With the highly anticipated arrival of the final season of You, fans couldn’t help but make it #1 on Netflix again. The show has been an instant eye-grabber to fans, with everyone wondering about the big questions regarding the series finale. The main one is: how will this all end?
After five seasons, the show opens back up in New York City where it initially began, reintroducing the main character Joe Goldberg, who is now raising his son Henry and is married to Kate. In an attempt to start over and finally settle in peace, viewers wonder if he will be interrupted by the recurring trouble of another love interest. True fans know he will fall back into the rabbit hole by following his dark impulses and obsessive behavior.
Shockingly, Joe is trying to behave this season, while he meets his new love interest. Unlike in previous seasons his new lover, Bronte, is different. She represents his first real threat of exposure and defeat. Bronte breaks the cycle of past victims by seeing through the promises and lies Joe tells her, remembering her main objective, which is to defeat him and gain justice for his past victims. Instead of falling for Joe’s manipulation tactics, Bronte flips the script and tricks him, ultimately bringing all his crimes to an end.
Despite Joe’s story ending, he never takes full responsibility for his actions. Instead, he chooses to blame the viewers for what he’s caused. The final scene shows Joe receiving a fan letter that praises and admires him for his actions. Joe uses this to argue that “You”, the audience, and society itself, are the problem because of the obsessive and romanticized behavior toward individuals involved in serious crimes, like himself. The charm associated with him and other “villains” overshadows their deranged behavior, leading to it being overlooked and even normalized.
However, even with his attempts to blame others, Joe remains the central problem in his story as he is the only one responsible for his actions. This is a key point in the series because it highlights how Joe often tries to rationalize his behavior by justifying it with love and protection toward the people around him. The show demonstrates the problem with denial and lack of self-awareness and how it can lead to destructive patterns and cause harm to them, as well as those around them.
With the end of the series, there are still questions that remain: how was Kate able to survive the fire and what will end up happening in Henry’s life? If you were a fan of the series until the messy plot of season four, make sure to watch this season to fall in love with “You” again.
