After four seasons of asking ourselves, “How the hell did Joe Goldberg manage to pull that off!,” the final season of You is here! Joe Goldberg thought he’d finally found love at the end of the previous season. He was married to Kate, a socialite he befriended during his brief London stint. Kate grew up in the shadow of her abusive father, and she too had a dark past that she wanted to hide from the world. Kate was under the impression that Joe had been in an abusive relationship and that was why he’d killed Love. Kate knew that he would readily kill for her, and she didn’t mind as long as he could justify his actions. Joe, who’d tried to build his life all over again in London as Professor Moore, was back home, in New York City. His influential wife had helped him clear his name and start afresh. While it seemed Joe had found the love of his life, Kate soon started to see Joe for who he really was.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Kate fall out of love with Joe?
Over the course of ten episodes in You season 5, Kate’s feelings towards Joe evolved from unconditional love to extreme hatred. She happily accepted Joe even after knowing about his dark past, to an extent. But like every other woman in Joe’s life, she too thought things would eventually change. As someone with a shady past, she could relate to his pain of being misunderstood by the world, but she didn’t quite figure out that Joe was a serial killer who didn’t necessarily kill for any particular reason. Kate’s father always thought she was as ruthless as him, and Kate believed she had inherited his instincts. When Kate received information that a news outlet was planning on leaking a story that could ruin her reputation, she panicked. Joe went behind her back and investigated what was going on, and he discovered that Uncle Joe, whom Kate trusted blindly, was the one who’d stabbed her in the back. Once he started digging into Kate’s past, he gathered evidence against her. According to Uncle Bob, Kate was draining the company’s wealth to fund her charitable causes, and he had no choice but to find dirt that he could use against her and compel her to resign. But giving up on the life she’d built all by herself was not what Kate had in mind, and even though she knew it was wrong, she turned to Joe for help. Joe’s instinct, as usual, was to kill. He strangled Uncle Bob and made it look like a suicide. He’d also sent out an apology mail from Uncle Bob’s account where he admitted to conjuring a lie about Kate to destroy her, only to regret it later.
Kate’s sister, Raegan, refused to believe that their uncle died by suicide, and she was determined to conduct an autopsy to figure out what really happened. She suspected Kate of foul play, especially because she knew that their uncle planned on having Kate removed from the board, so naturally, she suspected her sister had killed him after she discovered his plan. So, what solution did Joe come up with? Killing Raegan. Kate refused to take that path. She knew that was something her father would’ve done, and she was determined not to let his instincts drive her. She wanted to be better, and she believed that over time she would find an alternate plan, but Joe was desperate. Raegan had insulted him and told him he was not fit to be a parent after his son, Henry, attacked her daughter. Joe ended up using the lesser evil twin, Maddie, to kill Raegan, and Maddie ended up pretending to be both herself and her sister, though eventually the truth was revealed, and Joe was the one who’d exposed her. Maddie was only bringing him trouble, so exposing the truth was the perfect solution to Joe, and he strongly believed that after finding out that Maddie was in trouble, Kate would return to New York and he would manage to track her down. Kate lost all hope when she discovered that Joe had killed her sister even though he didn’t really ‘have to.’ She realized that killing people was a compulsion that he couldn’t control, and that he refused to control his urges. So, Kate teamed up with Nadia (from the previous season) to take down Joe. Their plan was to get a confession out of the killer since that was the only way the world would actually believe them. Since Kate had already filed for divorce and refused to let Joe meet his son, she knew that he would try to kill her. She lured him to a parking lot and attacked him. Nadia and Kate closely watched as he came back to his senses only to realize that he was trapped in the same glass cage where he locked up all of his victims.
Did Kate Survive The Fire?
Joe was shocked to see Marienne when she showed up to support Kate and Nadia. Watching her abuser get agitated after being locked up in the same glass cage where she had spent days in uncertainty and panic made Marienne feel hopeful. Since Joe refused to confess to his crimes, their only option was to kill him. Kate volunteered to pull the trigger because she didn’t want Nadia and Marienne to get entangled in a murder case. Just when Kate thought she was in control, she realized Joe had escaped. He’d already anticipated that he might get into trouble, so he’d slipped a razor into his flesh and stitched his skin shut. He used it to free himself from the glass cage. He overpowered Kate and shot her in the abdomen. He was almost about to kill her when Maddie showed up all of a sudden. Raegan’s husband, Harrison, had confessed to murdering his wife to protect his lover (Maddie), and she’d been released from prison. She’d realized that Joe was a selfish man who’d used her to get his job done and eventually exposed her. She locked Joe in the basement and burned down the library to get rid of him once and for all.
Joe was weak, and he’d curled up on the floor, accepting defeat. Kate was still conscious, and she ended up recording Joe confessing to all the murders he’d committed. She had sent the voice note to Nadia and waited for the fire to engulf her. But at the very end of You, we discover that Kate had survived the fire. She didn’t feel the need to hide her burn wounds because the scars were a testament to the pain she had had to endure to bring justice to Joe’s victims. She had developed a beautiful bond with Henry, and she continued to be his guardian. There were days when Henry thought of his father, the evil monster, but hopefully he will choose to stay in the light and not indulge in his dark instincts.
Who was Bronte?
Surprise, surprise! Joe found someone new to obsess over, and this time it was a fellow bibliophile who went by the name Bronte. With Kate’s money, Joe had bought Mooney’s when he returned to New York. He was not yet ready to rip off the band-aid, but at the same time, he was too attached to the place to let it go. Bronte gave him a reason to reimagine Mooney’s. She used to sneak into the closed establishment to read books time and again. Joe caught her off guard one day, and that was the beginning of their friendship. From strangers to acquaintances and colleagues, their relationship evolved rapidly over time. Joe considered reopening Mooney’s to be around his new obsession, whom he appointed as the store manager. He’d caught her sneaking into the basement and had made up his mind to fire her, but there was something irresistible about her, and he ultimately decided to give her a second chance.
Joe didn’t know much about Bronte—she was a novice playwright who’d moved to New York to make her dream come true, but she was currently struggling to pay her bills, and a job at a bookstore was exactly what she needed. But eventually Joe discovered that Bronte’s actual name was Louise Flannery, an accredited dental hygienist from Ohio. After her mother’s demise, she moved to New York to pursue her passion but ended up in a toxic relationship with an amateur writer, Clayton. Joe noticed Clayton’s obsession with Louise, and, as expected, he wanted to kill the guy. When Louise ghosted him right after they tried to indulge in passionate bondage sex, Joe decided to put on his trusted black cap and investigate what was going on. He discovered that Louise was at a beach town with her ex, Clayton. He assumed she was in some sort of danger, and he wanted to be her savior. Long story short, he ended up strangling Clayton when he saw her as a threat to Louise. But to his surprise, two individuals stormed in. They’d been recording Joe, and they declared him a killer on social media. Joe was apprehended, and he realized that Bronte, aka Louise, had catfished him. She was mentored by Guinevere Beck when she had taken up a creative writing course. Beck believed in her and encouraged her to write more, and when Louise learned that she had been killed, she suspected foul play. She had read Beck’s last published work, and she strongly believed that the book was not completely written by her. She met fellow sleuths on Reddit with similar theories, and that was when they decided to find out if Joe was the actual killer.
Clayton was Dr. Nick’s son, and he too was part of the Reddit gang. Together, they had come up with the idea of exposing Joe to the world, but in the process Louise fell in love with Joe. The man she once considered a killer suddenly seemed innocent to her. She thought Joe had killed Clayton out of self-defense because she’d convinced him that Clayton was a threat. Louise told the cops that Joe was innocent, and after all their hard work, the Reddit gang didn’t succeed in proving their theory. So, they decided to use social media to gather traction, and all of a sudden, a lot of people started to speak up against Joe. After some PR damage control moves, Joe’s reputation had improved. But more than the support he received on social media, he was glad to see a text from Louise stating that she had told the cops the truth.
Why did Louise, aka Bronte, rescue Joe from the fire?
Joe tracked Louise down and saved her from a misogynist who wanted to kill her after she dared to ‘use’ Joe to prove her theory. Even though Louise was a little hesitant about getting back with Joe, they eventually figured out that they still were head over heels in love with each other. Louise was convinced that Joe had turned into a killer because the people he loved never made him feel secure. Joe felt validated when he was with her. And while she tried to ‘fix’ him, Joe secretly continued to satisfy his urge to kill. It’s the final season, and by now we know that there is no ‘fixing’ Joe.
When Joe was trapped in the glass cage, Marienne spoke to Louise. She’d come to find him at the bookstore, and that was when Marienne explained how every woman he’d dated wanted to cling to the idea that Joe loved them and that it was not some mad obsession, only to realize that they could not have been more wrong. A lot of times, victims hold on to their abusive partners, fearing that society would call them ‘stupid’ for not seeing the red flags, but Marienne encouraged Louise to run before it was too late. Even after realizing that she was wrong about Joe, Louise saved him from the fire. She didn’t want Joe to die peacefully without facing the consequences of his actions. She wanted him to suffer every day and experience shame and humiliation for the rest of his life.
How did Louise seek revenge on Joe?
The final episode unfolds from Louise’s perspective, for the first time the survivor gets the chance to become the narrator of her story. Louise pretended to be in love with Joe and accompanied him as he attempted to flee the country. Before crossing the border, they had to stay for a few days at a remote villa, and that was when Louise confronted Joe with a gun in her hand. She wanted him to mark all the sections that he’d made up in Guinevere Beck’s work. Joe was still hopeful; he thought Louise didn’t intend on killing him, and he could still manipulate her into loving him. He wanted to think that he was her best option because there was no one in the world who loved her more than him. But Louise had already figured out that he was a monster, and there was no way she could change him. She refused to see him as a victim who was wronged by the world, but she’d seen how his survivors were suffering even after they’d escaped him. Joe realized that Louise had turned against him and there was no way he could change her opinion, so his only option left was to kill her. He attacked her and shot her in the abdomen. Louise managed to escape, but she was hurt. She tried to contact the emergency helpline, but Joe started following her, and she had to run to save her life.
Louise twisted her ankle, and she struggled to walk. She finally saw how evil Joe was, especially when he accused her of ruining their relationship and not valuing him. Joe could never see himself as the problem; he had convinced himself that he was just too special and the love that he had to give was not valued by the world. He thought that the fact that he was willing to kill for love should have been enough for women to stay by his side, but when they started to question his sanity, he thought they didn’t have the courage to own up to their dark side like he did.
At the end of the final episode of You, cops traced Louise’s phone call, and they arrested Joe. But before he was handcuffed, Louise shot his penis off. The news of Louise’s bold act had spread far and wide, and memes about Joe’s lost manhood were circulated on social media. Joe went through a court trial, and he had no choice but to directly face the damage and destruction his actions had caused. The court declared a sentence of lifetime imprisonment without parole for Joe, and finally his survivors could focus on rebuilding their lives.
What happened to the survivors?
Louise published a redacted version of Guinevere Beck’s final work, and it immediately became popular among her fans. While Joe had made Louise briefly believe that her life would be incomplete without him, she had come to realize that he couldn’t have been more wrong. She was convinced that one day he would be reduced to just a terrible ex she’d once dated. Nadia became a published author and a teacher. Harrison Jacobs was released from prison after the charges against him for murdering his wife were dropped. Maddie Lockwood was tried for her sister’s murder and arson, but considering her circumstances, she didn’t have to serve time. She was expecting twins with Harrison at present. Kate had declared her stepbrother, Teddy, the CEO of her father’s empire, the Lockwood Corporation, and he had turned the entire business completely non-profit. Kate and her brother went against their father’s principles and tried to right his wrongs. Kate championed Marienne’s artistic endeavors, and they worked together to ensure that her art reached more people.
What does the final scene suggest?
In the final scene of You, season 5, a defeated Joe was seen reading Norman Mailer’s “The Executioner’s Song.” The fact that he was reading a book on Gary Gilmore’s life and his demand for a death sentence suggests that maybe he too will beg the court to execute him rather than letting him live behind bars for the rest of his life. Joe didn’t hate himself for all the murders he’d committed; instead, he believed that he was a product of his circumstances. The ending of You underlines a deeper problem—one that has to do with the society’s obsession with serial killers that has led to shows such as You becoming so hugely popular and the audience rooting for its protagonist even after knowing that he was a beast of a man. Obsessive fans trying to befriend killers locked in prison is not new, but Joe believes that it goes on to show how broken society is from within. Maybe it’s the toxicity and the danger that result in a strange attraction, or there is a lack of self-respect and a desire for pain and punishment stemming from trauma. The ‘bad boy’ trope in popular culture has given birth to the idea that women must always feel the compulsive need to ‘fix’ these flawed men, creating an ecosystem that validates abusive behavior.
