This post contains spoilers for You season 2. Enter at your own risk.
Every episode of You season 2 on Netflix is basically a roller coaster ride. But the final episodes really packed in the twists and turns. In the final hours, viewers learned that Joe/Will’s latest Los Angeles obsession, the appropriately-named Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), is actually just as murderous as Joe himself—willing to slit the throats of people she sees as a threat to those she cares about.
In the closing scenes, we see Joe (Penn Badgley) and a visibly pregnant Love moving into a nice house where he soon wanders out to the backyard and spots his next door neighbor sitting by the pool reading. “This is just the beginning, because this is where I had to be. Exactly where I had to be to meet you. There you were with your books and your sunshine. So close, but worlds away. I will figure out a way: a way to get to you. See you soon, neighbor,” he narrates. Yep, Joe’s found a new obsession.
Netflix
Fans theorized that the woman is actually Joe’s mother, who we met in flashbacks throughout the latest season. “Why are some people confused about the last scene? that woman/neighbor was definitely joe’s mom. the hands were a dead give away… #YouNetflix,” one tweeted. And, honestly, it sounded like a solid theory.
But Badgley just debunked it in a new interview. “She’s definitely not his mom,” he told Bustle. “I can say that.” Welp, we guess that’s that.
However, it does raise the question of who this woman really is. She could be someone from Joe’s past—are we totally, 100% sure that Beck is actually dead? The show brought back Candace, so we know they’re not afraid to look to Joe’s life before we met him. Or she could simply be a new character who has no idea what sort of creepy killers have moved in next door.
The third season of You hasn’t been officially confirmed yet by Netflix, but all signs are pointing to yes on that front.
One of the most bizarre things to come from Netflix’s hit series You is the amount of people attracted to Penn Badgley’s character, Joe, who, if you’re unfamiliar, is both a stalker and a murderer. The show, which originally aired on Lifetime but has found a new home on Netflix, hinges on Joe’s creepy, obsessive tendencies. He’s a bookstore clerk who develops a Fatal Attraction–level interest in an aspiring writer named Beck (Elizabeth Lail). Joe begins tracking Beck on the Internet to learn more about her, which leads to burglary, manipulation, and ultimately murder. Yup: Joe literally kills the people in Beck’s life who he believes are a threat to their relationship. He’s not a redeemable character by any means, but droves of fans are into him because he’s…hot?
It’s a head-scratching situation that even Badgley chimed in on via Twitter. “Said this already but @PennBadgley is breaking my heart once again as Joe. What is it about him?” one person tweeted, to which the actor responded, “He’s a murderer.” One fan even asked Badgley to “kidnap” them. His response? “No thx.”
Below, check out just a few people who are, for some reason, all aboard the Joe train.
In a new interview with Today, Badgley offers a little more insight into why people are attracted to Joe. On his now-viral tweets responding to people’s thirst, he says, “That was partly disingenuous on my part because the whole point is [Joe’s] meant to garner a conflicted reaction…. I was doing that on Twitter very tongue-in-cheek.”
As for why fans are latching onto Joe, though, Badgley has a more cerebral analysis. “I don’t see him as a portrayal of a real person, I see him as a representation of the part of us that identifies with him,” he says. “The part of us that is a troll; that part of us that is victim blaming; the part of us that is privileged and blind. We’re meant to identify with him.”
Watch his full interview for yourself, below.
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For the record: It’s probably not wise to swoon over Dan Humphrey on Gossip Girl or Joe from You. Badgley’s character from John Tucker Must Die, however, is someone I support 100 percent.
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:
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.)
Follows Beck and her friends to a birthday dinner and eavesdrops on their conversations.
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.
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.
