You debuted on Lifetime in 2018 to decent ratings and some attention. Then Netflix picked it up a few months after the first season ended and it became a gigantic hit, prompting the streamer to produce new seasons. Now, the show about the mostly-ethical killer Joe Goldberg is coming to an end, and Joe is back where everything began: At Mooney’s used bookstore in New York.
YOU SEASON 5: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Scenes of New York. As the internal monologue of Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) explains Thomas Wolfe’s oft-quoted “You can’t go home again,” we see him walking down the street next to Central Park.
The Gist: Joe and his wife, Kate Galvin (Charlotte Ritchie), have returned to New York after starting their lives together with Joe’s son in London. She’s now the CEO of the Lockwood Company after her father died, and the two of them have become tabloid darlings, especially after paparazzi shots of Joe holding Kate’s bag while she makes a presentation makes the rounds. He’s considered “Prince Charming” by the press.
Joe also hasn’t killed anyone in three years, getting out his murderous impulses by writing about them on an antique typewriter at his apartment above his old bookstore. As his inner monologue states, though, “being good” can get tough at times, especially when he encounters people whom he thinks deserves to be eliminated.
When Kate announces that a large percentage of the company’s profits are going to the company’s charity foundation, she takes the board by surprise. This includes the CFO, Raegan Lockwood (Anna Camp), Kate’s hard-driving half-sister who always thought their dad would promote her into the top job, and her uncle Bob (Michael Dempsey), the COO who still calls her “little lady.” Kate has always seen Bob as a father figure.
On Kate’s side is her half-brother Teddy (Griffin Matthews), whom she brought in as her chief of staff when the rest of the Lockwood family wanted to shut him out because he’s a result of Kate’s dad’s affair with a cleaning lady. Teddy alerts Joe that a Forbes story is coming out that will reveal Kate’s role in faking health data to facilitate a pipeline her father wanted to build in Alberta, a huge secret which has bonded her to Joe.
Joe looks to find out who the source of the report is by meeting with Reagan’s flirtatious flibbertigibbet twin sister Maddie (also Camp). When he finds out who is behind the leak, Kate is doubtful at first. But she soon confirms it, finding out that the murder that she and Joe covered up in London will get leaked, as well. She tells Joe to do what he needs to do to protect their family.
In the meantime, Joe returns to Mooney’s, which Kate has bought and intends to sell in order to distance them both from Joe’s past, and finds a young woman roaming the closed bookstore. She calls herself Bronte (Madeline Brewer) and is intrigued by her passion for Ibsen and her fiery green eyes.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? You Seasons 1-4. The show also has a lot of elements of Dexter in it.
Our Take: The final season of You, created by Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, has Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo as the showrunners, but the style of the show remains mostly the same as what we saw during its first season seven years ago. You remember those heady days of 2018, right? You was on Lifetime before it became a hit on Netflix, and the show had campy and erudite elements that often competed against each other to see which would win out. It’s no different now as Joe comes back to Mooney’s and the series draws to a close.
By now, fans of the show are used to Joe’s internal monologue being a dominating part of the series, so to call it annoying, like we did all those years ago, is irrelevant at this point. Joe’s internal monologue, who refers to Joe as “You”, is an essential part of his character, because it’s what helps him resist his impulses as well as tempt him towards those same impulses.
Joe has been through so much through the show’s run, including killing three loves of his life, that it’s almost a relief to see him back in New York with Kate, a woman who knows about most of his dark past and has skeletons in her own closet. But you know that the final season isn’t going to go by with Joe just being a dutiful husband. The question is whether he’s going to kill just to protect him, Kate and his family or will things get out of hand for all of them?
It’s also fitting that Mooney’s is going to become active again, including the cell he’s installed in the rare books room in the basement. Both were a big attraction of the show’s early seasons, and bringing Joe back into that environment brings the show “back to basics,” as it were. What role Bronte plays in all this, whether she becomes an intellectual or even a physical love interest for Joe, is yet to be seen. It seems that Joe is attracted to her because she provides something Kate doesn’t, even though he loves Kate as much as anyone he’s ever met. That complex dance is going to be interesting to watch.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Joe lights up the cell in his basement for the first time in years, and he looks at it as if he’s being reunited with an old friend.
Sleeper Star: It’ll be fun seeing Anna Camp playing both the obnoxious Raegan and flirty Maddie all season long.
Most Pilot-y Line: Ok, we’ll just say it: As ingrained as Joe’s inner monologue is to the show by now, it still feels like it’s used too often in the first episode.
Our Call: STREAM IT. You wraps up its run by going back to the city where it started, and it almost feels like Joe is going back to where he started, as well. It’s not a bad way to conclude the campy and witty series.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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