Rating: 6/10
The fifth and final season of Netflix’s You attempts to bring closure for viewers and justice for Joe Goldberg’s (Penn Badgley) victims. With original showrunner Sera Gamble stepping away from the series, writers and producers Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo took over as co-showrunners, steering the story back to its roots in New York City. The season is sharp and suspenseful, keeping viewers hooked for the end of Joe Goldberg’s story.
Previous seasons have captivated audiences through a mix of toxic romance, murder, and psychological thrill. Season one introduced Joe’s deadly impulses masked by self-proclaimed innocence. Season two takes the story to Los Angeles and introduces Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), who matches Joe’s derangement. Their romance continues into the third season, where the pair marry and move to the suburbs, forced to manage both parenthood and murder. Finally, season four flipped the script to make Joe the prey rather than the predator as the “Eat The Rich Killer” targets his group, diving deeper into the psychologically twisted side of the show.
Season five embraced the show’s signature approach with unreliable narration, damning love affairs, and moral ambiguity that audiences have grown to love about Joe. As the season opens, Joe is living a seemingly idyllic life in New York with his wife, Kate Lockwood (Charlotte Ritchie), who was introduced in season four. With his murderous past now buried, Joe is no longer hiding behind a false identity. Instead, he must confront his own narcissism and the damage it has caused.
This season shifts from focusing on external obstacles to Joe’s exploration of his internal identity. Rather than relying on frequent murder, the story unfolds as a slow descent into Joe’s warped sense of reality, where his past actions finally begin to catch up with him.
As season five opens, the audience discovers a new—and seemingly improved—version of Joe Goldberg. He has reunited with his son from his previous marriage to Love, he is married to a billionaire CEO, and is back at Mooney’s, the bookstore where it all began. There, Joe meets Bronte (Madeline Brewer), the season’s central love interest, whom he finds squatting in the store. Drawn to her, he offers her a job, and Bronte quickly becomes the spark that reignites Joe’s obsessive, impulsive behavior.
Joe tries to manage his urges through journaling his desires, but inevitably, he gives in and begins an affair with Bronte. As he descends into old habits, those around him begin to unravel as well. Kate, once composed and confident, starts to break under the pressure of Joe’s secrets and her own family drama. Her twin sisters, Reagan and Maddie (Anna Camp), become the center of their conflict as they threaten to hold evidence against Joe that threatens to decimate their life together.
While Joe and Kate team up to fix the tensions within Lockwood Corporation, their marriage comes to a breaking point when Kate finds out that Joe had kidnapped both twins to help Kate regain control of her company. While the two are kidnapped, Joe offers them a solution: Maddie should kill Reagan and take over her life as her identical twin to counteract Reagan’s threats. In a desperate attempt for freedom, Maddie does as Joe suggested, but cannot lie with the guilt and confesses everything to Kate. At this point, Kate digs into Joe’s past, finding the many murders he has committed and sets out to put him away once and for all.
In pursuit of Joe’s downfall, Kate recruits the help of past love interests to cage Joe and ultimately attempt to kill him. While the three women are plotting to kill Joe, it is revealed that Bronte and her friends had been catfishing Joe since the beginning to avenge Gueniere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), the primary love interest from season one.
As Joe and Bronte attempt to flee to Canada, Bronte’s true intentions are revealed. The two begin to fight, ending up in a final stand off in the woods as cops close in. Joe begs Bronte to kill him, but Bronte wants Joe to suffer as much as his victims did. She ultimately shoots him in the groin as the cops drag him away.
While the season’s pacing was off with a slow start and rushed end, it was executed well overall. The series comes full circle, tying parts from all seasons while delivering justice for Joe’s victims.
The end of You is perfect because the show desperately needed a clean conclusion, and leaving Joe alone, rotting in jail, is exactly what he deserves. Though some viewers may find Joe’s downfall bittersweet, it’s a fitting and necessary close to his story—and the series as a whole.
