was necessary, and that’s how we did that. By having that group of people have a voice represented in those letters. But ultimately, it wasn’t about the letters. It was about Joe turning his sort of lens on all of us and blaming us mostly again, to the point that he can’t hold himself accountable.
The man has gotten out of cages, hidden a key in his arm, among other things. Can Joe escape this prison? Is it maximum security?
Lo: I think in our minds, yes, he is. I don’t think we want people thinking he could get out. We want people thinking he is there, trapped for the rest of his life, without the opportunity to have love or touch or to project his thoughts onto someone else, anyone outside of the people who are giving him these letters, or the guard he sees for a flash of the day. We wanted to isolate him because we knew that would be his greatest punishment.
What did you think of You’s ending? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
You, Season 5, Streaming Now, Netflix
