Netflix's "You" ends with a satisfying conclusion
- The Real Perspectives
- Apr 29
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 5
April 29. 2025
Reel Perspectives
Viewers cannot get enough of "You," which premiered its fifth and final season on Netflix on April 24. The psychological thriller, based on the novels by Caroline Kepnes, originally premiered on Lifetime back in 2018 before its move to Netflix captured worldwide attention due to Penn Badgley's smoldering performance playing serial killer Joe Goldberg, a dangerously charming, obsessive man who goes to extreme measures searching for love and murdering anyone he sees as a threat. In the epic fifth and final season, Joe Goldberg returns to New York to enjoy his happily ever after… "until his perfect life is threatened by the ghosts of his past and his own dark desires."
Executive produced by Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo, the series has been a monster and cultural hit following Joe, who started as a bookstore manager in New York City and obsessively fell in love with Guinevere Beck, an aspiring writer, before murdering her. In the second season, in an attempt to start over, he moves to Los Angeles and falls in love with chef Love Quinn, who shares his murderous tendencies. Joe and Love are married in the third season and raising a baby, however their mutual obsession turns fatal when Joe takes an interest in his neighbor, Natalie Engler, and Love kills her, leading to Joe killing Love. In season 4, Joe reinvents himself as an English professor in London under the identity Joe Moore, but when he is framed for the murder of serial killings, his murderous tendencies arise once again while falling for another woman, Kate, the wealthy Kate Lockwood, whose status has afforded him an affluent lifestyle to mask his true identity.
In season 5, Joe returned to New York, where it all began, and the series concluded on a killer note. "You" has never attempted to glorify Joe as a hero. His fifth season reveals his true sadism, where he used his manipulative charm and layered brutality with chilling effects for five seasons.
In an interview with Netflix's Tudum, co-showrunners and executive producers Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo revealed, "It's so rare that you're afforded the opportunity to do five seasons of a show, let alone complete the story, while bringing your character and the production back to where it all began. It was truly a unicorn experience and an absolute career highlight for both of us."
The fifth season brings Joe's chapter to a close, with Joe's crimes finally catching up to him, leading to a satisfying conclusion with Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song closing the series. "You" has remained true to who Joe really is- a stone-cold killer whose morbid impulses should not be glorified.
All 10 episodes of season 5 of "You" are available to stream exclusively on Netflix.
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