While Netflix’s You was a hugely popular show, it doesn’t seem destined to go down in history as an iconic thriller series, which is a shame. The cast of You is led by Penn Badgley, who plays Joe Goldberg, a romance-obsessed serial killer who will take out anyone who stands in the way of his true love — including his paramours themselves.
Across You‘s five seasons, Joe traipses the world in pursuit of love and on the run from his crimes. The disturbed protagonist fancies himself a romantic hero, and his charm and good looks indeed get him out of trouble on many occasions, making the audience wonder if he’ll actually get away with it all in You‘s nailbiting ending.
Based on the novel series by Caroline Kepnes, You premiered on Lifetime in 2018, though it moved to Netflix in season 2. There, it became a streaming smash hit with You season 3 seeing especially high viewership numbers, amassing 133.1 viewing hours in its premiere week. But despite its success, You will likely never be taken as seriously as other shows in the genre.
Netflix’s You Features TV’s Most Twisted Serial Killer
Serial killers are a staple of television, whether in horror, crime dramas, or police procedurals. However, it’s rare for a serial killer to be the actual protagonist of a series, making You a rare breed.
Another show that fits this bill is Dexter, which sees protagonist Dexter Morgan as a blood spatter analyst by day and vigilante serial killer by night. However, what sets Dexter and Joe apart is that the former believes he is serving a noble cause, while the latter kills for his own selfish means or out of a need to play the romantic hero.
With the audience in Joe’s head, it’s almost as if we’re complicit in his crimes as we hear his warped rationale for taking life after life. What makes the show so dark is that many viewers can agree that, of all the characters Joe killed in You, many of them had it coming.
But that’s not what’s most disturbing about Joe Goldberg — it’s how easily he directs his homicidal rage against the women he purports to love. Whether it’s because they stopped being his idealized version of them or they stand between him and another beautiful damsel in distress, Joe is all too willing to punish his partners for no longer serving his needs. And we follow him every step of the way.
Joe Goldberg Is Different From Other TV “Antiheroes”
You‘s Joe Goldberg came after the abundance of male antihero protagonists who populated the TV dramas of the 2000s and 2010s, including Sons of Anarchy‘s Jax Teller and Breaking Bad‘s Walter White. Like Joe, many of these men were criminals.
The biggest difference between Joe and them is that at some point, the latter knew what they were doing was wrong. Jax wanted to make his outlaw club legitimate, even if he committed almost every crime imaginable in an attempt to achieve that goal. Meanwhile, Walter initially only broke bad as a means to an end before the Breaking Bad protagonist wholeheartedly embraced his villainy.
But Joe always saw himself as the good guy, and that’s what makes him such a fascinating character. Even when he stopped killing between the events of seasons 4 and 5, it was because he was the wealthiest and most privileged he’d ever been — largely as a result of his murderous actions.
It’s fitting that literature is such a big part of Joe Goldberg’s life, because he sure likes to craft elaborate narratives about the world around him and who he is as a person. It’s a story you can’t look away from, and before you know it, you’re binging the next You season on Netflix.
Why You Will Never Get The Masterpiece Status It Deserves
Breaking Bad and many of its contemporaries are often hailed as deeply fascinating character studies of their dark protagonists, but You was never granted that same level of respect. Sadly, the reason for that has to do with the very thing Joe Goldberg is most obsessed with: romance.
To be clear, You itself is not a romance; it’s a thriller with romance as a driving force in the narrative. But anything to do with romance is often trivialized as superficial, fluffy, or soapoperatic.
This is unfortunate because You holds a brutal mirror up to the idea of romantic love. The show examines the twisted lengths people will go to for love, and the multitude of red flags they’re willing to ignore to keep it. You is a thoroughly insightful exploration of romance’s dark side, and this, combined with its fascinating protagonist, makes it worthy of masterpiece status.
You
7/10
- Release Date
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2018 – 2025-00-00
- Showrunner
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Sera Gamble, Greg Berlanti
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Penn Badgley
Joe Goldberg
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Elizabeth Lail
Guinevere Beck
