Joe Goldberg’s reign of terror is over.
Spoilers forward for the fifth and closing season of “You.”
In “You” Season 5, now streaming on Netflix, Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) lastly meets his destiny.
For 5 seasons, Joe — who thinks of himself as a delicate romantic — has gone round killing his girlfriends and anybody else standing in his means.
On the finish of Season 5 — which sees Joe returning to his roots in New York Metropolis — he’s lastly uncovered to the world, caught for his crimes and put in jail.
Whereas he’s married to Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), he has an affair with Bronte (Madeline Brewer), who seems to be catfishing him in an effort to take him down.
However that wasn’t all the time the plan.
“You” showrunner and exec producer Michael Foley solely instructed The Put up, “We hadn’t landed on [his ending] until very late in the season. Throughout the series, there was a shared belief among the writers and the creators that Joe wouldn’t get away with his crimes.”
He added, “We came into the season knowing that we didn’t want to redeem him, that he would get his comeuppance, that he was going to face some of those whose lives he ruined. And most importantly, we knew he was going to be made to face himself.”
Foley defined that, whereas the writers knew they didn’t wish to redeem Joe by way of whether or not he would die, be captured or go on trial, “it was late in the season that we finally locked that down.”
He defined that they thought demise can be “too easy” of an ending for Joe.
“We liked putting him in a veritable cage [in prison]. We liked him not knowing the touch of a lover.”
Within the closing moments of the collection, the previous “Gossip Girl” star’s signature voiceover nonetheless doesn’t take accountability for his crimes.
Foley stated that was additionally a key a part of the ending, “having the chance to have his pithy coda, and of course put [the blame] on everybody else, rather than himself.”
Co-showrunner and exec producer Justin W. Lo defined that they’d a number of alternate endings in thoughts for Joe.
“We went through many different options, one of which being that he did die at the hands of Bronte. I was even remembering a version where he was shot. And [the audience] didn’t realize that he shot until the very last episode, and then he realizes he’s a ghost.”
Lo added that the alternate ending was “a very early iteration.”
Badgley additionally made headlines when Season 4 got here out in 2023 for saying that he not needed to do intercourse scenes.
However in Season 5, Joe and Bronte steam up the display in a number of scenes.
Foley defined, “It was a matter of Penn saying to us, [that] if it is meaningful to the story, he was still willing to go there. There wasn’t a wall per se, but it would never be gratuitous. It would be something that we would talk through with each instance of any physical intimacy.”
