Parents, hide your daughters: Joe Goldberg is coming back for a fifth and final season of Netflix’s “You,” and let’s just say that no one is safe from the cage in the basement.
Fans who’ve been following “You” (which is based on Caroline Kepnes’ novels) for the last four seasons know that our pouty, floppy-haired protagonist Joe (Penn Badgley) seems like a real catch at first. He’s handsome, he loves books, he’s super-supportive of women (in his own particular way) — he’s a wannabe hero with lots of family damage.
But the other side to him is one giant red flag: He kind of likes killing people, and has a tendency to lock ladies who thwart or threaten him in a soundproofed, clear cage (which traditionally lives in the basement of a used bookstore).
Season 5, which premieres April 24, is set to conclude Joe’s adventures, which have included both a significant body count and an international tour of New York, London, Paris and Los Angeles, so expect a big blowout of some sort.
“Every season they manage to find new space to make it interesting and relevant,” Badgley told Netflix’s Tudum blog recently. “And this season, I think somehow coming back to where it started allowed for it to just become grounded in the way that it needs to also have this kind of spectacular finish.”
So before the final ten episodes drop, let’s jaunt back to 2023’s Season 4. What was Joe’s reign of terror in the UK like?
Where was Joe at the start of Season 4?
With his wife Love (Victoria Pedretti) dead and his daughter Henry parked with friends, Joe made it to London and somehow landed a job as a university professor, calling himself Jonathan Moore. He clicked with a few students, including Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman), who gave him a book from rising political figure Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers).
But it doesn’t take long for Joe to slip, even when he’s promising to be better. He loathed Malcolm (Stephen Hagan), who helped him secure the teaching position, and coveted Malcolm’s art expert girlfriend Kate (Charlotte Ritchie).
Both Malcolm and Kate were filthy rich, and after Joe saved Kate from being robbed (his stalking does come in handy once in a while), Joe was included in their inner circle of wealthy ne’er-do-wells, influencers, and nepo babies. Why couldn’t he just find a nice book club?
Surrounded by jerks again, Joe reverted to form and bodies began to fall. He started getting text messages from the “Eat-the-Rich Killer.”
Joe initially thought the killer was Rhys Montrose — who he met and had a fine conversation with at a bar Kate and Malcolm’s friends hung out at — but twist, Rhys wasn’t real!
That is, Rhys Montrose was real and an author/politician, but Joe’s mind had begun playing tricks on him, creating an “inner” Rhys he could blame some of the murders on, like Malcolm’s.
So long, Marienne: Joe’s flashback girlfriend
Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) was the former librarian and single mom Joe tanked his relationship with Love for. At the end of Season 3, Love convinced Marienne to flee because of Joe’s murderous tendencies, and after a stint in London, Marienne ended up in Paris with her daughter.
Joe tracked her down, but when she threatened him with a knife — he let her go, insisting he could be a better person.
Another mind-twist! In reality, Joe put her in his cage (which came with him to … London?) and left her there as his mind flapped between Good Joe and Bad Joe. But when Joe’s nosy student Nadia discovered Marienne in the cage, the women contrived a way for Marienne to fake her death. Once Joe was sure Marienne had died in the cage, he decided to do something nice for her … and left her body on a bench to be discovered. But Nadia came along to wake her up and Marienne was free!
Joe’s next victim — er, girlfriend: Kate
Kate did mourn Malcolm, but Joe slowly won her over, insisting (rightly so) that she should get away from her parasitical friend group. Over time, they revealed some of their dirty secrets to one another, and grew closer.
But when Love popped up in Joe’s dreams, he took a deeper look inside himself and realized he was the Eat-the-Rich killer, and that he had in fact kidnapped Marienne. The only way to end the cycle, he decided, was to end himself. He jumped into a river and was saved by police. In the hospital he came clean to Kate about his past, and no longer felt guilty about the occasional murder he had to commit. He was ready to start his life anew — with her.
Kate helped Joe clean up his past, and they began a full-fledged love affair of damaged equals. But Nadia and another student, Eddie (Brad Alexander), were still investigating Joe and trying to expose him. So Joe killed Eddie and handed a shocked Nadia the murder weapon, effectively framing her. Nadia refused to speak in her own defense, and Kate and Joe walked away with clean hands, if not quite clean hearts.
Season 5 of “You” returns to Netflix on April 24.
