YOU Season 5 sees the end of Joe Goldberg’s reign of terror over women. And in his goodbye, his story ends up paling in comparison to the women of the show. And it’s exactly what he deserves, to be forgotten and locked away while the women he terrorized live their lives. But at the same time, Joe was kind of boring in his final season and even the women that outshined him annoyed me to no end. So let’s break down why Joe was so boring, my complicated relationship with the women of YOU Season 5, and that devastating line that Henry delivered to his dad.
MORE: Penn Badgley opens up about the loss of Michelle Trachtenberg.
Why Was Joe So Boring in YOU Season 5?
Joe Goldberg was not having a good season 5. And it wasn’t just because every woman still alive who he had wronged came back to teach him a lesson. It also wasn’t because the woman that he thought needed saving was actually hunting him. Joe wasn’t having a good season because it was just boring when it came to him. It was the same old thing of him thinking that he was rescuing someone over and over again.
In addition, we didn’t really see any introspection from Joe. He remains the same man he was in season 1. He continues to have delusions that he is right in saving these women. And he’s never remorseful for anything that he’s done. With this being the final season, I expected some introspection that showed that he had changed. But if anything, the little bit of cracking that we saw with his split personality in season 4, disappeared into nothing and he was just regular old Joe, in a cell for the New York masses to send letters to.
And it’s not like Penn Badgley didn’t do a great job in YOU season 5. He did. But it was the same Joe Goldberg we have seen over and over again. And it makes me wonder if the actor was just tired and wanted to get out of this. Because we’ve seen the interviews. We’ve seen how he’s called fans out for them sympathizing with Joe. So maybe it was a combination of the writing purposefully making it so Joe didn’t change and that helped center the women’s stories when it came to taking down Joe and freeing Badgley.
MORE: Watch Penn Badgley tapped into his inner Gossip Girl.
The Women of YOU
Even though I think that the women of YOU Season 5 outshined Joe Goldberg in the final season, I find myself having this complicated love and hate relationship with half of the women that appeared. And it’s not even because of Joe. Having him set the precedent for what happens in this show has made it so that a lot of people saw the world through his eyes and sympathized with him. I never sympathized with him.
I have a complicated relationship with the women of YOU Season 5 because of women like Bronte. She was Mary Sue-ing so hard. And she had an opportunity to be different and take Joe down. But the temptation of a dark romance kept eating up at her. And I just sat there frustrated and wanting her to pick a side. If she loved Joe and was okay with his darkness, go for it. The same thing with Kate. She liked his darkness when it benefited her and also saw herself exempt from darkness because she could fix it with money. Same thing goes for Reagan. She thought she could fix things with money too. But she was also an evil cartoon villain.
At the same time, these very women that annoyed me, had qualities that made me cheer them on. I really liked the final showdown between Bronte and Joe. I also really liked that when it mattered, Kate came through and brought the women together before surviving Joe trying to kill her. She won at the end. So did Bronte. But so did Marianne, Nadia, and Maddie. All three women had their lives absolutely shattered by Joe. And even though they are still a little bit broken now, they found a way to face the pain and then build something that puts that pain in the rearview mirror.
I say this all the time, but TV is art. And art is supposed to make you feel things. Besides the diabolical line that Joe’s son delivered, which I will be talking about at the end of this review, the women were the only ones that made me feel something this season, be it anger or joy that they one-upped Joe. And it’s what Joe Goldberg deserves. He deserves to be a footnote in their story. And that’s what he is.
Most Diabolical Line Delivered by Joe’s Son
What Henry said to his dad deserves its own section in our review of YOU season 5. Joe has spent so much time deluding himself into thinking that he is the hero of the story. He’s the hero that’s saving all of these women from men who don’t understand them or deserve them. And he’s the hero in his own story that doesn’t deserve how women treat him when his love is “too much.” That’s where Henry comes in.
Kids are really perceptive. And they see the world a lot of times for what it is instead of what we try to teach or sell them. And when Henry now looks at his dad, he sees the person that has shaken the foundation of his life. School has changed for Henry because of his dad. Security was probably always a thing for someone like Henry, but he knows that it has been upped after they moved him to a safe house with his uncle. But the worst part came with what Joe did to his mom, both of them honestly.
Kate raised Henry for the last couple of years and provided him with the nurturing of a mother. So when he saw that the woman who raised him was hurt because of Joe, that changed the way that he looked at his dad. It also gave him additional context on his birth mother. Because if Joe could do this to Kate, he definitely could do this to Love Quinn. So when Henry told his dad that he was the monster, that is the ultimate punishment for Joe. Not jail, but his son seeing him as the villain of the story.
What is the Legacy of Joe Goldberg?
Before I started watching YOU Season 5 I wanted Joe Goldberg to die. And I was adamant that that was the only way that we were going to see justice for all of the lives that he destroyed because he thought he was the hero of the story when these women didn’t mean to be saved in the first place. I can say with my whole chest that I was wrong. The punishment that Joe got is far worse and helps cement his legacy as a man with delusions of grandeur.
We already discussed in the section above about how his son seeing him as a monster was the ultimate punishment. But his legacy being out of his control is also another element that grates at who Joe is. Coming to NYC and having Kate’s money allowed him a chance to change the narrative. But he can’t do that behind bars. Instead, he’s still the man who thinks he’s been wronged with adoring fans sending him letters that leave him feeling sick. Because he can’t really be the kind of man they’d want, right? At least he thinks so.
The justice of it all is that Joe is trapped, powerless, and so well-known for what he did that no one will see him any other way. He doesn’t have the freedom or the money to fly away to another country, grow a beard, and insert himself in another group of friends or community. This is his world, this little cement room, the bars that keep him locked away, and the letters that he receives from his adoring fans. And the fact that he hates it and the fact that he can’t change the narrative of his story, well, it’s a delicious punishment and what he deserves.
YOU Season 5 is now available on Netflix.
