Penn Badgley Is Way Creepier Than Dan Humphrey On His New Show *You*
It’s hard to forget when Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) was revealed as Gossip Girl‘s titular blogger in 2012—mostly because it made zero sense. Dan routinely sat and read Gossip Girl multiple times in his room by himself. Gnarly rumors concerning him and his inner circle ended up on the site. He’d even act genuinely shocked when Gossip Girl pulled her tricks. So was all of this…pretend? The entire bombshell, ultimately, made Dan creepier in the eyes of the viewers. He went from Lonely Boy to Stealthy Stalker Who Duped Everyone all in the course of one episode—and pop culture has never been the same.
But if you thought Dan Humphrey was creepy, wait until you see Badgley’s new character in Lifetime’s fall series You, which premieres Sunday night (September 9). He plays Joe Goldberg, a bookstore clerk who falls madly in love with a customer named Guinevere Beck (Beck for short, played by Elizabeth Lail). “Madly in love” is a nice way of saying Joe becomes full-on, Fatal Attraction-level obsessed with Beck. Without giving away too many specific details, here’s a hodgepodge of absolutely bonkers things Joe does only days after learning Beck’s name:
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Tracks down her address and watches her through her large bay windows. (What he watches—and does—specifically is insane, and you’ll have to tune in to find out.)
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Follows Beck and her friends to a birthday dinner and eavesdrops on their conversations.
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Breaks into Beck’s house to skulk around and learn more about her. He also steals her underwear.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Joe takes cyber-stalking to new, terrifying heights—and what’s worse is he thinks there’s something chivalrous about it. The entire first episode is told through Joe’s POV and, in his mind, his gross invasions of privacy are perfectly justifiable. In the first scene of the pilot, for example, Joe assumes that Beck wearing loud bracelets to the bookstore implies she wants his attention. When she declines his help to reach for a book on a high shelf and does it herself, he thinks it’s because she wants to show off her body.
https://twitter.com/YouOnLifetime/status/1022498106498265088
And the wildest assumption of all: Joe thinks Beck paying for her book with a credit card means she wants him to know her name. These are all totally innocuous things that Joe takes as pointed signals toward him—a dangerous thing men do all the time to women that can lead to harassment, assault, or, in Beck’s case, stalking. It’s a pretty on-the-nose commentary for our current political climate.
But let’s scale back a bit. This is a Lifetime show, and while You does make some important statements, it’s largely just an unabashedly—and unapologetically—over-the-top series that will audibly make you shriek. I certainly did. Seriously: Some of the things Joe does in the pilot episode—all in the pursuit of winning over Beck—will literally make you say, “What the fuck?”
Shay Mitchell also stars on You, and she’s deliciously campy in her first big role since Pretty Little Liars. She plays Peach, a relative of J.D. Salinger (???) whose opulent lifestyle and rich-bitch attitude is super fun to watch. She’s a good friend of Beck’s who routinely offers her money as a form of protection. Peach seems a little too invested in her friend off the bat, though, so there’s a good chance she may also turn into a Joe Goldberg-level obsessive. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see on that front.
Overall, You is definitely worth a watch this fall, if only because it’s so ridiculous (in the best way possible). Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars were pretty outrageous shows on their own, so imagine if they aired on Lifetime: a network known for shock-and-awe programming. That, my friends, is You—and it’s about to be your next obsession. Just make sure it’s a healthy one.
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