You is an American psychological thriller television series based on the books by Caroline Kepnes, developed by Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, and produced by Berlanti Productions, Alloy Entertainment and A+E Studios in association with Warner Horizon Television, now Warner Bros. Television.
The first season, which is based on the novel You, premiered on Lifetime in September 2018, and follows Joe Goldberg, a bookstore manager and serial killer who falls in love and develops an extreme obsession. The season stars Penn Badgley, Elizabeth Lail, Luca Padovan, Zach Cherry, and Shay Mitchell. Lifetime announced in July 2018 that You had been renewed for a second season, based on Kepnes' follow-up novel Hidden Bodies. The series later moved to Netflix and the second season was released in December 2019. The season follows Joe as he moves to Los Angeles and falls in love with local heiress Love Quinn. For the second season, Ambyr Childers was upgraded to a series regular, joining newly cast Victoria Pedretti, James Scully, Jenna Ortega, and Carmela Zumbado.
In January 2020, the series was renewed for a third season by Netflix, which was released on October 15, 2021. In the third season, Saffron Burrows was upgraded to a series regular, joining newly cast Travis Van Winkle, Shalita Grant, Tati Gabrielle and Dylan Arnold. In October 2021, ahead of the third season premiere, the series was renewed for a fourth season.
premise[]
The first season follows the story of Joe Goldberg, a bookstore manager in New York, who upon meeting Guinevere Beck, an aspiring writer, becomes infatuated with her. He feeds his toxic obsession using social media and other technology to track her presence and remove obstacles to their romance.
In the second season, Joe Goldberg moves from New York to Los Angeles to escape his past and starts over with a new identity. When he meets avid chef Love Quinn, Joe begins falling into his old patterns of obsession and violence. As Joe attempts to forge a new love in the City of Angels, he strives to make his relationship with Love succeed at all costs to avoid the fate of his past romantic endeavors.
In the third season, Joe and Love are married and raising their newborn son, Henry, in the Californian suburb of Madre Linda. As their relationship dynamic takes a new turn, Joe continues to repeat the cycle of obsession with a burgeoning interest in Natalie, the next door neighbor. This time, Love will flip the script to ensure that her dream of having the perfect family will not be torn away so easily by Joe's compulsive actions.
cast and characters[]
- Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg, a bookstore manager at Mooney's who stalks and dates Beck in the first season. In the second season, he goes by the name Will Bettelheim and works as a bookstore clerk at Anavrin, and stalks and dates Love. Joe is portrayed as a teenager by Gianni Ciardiello in season one, and as a child by Aidan Wallace and Jack Fisher in seasons two and three respectively.
- Elizabeth Lail as Guinevere Beck (season 1; special guest season 2), a broke NYU graduate student and an aspiring writer
- Luca Padovan as Paco (season 1), Joe's young neighbor
- Zach Cherry as Ethan Russell (season 1), a bookstore clerk who works with Joe
- Shay Mitchell as Peach Salinger (season 1), a wealthy and influential socialite and Beck's best friend whom she met at Brown University
- Victoria Pedretti as Love Quinn (seasons 2–3), an aspiring chef and health guru in Los Angeles
- Jenna Ortega as Ellie Alves (season 2), Delilah's fifteen-year-old sister
- James Scully as Forty Quinn (season 2; special guest season 3), Love's beloved and troubled twin brother
- Ambyr Childers as Candace Stone (season 2; recurring season 1), Joe's ex-girlfriend who follows him to Los Angeles
- Carmela Zumbado as Delilah Alves (season 2), Ellie's older sister, an investigative reporter
- Saffron Burrows as Dottie Quinn (season 3; recurring season 2), Love and Forty's mother
- Tati Gabrielle as Marienne Bellamy (season 3–present), a librarian and keen observer of the neighborhood's denizens. Beneath her practical exterior, Marienne is hiding personal struggles that set her back, as she tries to create a better life for herself and her daughter.
- Shalita Grant as Sherry Conrad (season 3), a locally famous "momfluencer", admired by her social media followers for her well crafted persona
- Travis Van Winkle as Cary Conrad (season 3), a wealthy, charismatic, and self-proclaimed founder who runs his own supplement company
- Dylan Arnold as Theo Engler (season 3), a troubled college student who has a strained relationship with his stepfather, Matthew Engler
- Lukas Gage as Adam (season 4)
- Charlotte Ritchie as Kate (season 4), a fearsomely intelligent art gallery director. Her partying boyfriend Malcolm will bring Joe into their lives.
- Tilly Keeper as Lady Phoebe (season 4)
- Amy Leigh Hickman as Nadia (season 4)
- Ed Speleers as Rhys (season 4)
episodes[]
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | Network | ||||
| 1 | 10 | September 9, 2018 | November 11, 2018 | Lifetime | ||
| 2 | 10 | December 26, 2019 | Netflix | |||
| 3 | 10 | October 15, 2021 | ||||
season 1 (2018)[]
| No.overall | No. in
season |
Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | U.S. viewers
(millions) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Pilot" | Lee Toland Krieger | Greg Berlanti & Sera Gamble | September 9, 2018 | 0.82 | |
| Bookstore manager Joe Goldberg meets aspiring writer Guinevere Beck, and an internet search about her leads to Joe following Beck around, monitoring her social interactions, and even entering her apartment while she is out. Joe is nearby when a drunken Beck falls onto the subway tracks, and he saves her. Joe takes Beck home but steals her phone, giving him full access to everything she does with her new phone due to it automatically synchronizing with her old one. Beck later stops by the bookstore to thank him for rescuing her, and he asks her out. Joe lures Beck's philandering boyfriend Benji to the basement of his shop, hits him in the head with a mallet, and locks him in a plexiglass book vault. | |||||||
| 2 | 2 | "The Last Nice Guy in New York" | Lee Toland Krieger | Sera Gamble | September 16, 2018 | 0.77 | |
| Joe is not sure what to do with Benji, who is a drug-addicted trust fund baby and desperate to be freed. Meanwhile, when Beck rejects her professor's advances, he threatens to take away her teaching assistant job and consequently, her housing. Beck's wealthy friend Peach is suspicious of Joe. Beck turns the tables on Professor Leahy by threatening to expose his sexual harassment of her and six other women. After obtaining a video of Benji hazing a fraternity pledge to death, Joe gives him a coffee laced with peanut oil, and Benji dies from an allergic reaction. | |||||||
| 3 | 3 | "Maybe" | Marcos Siega | April Blair | September 23, 2018 | 0.57 | |
| Joe plans how to get rid of Benji's body, while Beck is intimidated by Blythe, a rival graduate student. Joe doubles down on his efforts to convince Beck that he is "the one" for her after finding out that she is still having sex with other men in order to get over Benji. Joe overhears Beck telling her friends that she is not completely sure about Joe, calling him a "maybe". Beck opens up to Joe about her addict father, but their attempt at lovemaking is interrupted by Peach, who needs to be taken to the hospital for a chronic ailment. Joe is almost caught by hikers while he is burning Benji's body in the woods as he is talking to Beck on the phone. She invites him over to her apartment and they finally have sex, but he prematurely ejaculates. | |||||||
| 4 | 4 | "The Captain" | Vic Mahoney | Michael Foley | September 30, 2018 | 0.56 | |
| Beck surreptitiously messages her friends about Joe's disappointing lovemaking, which he sees via her old phone. Still monitoring her texts, Joe sees that Beck has made weekend plans with an older man she calls "The Captain" and lies to her friends about it. A jealous Joe follows her to a Charles Dickens festival in Nyack and soon learns that the man is her father, Edward, who she had previously said was dead. Meanwhile, Peach has learned that Joe is in Nyack, which forces him to reveal himself to Beck. They go to lunch with Edward and his new family, but Beck explodes at her critical and disapproving stepmother, Nancy. Beck explains to Joe that her father left her family after a drug overdose, and although he has overcome his addiction, she has kept him at a distance. Joe and Beck have sex again, this time much to Beck's satisfaction. | |||||||
| 5 | 5 | "Living with the Enemy" | Marta Cunningham | Neil Reynolds | October 7, 2018 | 0.57 | |
| Peach continues to be suspicious of Joe, who seeks a way to neutralize her. Peach makes a show of introducing Beck to a famous literary agent, but when he hits on Beck and tells her the negative things Peach said about her, Beck blows up at Peach. Joe sees through Peach's subsequent faked suicide attempt, and in accessing her laptop comes to realize she is infatuated with Beck. Knowing that Peach will always win Beck's attention, Joe follows Peach on her morning run in Central Park and hits her over the head with a rock. Joe arrives home to find that Paco has drugged Ron to protect his mother. Joe saves Ron, but the unhinged Ron beats him. Joe learns that Peach is alive. | |||||||
| 6 | 6 | "Amour Fou" | Marcos Siega | Adria Lang | October 14, 2018 | 0.71 | |
| A recovering Peach is staying with Beck and she banishes Joe. Joe explains to Beck that Peach is in love with her and trying to keep Beck dependent on her. Joe secretly follows when Peach whisks Beck off to the Salinger family estate in Greenwich, but he hits his head and begins hallucinating his ex-girlfriend Candace. Peach invites her and Beck's old friend Raj over. They all ingest MDMA and Peach attempts to initiate a threesome with Beck and Raj. Beck turns down her advances and leaves the room to text Joe. Beck confronts Peach about the kiss and leaves, after which Peach discovers Joe in the house and pulls a gun on him. She accuses him of stalking her, and Joe reveals all that he knows about her. They wrestle for the gun, and Peach is killed. Joe types a suicide note on Peach's computer, leading detectives to believe that Peach shot herself. | |||||||
| 7 | 7 | "Everythingship" | Kellie Cyrus | April Blair & Amanda Zetterström | October 21, 2018 | 0.62 | |
| Joe makes an appointment with Beck's therapist, Dr. Nicky, using the alias Paul. He talks about how his relationship with "Renaldo"—really Beck—was going well after Peach's death a month before but slowly deteriorated. With Beck becoming increasingly moody, distant, and secretive, Joe jealously follows her, but she catches him. He accuses her of cheating on him with her therapist, and she breaks up with Joe. In the present, Joe listens to one of Beck's therapy sessions on Dr. Nicky's computer, which makes Joe realize Beck is better off without him right now. He tells her what she wants to hear and lets her go. | |||||||
| 8 | 8 | "You Got Me, Babe" | Erin Feeley | Caroline Kepnes | October 28, 2018 | 0.49 | |
| Three months after his and Beck's breakup, Joe is happily dating Karen, and Beck's story about Peach's death has landed her a book deal. Beck begins to miss Joe and begins texting him after running into him at a food truck. Both Beck and Joe confide in Dr. Nicky: Beck denies flirting with Joe but is sure that Karen is wrong for him, while Joe is starting to compare his new love "Brad" (Karen) with his ex, "Renaldo" (Beck). Joe and Beck reconnect while helping Blythe move in with Ethan, and Joe and Beck later have sex. A tearful Beck admits to Joe that she now knows how good he was for her, but she was afraid to need him. Joe breaks up with Karen and rushes over to visit Beck, who agrees to get back together with him. Karen confronts Beck, leading her to become suspicious of Joe's past. | |||||||
| 9 | 9 | "Candace" | Martha Mitchell | Kelli Breslin & Michael Foley | November 4, 2018 | 0.47 | |
| Joe recalls Candace's cheating on him with Elijah, whom Joe subsequently impulsively pushes to his death from a bridge after confronting him. Meanwhile, since Joe will not talk to her about Candace, Beck begins her own investigation to learn what happened between them and why no one ever heard from Candace again. When her efforts lead to a dead end, Beck confronts Joe, who explains everything to Beck's satisfaction. Joe takes Beck to meet Mooney (who has had a stroke and is unable to communicate), Joe's father figure and the original owner of the bookstore. Joe discovers that Beck did have an affair with Dr. Nicky, which she finally admits before telling Joe she loves him. Clued in by something Paco says, Beck discovers Joe's hiding place in the bathroom ceiling. She is horrified as she finds her old cellphone as well as Benji's and Peach's, in addition to other disturbing mementos which he has kept. When Joe realizes what Beck has found, he locks her in the book vault. | |||||||
| 10 | 10 | "Bluebeard's Castle" | Marcos Siega | Sera Gamble & Neil Reynolds | November 11, 2018 | 0.53 | |
| Joe learns from Annika and Lynn that Peach's family have hired a private investigator to look into her death. Imprisonment prompts Beck to write about her own actions which have brought her to her current situation, and she suggests to Joe that he use Dr. Nicky as a scapegoat for his crimes. Ron's abuse puts Claudia in the hospital, and Joe kills him to protect Paco. Joe explains to Beck his reasoning for murdering Benji and Peach, and relates it to his childhood mental abuse at Mooney's hands. She appears to empathize with Joe and seems grateful for his actions. Beck lures Joe into the vault and manages to lock him in, revealing that it was all just an act to get him to open the door. Still trapped in the basement, she calls out to Paco, who thinks she knows about Ron and leaves. Joe escapes the vault and kills Beck. Four months later, Joe has used Beck's writing to frame Dr. Nicky for all of Joe's murders. Claudia and Paco move to California. Joe is stunned when Candace comes into the bookstore, telling him they have unfinished business. | |||||||
season 2 (2019)[]
| No.overall | No. in
season |
Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 1 | "A Fresh Start" | Kevin Rodney Sullivan | Sera Gamble | December 26, 2019 | |
| After an intense encounter with Candace during which she vows to make him suffer, Joe flees New York for Los Angeles. Using the name Will, he secures an apartment and gets a job in the book cafe of a trendy family-owned grocery store, Anavrin. There he meets Love Quinn, a bubbly local who works in the kitchen. A nervous Joe resists her advances while befriending Ellie Alves, his 15-year-old neighbor. After Ellie coaches Joe to create an authentic social media presence, Love takes him on a food tour of the city to get to know him, and he finds himself very attracted. A mysterious visitor to his apartment prompts Joe to visit the real Will, whom he has locked inside a plexiglass vault in a rented storage unit. Joe recalls how seeing and then stalking Love led him to find an apartment near hers and get a job where she works. | ||||||
| 12 | 2 | "Just the Tip" | Silver Tree | Michael Foley | December 26, 2019 | |
| Joe recalls his arrival in LA, and meeting with Will, a man who sells clean identities. Joe knocks out Will, locks him in the vault and assumes his identity. In the present, Love kisses Joe, and he starts imagining Beck nearby whenever he is with Love. Will's visitor, Jasper, cuts off the last joint of Joe's pinky finger when he does not have the $50,000 Will owes him. Joe spies on a lunch between Love and her three friends: Lucy, a Hollywood agent; Sunrise, Lucy's girlfriend; and Gabe, Love's pansexual best friend. Love catches Joe in a lie and is upset, but they later mend fences and agree to be friends, as Joe is genuinely afraid he will hurt her. Joe lures Jasper to the storage unit and kills him, and a guilty Joe apologizes to his vision of Beck. After having his finger joint reattached, Joe dismembers Jasper's body in the Anavrin kitchen and puts him through the meat grinder. Ellie's older sister Delilah, a reporter, tells Joe that she was drugged and raped at age 17 by the well-known comedian Henderson. | ||||||
| 13 | 3 | "What Are Friends For?" | John Scott | Neil Reynolds | December 26, 2019 | |
| While Joe struggles to resist his attraction to Love, he befriends her self-absorbed twin Forty, an aspiring writer/director/producer who plays at managing Anavrin. Joe's attempt to reconnect with an icy Love backfires, and she argues with Forty about his career aspirations. Joe catches Ellie hanging around with Henderson, and vows to protect her from the predator, having already surreptitiously installed spyware on her phone. Looking for dirt on Henderson, Joe bluffs his way into the comedian's house party. Forty tags along to pitch a project to Henderson, but has a drug-fueled meltdown. Joe sees kindness in Henderson before he takes Forty home with him and summons Love. Joe has sex with Love, and sees another side of her. After getting Will back on his meds, Joe has him search Henderson's stolen laptop, but he finds nothing. Forty tells Joe about a kinky secret room Henderson has in his house. | ||||||
| 14 | 4 | "The Good, the Bad, & the Hendy" | DeMane Davis | Justin W. Lo | December 26, 2019 | |
| Joe's blossoming relationship with Love is challenged by Forty's neediness, but Joe at least manages to win over Love's friends. From the vault, Will helps Joe break into Henderson's house. In the secret room, he finds Polaroid photos of unconscious women, including Delilah. He takes them with him and then leaves them at Delilah’s doorstep for her to find so she can expose Henderson. Joe learns that Ellie has discovered and disabled his spyware, and is going over to Henderson's place. From the other room, Joe watches Henderson drug Ellie's drink, so he doses Henderson as well. Joe tries to elicit a confession, but accidentally knocks Henderson down the stairs and kills him. As promised, Joe releases Will, with Will's assurance that he will stay quiet about his ordeal and disappear. While Love and Forty are out of town at a film festival, Forty meets an attractive woman calling herself Amy, who is actually Candace. | ||||||
| 15 | 5 | "Have a Good Wellkend, Joe!" | Cherie Nowlan | Amanda Johnson-Zetterström | December 26, 2019 | |
| Falling in love with Love, Joe accompanies her to a wellness retreat organized by her parents for their anniversary. Forty arrives with Candace, who found Joe after randomly seeing an online video of Forty's meltdown at Henderson's. Candace recalls attempting to leave Joe, but then finding herself his prisoner. Thinking he accidentally killed her, he buries her in a shallow grave, but she later awakens and crawls out. Candace's presence puts Joe on edge, which is not helped by Love's dysfunctional family dynamic. After Forty implodes and Love has a confrontation with her mother, Love tells Joe about Forty's childhood abuse. Joe tells Love that he loves her. Candace puts Joe on notice, and he soon learns that Candace has convinced Forty to adapt Beck's book into a screenplay. Though initially determined to be a suicide, the police now believe that Henderson's death was a murder. | ||||||
| 16 | 6 | "Farewell, My Bunny" | Meera Menon | Adria Lang | December 26, 2019 | |
| The group attends Henderson's funeral, and Love remembers her last days with her late husband. After catching Candace in a small lie, Love hires a private investigator to follow her. Candace appears at Joe's apartment while he is out, so he goes to her place at night to eliminate her. Meanwhile, Candace breaks into Joe's apartment, but Love is waiting for her. Love has learned Candace's identity and troubled history, and Candace counters with the truth about Joe's past. Love confronts Joe, who convinces her that he fled New York to get away from obsessive Candace, and that her darker accusations are lies. Love breaks up with him anyway, but Forty insists Joe keep his job. Joe comforts Delilah, who is upset that Henderson's transgressions will never be made public, and they have sex. | ||||||
| 17 | 7 | "Ex-istential Crisis" | Shannon Kohli | Kelli Breslin | December 26, 2019 | |
| After breaking up with Joe, Love rebounds with Milo, her late husband's best friend. Joe tries to get into the dating game by downloading an app for book lovers, only to get disappointed with flawed dates. Joe follows Milo hiking, but encounters Gabe, who takes him to a very emotional spiritual treatment. Delilah thanks Joe for suggesting she write an article about her experience with Henderson, and they end up drinking, having sex on the street and being arrested for it. Fincher refuses to help them, so Forty uses his connections to bail them out. Milo tries to take his relationship with Love to the next level, but she is not ready to commit. Forty picks a fight with Milo, getting Joe involved and angering Love. Fincher's suspicions about Joe's involvement in Henderson's death prompts Delilah to search his apartment. She finds the storage unit keys, and is taking pictures of the vault when Joe arrives, tipped off by his nanny cam. He locks her inside, but says he will let her go the next day after he has safely left town. | ||||||
| 18 | 8 | "Fear and Loathing in Beverly Hills" | Harry Jierjian | Kara Lee Corthron & Justin W. Lo | December 26, 2019 | |
| Forty arranges a self-kidnapping, and he and Joe are locked in a hotel room to polish Forty's script, assisted by Ellie. Joe is uneasy but realizes that he will only leave on time to escape before Delilah's release if he helps them. They go over the script, and Ellie suggests they rewrite it from scratch. Forty gets frustrated and escapes from the room. Joe follows him into a bar, and Forty drugs him with LSD to help the creative process. Love finds Joe's farewell letter. Joe tries to stay sane while Forty works on the script, but hallucinates and loses time. Joe reconciles with Love, who convinces him to stay in LA, and Forty finally finishes the script, deducing correctly that Beck's ex-boyfriend killed her in a crime of passion. Forty confesses to Joe that as a teen he blacked out and murdered his au pair lover. The next morning when he wakes up, Joe races to Delilah before the handcuff timer can go off, only to find her dead inside the vault. | ||||||
| 19 | 9 | "P.I. Joe" | Silver Tree | Michael Foley & Mairin Reed | December 26, 2019 | |
| Joe tries to retrace his steps while under the influence because he does not believe he murdered Delilah. Suspecting Will, Joe calls him in, but he is in Manila as promised. Joe learns from Calvin that he came to Anavrin with Forty to get some groceries. Joe learns from Forty that he dropped Joe off to "visit Delilah" and then Forty called Candace. Candace and Forty argue, but in examining her video call from Forty, Candace sees Joe and the location where he was dropped off. She arrives at the storage unit to find Joe standing over Delilah's body in the vault, and locks Joe in. She calls Love to prove to her that Joe is a very dangerous man. Love arrives and Joe, believing he is a murderer, confesses everything to Love, and apologizes to Candace. Love then murders Candace and professes her love for Joe. | ||||||
| 20 | 10 | "Love, Actually" | Silver Tree | Sera Gamble & Neil Reynolds | December 26, 2019 | |
| Love reveals to Joe that she made him fall in love with her by meticulously studying his past. She also admits to murdering both Forty's au-pair and Delilah. Joe's image of Love is shattered as he understands that he is "her Beck". Love then explains that she has a plan to give them and Forty a way to build a real family: she will implicate Ellie in Henderson's murder but then have the Quinn family lawyers get the case closed, and also stage Delilah's death as a suicide caused by the backlash from her article. Joe is tempted to kill Love but stops after she reveals she is pregnant with his baby. At Lucy and Sunrise's wedding, Joe decides to love and stay with Love. Convinced that Joe was Beck's real murderer, Forty tries to save Love from him. Joe finds Ellie, reveals Delilah's fate, and sends her away with money before Child Protective Services can come for her. Forty confronts Joe with a gun at Anavrin but is shot and killed by Fincher. Love uses her family's connections to clear the way and gets Forty blamed for Henderson and Candace's deaths. Joe and Love move into a new house, and Joe’s obsessive patterns resurface when he reveals his interest in their new female neighbour. | ||||||
season 3 (2021)[]
| No.overall | No. in
season |
Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | 1 | "And They Lived Happily Ever After" | Silver Tree | Sera Gamble & Mairin Reed | October 15, 2021 | |
| Love and Joe find themselves overwhelmed with their newborn son Henry, which strains their relationship. Meanwhile, Joe struggles to bond with Henry and becomes infatuated with their next-door neighbor Natalie Engler, a real estate agent and the wife of wealthy tech mogul Matthew Engler. Love tries to fit in with Madre Linda's social circle by befriending Sherry Conrad, a local Instagram influencer. Natalie notices Joe's interest in her and invites him for a wine night. They kiss but Joe has second thoughts and returns home to have sex with Love for the first time in months. The following night, they attend a party hosted by Sherry where Love overhears her gossiping about her family and the death of her brother Forty. Following a brief conversation with Natalie, Love accuses Joe of being obsessed with her, which he denies. Later, Natalie shows Love a vacant store to open a bakery; Love murders her on the property basement after discovering Joe's box of paraphernalia he stole from Natalie. | ||||||
| 22 | 2 | "So I Married an Axe Murderer" | Silver Tree | Neil Reynolds & Kelli Breslin | October 15, 2021 | |
| Joe and Love attend couple's therapy to address their struggling marriage. Meanwhile, they develop a strategy to dispose of Natalie's body at a nearby forest and create a convincing alibi for her disappearance. Love meets Theo, a college student, on a chance encounter at the supermarket, while Joe befriends Marienne, Madre Linda's librarian, who allows him to restore rare books to sell for money toward Ellie. Upon discovering at the Conrads' children's birthday that Madre Linda's residents all wear a biosensor developed by Matthew on their rings, Joe and Love exhume Natalie's body, remove her wedding ring, and bury her beneath the foundation of a construction site. The two then reconcile and make a vow to no longer commit murder. Love opens her bakery called "A Fresh Tart" – beneath which she and Joe build a new plexiglass cage – and discovers Theo is Matthew's stepson. | ||||||
| 23 | 3 | "Missing White Woman Syndrome" | John Scott | Kara Lee Corthron & Justin W. Lo | October 15, 2021 | |
| As Natalie's disappearance attracts media attention, Joe and Love decide to frame Matthew for her murder by planting Natalie's bloodstained scarf in his home. Henry contracts measles and is rushed to the hospital. While breaking into the Engler home, Joe discovers he too has measles and collapses; Matthew nurses him to health, and Joe suggests he make a statement to the press to clear his name, which Matthew does during a vigil for Natalie. Theo begins flirting with Love, who refuses his advances, though the two later bond at the hospital over Theo's strained relationship with his stepfather. Dottie reveals she and Love's father are divorcing, putting the family's finances in flux. As Henry recovers, Joe and Love decide not to frame Matthew and burn the scarf. The police recover Natalie's wedding ring. The next day, Gil, a neighbor, reveals to Love at her bakery that his daughters, whom he refused to vaccinate, gave Henry measles. An enraged Love bludgeons him unconscious as he leaves. | ||||||
| 24 | 4 | "Hands Across Madre Linda" | John Scott | Hillary Benefiel & Michael Foley | October 15, 2021 | |
| Joe and Love lock Gil in the plexiglass vault in the bakery's basement. Realizing they cannot release Gil without assurances that he will not report the assault, Joe and Love search for incriminating information they can use as leverage for Gil's silence. Love discovers through her family's private investigator that Gil's son is a sexual predator who they link to a recent assault case on a college campus. Gil, disgusted to learn that his son has continued his abusive behavior, hangs himself inside the cage. Joe and Love decide to frame Gil for Natalie's death: Love plants the murder weapon with Gil's fingerprints in the forest where Sherry has organized a community search for Natalie, while Joe moves Gil's body to his residence and fabricates a suicide note from Gil declaring that he killed himself out of guilt over murdering Natalie. The ruse works and six months pass by in relative peace. Theo kisses Love after a heartfelt conversation, while Joe starts to become obsessed with Marienne. | ||||||
| 25 | 5 | "Into the Woods" | Silver Tree | Mairin Reed & Amanda Johnson-Zetterström | October 15, 2021 | |
| Joe and Love's therapist suggests that Joe should make new friends, so he agrees to go on a hunting retreat with Cary – Sherry's husband and a self-improvement guru – and his friends. Joe discovers that Love has been paying for Theo's Uber trips and confronts her. Love says that Theo has nobody to look after him and confesses that Theo kissed her at the bakery. During the retreat, Cary takes Joe on a night hunt provokes him into fighting him; Joe pushes Cary over a cliff, knocking him out. Joe carries an unconscious Cary back to the camp, where he awakens and declares that he has helped Joe find his inner strength. Joe cries cathartically and embraces his newfound friends. Theo calls Love from the police station after getting detained for driving an electric scooter while inebriated. The two ride the scooter together and end up having sex. Dottie realizes what Love has done after she gets home, and Love decides to cut ties with Theo. Joe sets off the bakery's alarm to give himself an alibi to leave the house and stalk Marienne. | ||||||
| 26 | 6 | "W.O.M.B." | Silver Tree | Kelli Breslin & Kara Lee Corthron | October 15, 2021 | |
| Joe begins probing into Marienne's private life and discovers she is a recovering addict in the middle of a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband Ryan Goodwin, a local news reporter. He later intervenes in an argument between Ryan and Marienne at the library, but Marienne chastises him. The library's sprinkler system suddenly malfunctions, and as Joe spends the night helping Marienne salvage books, she opens up about her personal struggles and they kiss passionately. Love, still reeling from Forty's death, believes she may be pregnant with Theo's child, but later realizes she is only menstruating. She gets drunk after an argument with her mother and hallucinates Forty's presence, which helps her grieve him. Theo discovers that Matthew has been illegally spying on Madre Linda's residents in an attempt to find Natalie's real killer, and warns Love. Joe and Love agree that the latter should keep Theo around as a source of information on Matthew's investigation. | ||||||
| 27 | 7 | "We're All Mad Here" | Pete Chatmon | Justin W. Lo & Amanda Johnson-Zetterström | October 15, 2021 | |
| Marienne decides not to pursue her feelings for Joe out of morality. Matthew enlists an expert programmer from his company to help him hack into Madre Linda's security feeds. Love unsuccessfully initiates foreplay with Joe – who is now solely interested in Marienne – and later has sex with Theo again. Sherry enlists Love to help cater for the library's fundraiser event. Joe plots to take down Ryan by engineering his relapse, but the plan fails when an apparently healthy Ryan confronts Joe at the fundraiser, aware that Joe has been following him. Love meets Marienne at the event; Sherry later approaches Love and tells her that she and Cary want to try swinging with Love and Joe. Dottie, devastated after losing both Anavrin and her vineyard to her ex-husband in her divorce settlement, kidnaps Henry and burns down the vineyard. She is sentenced to a stay in rehab, and Love cuts ties with her. Dottie confides to Joe that Love may have murdered her first husband, James. | ||||||
| 28 | 8 | "Swing and a Miss" | Pete Chatmon | AB Chao & Dylan Cohen | October 15, 2021 | |
| Joe goes along with Love's interest in swinging with the Conrads, hoping it will expose their marriage as broken and enable him to pursue a relationship with Marienne. At Marienne's request, Joe testifies at her custody hearing for she and Ryan's daughter, but Marienne later calls Joe and tearfully reveals Ryan publicized sexually explicit photos she had sent him in an attempt to sabotage her case. Joe learns Ryan is friends with the judge in the case. Theo breaks into Matthew's office and discovers his database of Madre Linda's security feeds; Matthew catches him and tells him he suspects Love in Natalie's disappearance. While having sex with the Conrads, Love notices Joe fantasizing about someone else and confronts him in private, loudly reminding him that she killed Natalie out of commitment to her marriage to Joe. The Conrads, who overheard the argument, attempt to flee the house, but Joe and Love subdue them and lock them in the glass cage. The two have passionate sex afterwards, realizing that they are aroused by violence. | ||||||
| 29 | 9 | "Red Flag" | Sasha Alexander | Michael Foley & Hillary Benefiel | October 15, 2021 | |
| Joe finds Cary's gun while cleaning up the house. He later finds a dejected Marienne outside a liquor store, where she tells him Ryan is taking their daughter to New Jersey. Joe encourages her not to give up on her daughter, and the two have sex. Ryan later discovers Joe stalking him, leading to a struggle that ends with Joe stabbing Ryan to death. In an attempt to free herself and Cary from the cage, Sherry suggests to Love that she expose Matthew's illegal surveillance on Sherry's lifestyle blog. Love gives them Cary's gun and offers to set one of them free if one kills the other, hoping to stage a murder-suicide. Theo offers to obtain a copy of Matthew's surveillance footage, believing Love to be a victim of Joe's domestic abuse based on a video feed of the two of them arguing. Matthew's legal team demands that he delete his footage; Matthew complies, but not before Theo recovers a backup of the data. Theo analyzes the footage and discovers Joe leaving the bakery with Natalie's car. He goes to the bakery to tell Love but finds the Conrads imprisoned in the cage. While leaving, he encounters Love, who bludgeons him with a fire extinguisher. | ||||||
| 30 | 10 | "What Is Love?" | Silver Tree | Sera Gamble & Neil Reynolds | October 15, 2021 | |
| Love admits to Joe that she attacked Theo and left him in the basement, and suggests the two have another baby. Joe discovers Theo is alive and takes him to the hospital. Love finds Joe's discarded shirt stained with Ryan's blood and realizes Joe is obsessed with Marienne. She confronts him at dinner, where Joe asks for a divorce. Love paralyzes Joe with aconite (with which she confesses to have accidentally killed James) and calls Marienne to the house, planning to kill her. While Love is away to deliver an order, Matthew discovers a paralyzed Joe, who reveals Theo's location to him. Love returns and reveals to a horrified Marienne that Joe killed Ryan, but relents from killing her when Marienne's daughter interrupts. After Marienne leaves, Love prepares to kill Joe, but he injects her with a lethal dose of aconite, having known about the poison and taken an antidote beforehand. Joe stages a murder-suicide, writing a note framing Love for all the Madre Linda murders and setting the house on fire. The Conrads find Love's spare key inside the cage and free themselves, strengthening their marriage in the process. Matthew and Theo grow closer over the latter's recovery. Joe leaves Henry in the care of Dante, his coworker at the library. He then adopts a new identity and escapes to Paris in search of Marienne. | ||||||
production[]
development[]
In February 2015, it was announced that Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble would develop a series based on Caroline Kepnes' book You with Berlanti and Gamble as the scriptwriters, and Berlanti as the pilot director. Initially, Berlanti and Gamble pitched the show to Showtime but were unsuccessful in their attempts. In addition, both creators had also originally pitched the series to Netflix but were declined twice, prior to Netflix's head of international non-English originals, Bela Bajaria joining the company in late 2016. Berlanti recounted his experience of pitching the show to Netflix in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, stating that You "felt like more of a binge show". He further added that his team "tried initially to sell it to Netflix at the very beginning and [Netflix's chief content officer] Ted Sarandos has said as much that they wish they'd gotten it the first time".
In January 2017, it was announced that the series had been purchased by Lifetime and put into fast-track development. In April 2017, Lifetime gave You a 10-episode straight-to-series order. On July 26, 2018, ahead of the series premiere, Lifetime announced that the series had been renewed for a second season.
In November 2018, Gamble confirmed that like Hidden Bodies, the sequel novel to You, the setting of the series would move to Los Angeles for the second season. On December 3, 2018, it was confirmed that Lifetime had rescinded its renewal of the series and that Netflix had picked up You ahead of the release of the second season. On January 14, 2020, Netflix renewed the series for a 10-episode third season. On October 13, 2021, ahead of the third season premiere, Netflix renewed the series for a fourth season.
In March 2019, Berlanti discussed the challenges of finding the right platform for the series in a panel interview. Speaking at the INTV conference, he stated that "we pitched [You] and sold it to Showtime of all places, but…once they read the script, they were really cool about saying, 'You can take it somewhere else'...". After being turned down by the network, he later pitched the show to Lifetime, who "wanted to make it, and we shot it, and because of their launch cycle it sat in the can for a while for two-and-a-half years. Then they finally started to release it, and it didn't do very well." Although, Lifetime reneged on their initial renewal offer for a second season in late 2018, Berlanti recalled that he went to the offices of the network executives to plead them to change their mind, asking "I still think it's going to work, I still think it's going to work – maybe one more episode, maybe if people have a chance to see five more episodes." Later, he was relieved by the news of Netflix's guarantee of committing to a second season after Lifetime canceled the series.
Following Netflix's reportings on the considerable success that You obtained after it was made available to stream on their platform service, Penn Badgley wrote in an email response to The Washington Post that "We're grateful to Lifetime for being the gateway to getting the show made. We wouldn't have been able to make the show without them, as far as I can tell. There is no sense of bewilderment that the show had one reaction while it was on Lifetime and another when it went to Netflix. The difference in viewership is obvious, and it's indicative of so many different things, not the least of which is the way young people consume media."
casting[]
Penn Badgley was cast as lead character Joe Goldberg in June 2017. Elizabeth Lail's casting as Guinevere Beck was announced in July 2017, as well as Luca Padovan as Joe's neighbor Paco, and Zach Cherry as Ethan, a bookstore clerk who works with Joe. Shay Mitchell was cast as Peach Salinger, Beck's wealthy best friend, in August 2017.
In September 2017, Hari Nef was cast in the recurring role as Blythe, a talented and competitive peer in Beck's MFA program. A few days later it was announced that Daniel Cosgrove had been cast in the recurring role of Ron, a correctional officer. In October 2017, Michael Maize and Ambyr Childers were cast in the recurring roles of Officer Nico and Candace, respectively. It was announced in November 2017 that John Stamos would recur as Dr. Nicky, Beck's therapist.
On January 30, 2019, it was announced that Victoria Pedretti had been cast in the main role of Love Quinn for the second season. Pedretti had originally auditioned for the role of Guinevere Beck prior to the filming of the first season in 2017. Though the part later went to Lail, Pedretti was cast in the following season after the showrunners saw the actress's performance in Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House and the casting directors liked her chemistry with Badgley. On January 31, 2019, James Scully was cast in a main role as Forty Quinn, Love's brother, and Jenna Ortega was also cast in a main role as Ellie Alves.
On February 1, 2019, Deadline Hollywood reported that Ambyr Childers had been promoted to a series regular role, ahead of the premiere of the second season. On February 6, 2019, Adwin Brown was cast in the recurring role of Calvin on the second season. On February 15, 2019, Robin Lord Taylor was cast in the recurring role of Will on the second season. On February 21, 2019, Carmela Zumbado was cast in the series regular role of Delilah Alves on the second season. On March 4, 2019, it was reported that Marielle Scott has been cast in the recurring role of Lucy on the second season. On March 5, 2019, Chris D'Elia was cast in the recurring role of Henderson on the second season. On March 26, 2019, Charlie Barnett was cast in the recurring role of Gabe on the second season. On April 4, 2019, Melanie Field and Magda Apanowicz were cast in recurring roles as Sunrise and Sandy, respectively. On June 4, 2019, Danny Vasquez had been cast in a recurring role. On June 24, 2019, it was confirmed that John Stamos would reprise his role as Dr. Nicky in the second season. On October 17, 2019, Elizabeth Lail confirmed in a Build Series interview that she would reprise her role as Guinevere Beck in a guest appearance on the second season.
In October 2020, Travis Van Winkle and Shalita Grant were cast as series regulars while Scott Speedman was cast in a recurring role for the third season. In November 2020, it was announced that Saffron Burrows was upped to regular status after recurring in the second season. Additionally, Tati Gabrielle and Dylan Arnold were also cast as series regulars for the third season, with Michaela McManus, Shannon Chan-Kent, Ben Mehl, Christopher O'Shea, Christopher Sean, Bryan Safi, Mackenzie Astin, Ayelet Zurer, Jack Fisher, and Mauricio Lara added as recurring cast members. On January 25, 2021, Scott Michael Foster joined the cast in a recurring role for the third season. On April 15, 2021, it was confirmed that John Stamos would not be returning in the third season.
In February 2022, Lukas Gage was cast as a series regular for the fourth season. In March 2022, Charlotte Ritchie was cast as a series regular for the fourth season. In April 2022, Tilly Keeper, Amy Leigh Hickman, and Ed Speleers were cast as new series regulars while Niccy Lin, Aidan Cheng, Stephen Hagan, Ben Wiggins, Eve Austin, Ozioma Whenu, Dario Coates, Sean Pertwee, Brad Alexander, Alison Pargeter, and Adam James joined the cast in recurring roles for the fourth season.
filming[]
The first season of You was filmed in New York City and filming concluded on December 19, 2017. For the second season, the series relocated its production to California to take advantage of tax incentives provided by the California Film Commission under its "Program 2.0" initiative. Filming for the second season took place on location in Los Angeles, California, from February 2019 to June 2019.
For the third season, the series was awarded $7.2 million in tax credits by the state of California. Filming for the third season began on November 2, 2020, and was originally scheduled to conclude in April 2021. On December 31, 2020, production of the third season was paused for two weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming resumed in February 2021 and ended in April 2021.
Filming on the fourth season officially began on March 21, 2022 in London, and is set to finish in July.
technical aspects[]
Lee Toland Krieger and David Lanzenberg were both credited as the director and cinematographer for the first two episodes, respectively. Since then, the series has had a number of cinematographers and directors. Krieger and Lanzenberg were inspired by the works of cinematographer Darius Khondji in films such as David Fincher's Seven (1995) and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011).
As part of creating the striking look for the series, they executed various dolly shots and used anamorphic lenses to evoke a level of surrealistic voyeurism, demanding from the viewer their participation in the romantic manifestations of Joe's worldview. Krieger asserted that in order to sell Joe's character to the audience, he needed to craft You with a certain visual look and mood, slightly different, unconventional and accented than the standard color palette and tone for contemporary thrillers. He stated that "I wanted something that felt like a great New York love story, just with a very disturbed protagonist", adding that "The show opens with these luscious slow-motion shots. There's that amber glow. It doesn't feel like a thriller."
For the second season, the setting change from New York to Los Angeles, entailed a distinctive use of saturated hues and colorful warm lighting, in part to contrast and depict an alteration of Joe's perspective of a new city which he had never visited previously. It would also signal a period in which Joe could find an avenue for encountering newer opportunities for a fresh start. In a Variety interview with the lead showrunner, Gamble noted the change, stating that "If you went straight from Season 1 to Season 2, you'll notice the sun-drenched color palette. There's something creamier about the light in L.A. than Season 1."
release[]
The official trailer for You was released on April 10, 2018, by Lifetime. You premiered on Lifetime in the United States on September 9, 2018. In May 2018, it was announced that Netflix acquired the exclusive international broadcast rights to You, making it available as an original series on the platform. On December 3, 2018, it was announced that Lifetime had passed on the second season, and that the series would move to Netflix as a global Netflix Original series. The first season became available to stream instantly on Netflix worldwide on December 26, 2018. The first season was released on DVD as a manufacture-on-demand title by Warner Archive Collection on January 14, 2020. On December 5, 2019, a teaser trailer for the second season was released by Netflix. On December 16, 2019, the official trailer for the second season was released. The second season was released on December 26, 2019. The second season was released on DVD on January 26, 2021. As part of a video and letter to its shareholders in April 2021, Netflix's co-chief executive officer and chief content officer, Ted Sarandos confirmed that the third season of You is expected to premiere sometime in the fourth quarter of 2021. On August 30, 2021, Netflix announced that the third season will premiere on October 15, 2021. On September 17, 2021, the official trailer for the third season was released.
marketing[]
Teasing the original premiere on Lifetime on September 9, 2018, the main cast, Penn Badgley, Elizabeth Lail and Shay Mitchell, as well as the show creator, Sera Gamble, and author of the original book, Caroline Kepnes, sat down with Build Series, a YouTube talk show meant to promote new buzzworthy shows and movies.
Before the show's premiere, Badgley mentioned his disinterest in playing the character of Joe Goldberg in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, saying that "I didn't want to do it — it was too much. I was conflicted with the nature of the role. If this is a love story, what is it saying? It's not an average show; it's a social experiment." However, he was strongly convinced by the script and the social commentary around the series, adding that "what was key in me wanting to jump on board were my conversations with Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, the creators, and understanding Joe's humanity. I knew that I would be conflicted about the role from day one till the last day, and that is why they thought I would be good for it, is that I'm not psyched to play somebody of this nature." Relaying similar thoughts in an interview with GQ, Badgley again raised his concerns of portraying Joe, noting that he was first apprehensive at the role but later, changed his mind, expressing that "no one in any position of authority could ever try to act as though we don't know that sex and murder sells, but how can it work in a different way we've not seen? That's where I think this show does something that none of us could have said for certain that we would nail. It could have been really irresponsible. It could have fallen flat and been like, whoa." In another interview at The Contenders Emmys 2019 panel, Badgley mentioned that his character was "the hero of his own story...every serial killer is" but added that Joe is "ultimately, the word that's coming to mind is un-saveable". The actor highlighted that though, there is an apparent affinity to Joe's character, it is somewhat of a "Rorschach test of a kind for us," adding that "we're failing. . ." In an interview with TheWrap, Badgley was asked about whether his approach to portraying Joe over the course of the second season had shifted from the previous season. Badgley stated in response that playing Joe was still an "isolating" experience, but admitted that he was surprised by "how deep of a metaphor we're working with this guy". Nonetheless, he stressed that the incredible range of responses from audiences that followed from portraying "such a damaged, traumatized person", who is "awful and blind and abusive", allowed for "more meaningful conversations about the themes that the show is working" to be discussed in the public sphere.
Various critics gave praise to the series, by complimenting its eerie tone and terrifying approach to the themes of violence and stalking, reminiscent of contemporary thriller films and series like Dexter, Gone Girl and American Psycho. Certain reviewers highlight that You provides an alluring but, disturbing insight into the mind and profile of a psychopath, who charmingly manipulates his way through his anti-hero charisma, motives and warped sense of morality, in order to convince the audience "to sympathize with a stalker" and "serial killer".
The marketing for the series used the buzz around the #MeToo Movement to gain attention to the start of the show. You has been said to have been "tailor-made for the #MeToo Era." One of the show creators, Sera Gamble, commented on this era by highlighting that in contemporary culture, attention is almost unanimously given to the perspective of the male and his story, so naturally he is positioned through the lens of a hero. She states "We're focused on their story, their triumph, their downfall, their redemption arc...So I doubt the show will single-handedly change the way we think about dudes and our culture, but I'm happy to be part of the conversation."
themes[]
You explores the psychodynamic view of erotomania and obsessive love between Joe and his romantic interests. In addition, the series further raises questions on the ethics and potential implications of manipulating circumstances and how the psychology of stalking, murder and violence is best exemplified by Joe's intrusive and insidious actions, to manufacture the constructs of an idealized love relationship. The theme of obsession and violence is significantly expanded upon in the second season with the introduction of the character of Love Quinn. The examination and deconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and Cool Girl tropes enabled the writers to express the idea that certain women such as Love harbor internalized misogyny through actions that either minimize or question the lived experiences of female victims in favor of men that they are romantically inclined to. The balance of such an approach in emotional conflict poses an interesting dilemma for the viewer, where sympathy is later garnered for Love's perspective due to her complicated history, underlying motives in manifesting the goal of attaining her idealized soulmate, and the tension between her perceived image against Joe's mental projection of a conceptualized fantasy girl.
As the first season of You is situated in modern-day New York City, it explores the dangers of stalking and social media culture with an emphasis on a lack of digital privacy. The author of the novel, Caroline Kepnes, explained the darkness of You, which deconstructs the romantic-comedy tropes highlighted in many films and shows, by making the protagonist, a violent stalker and serial killer, saying it was written in a dark period of her life, the year her father died of cancer, and in which she experienced several other personal challenges. She further stated that her inspiration for the novel grew out of her moving back to LA. She expressed that when she moved, she noticed that "suddenly everyone was following each other and being followed, and I always thought of that as such a negative thing," soon creating Joe in her mind as a very real possibility of what can happen with that type of access into people's lives. After the series premiered, Kepnes mentioned in an interview with Emily Baker from iNews, that she was initially hesitant on labeling Joe, as a few readers argued that his actions, classified him as a serial killer. The author then, clarified her position on the matter, citing that "I remember when I wrote You and someone first referred to Joe as a serial killer. I argued 'he's not a serial killer, he meets these terrible people and has these awful thoughts, but he's very sensitive. It's very strange to realize you have written a serial killer."
Sera Gamble, the showrunner and co-creator of the series, stated in an interview with Collider, that when envisioning Joe, the main protagonist of the series, she wanted to delve deeply into the root cause of the pathology of his behavior that shaped his amoral position to justify and rationalize stalking, kidnapping and killing his victims. When she was writing the character, she stated that "I want to understand what coaxes behavior of this nature out of that very tiny percentage of men. I like to think it's a very tiny percentage of men who would cross a line like the line that Joe Goldberg crosses".
In an interview at The Contenders Emmys 2019 panel, Gamble highlighted the importance of casting the right person to play the role of Joe Goldberg. She stated that "it had to be a love story and a horror movie in every single scene", further adding that if they "cast someone who was sort of creepy, then the story wouldn't work; the idea is that it's a lead in a romantic comedy who works in a bookstore and a woman walks in, they have a cute meet and fall in love and live happily ever after. That's the show." Expanding on her commentary on the show's themes and origin, Gamble stated at The Hollywood Reporter's roundtable interview, that she was not surprised to hear an overwhelming reception to Joe's character amongst online fans and viewers, citing that "There's a very vocal contingent of fans of Caroline Kepnes' book [on which You is based] who were like, "I heart Joe." Essentially what she's done is taken the classic romantic hero and just peeled back the gloss and sheen and John Cusack with the boombox and she followed it to its logical conclusion. I mean, if you turn off the sappy music and turn on a David Fincher score, romantic comedies are stalker movies. The plot of pretty much every one I can think of — and we have watched all of them many times in the writers room — is contingent on the guy ... well, first of all, he has to do a certain amount of fucking up so she can forgive him. And he has to get over some of her shortcomings. I mean, that's love, right? But also, he's chasing her through a fucking airport, chasing her on a freeway, watching her sleep because he feels protective. Romantic comedy behavior in real life is criminal! And that was basically the starting place for the show."
After the series was acquired by Netflix, Gamble noted in several interviews on the changes that would occur in the following season. In an interview with New Musical Express, Gamble highlighted that an exploration of Joe's descent in future storylines will further necessitate a focus on underlying issues that inform his skewed worldview. She later added that "We're interested in exploring the character and we're well aware that what the character is doing is not ok – it's deeply, deeply problematic. So what's interesting to us is: what does he think he's done wrong, what does he think he has to do differently, and to really explore that while still keeping that clinical cold eye on the whole show. And that eye is on a show that's about a guy who kills people." Given the hands off approach that Netflix is known for, Gamble added in an interview with The New York Times that the second season will be different, explaining that "Certain things are changing in the way we are thinking about Season 2 of You. We have a little more flexibility around timing, since we don't have commercial ads, and also we can say the word [expletive] a lot more. As someone who swears a lot, that's a great thing. Netflix lets you give as many [expletive] as you want." In an interview with LadBible, Gamble declared that the team's approach to writing the second season would necessitate a change in the formula, noting that "We knew that it wouldn't be possible to repeat it as the audience is very much onto Joe now and will see through him". Furthermore, she highlighted that the second season will be "gorier and scarier than anything we had in season one."
Due to narrative changes, the second season would necessitate a shift in setting to Los Angeles from the prior season. As a result, Gamble noted in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that the season will have a different feeling, citing that "Los Angeles is full of people who are really trying to live their best life and self-actualize," and that "When you put somebody who needs a lot of healing into a city that advertises itself basically as this Mecca full of cutting-edge healers, the alchemy is a little unexpected for him." She further added, that there will be more deviations in the ongoing story compared to Kepnes' sequel novel Hidden Bodies but stressed that some plot elements will still be adapted in the second season. Speaking in an interview with Vogue, the showrunner explained that the second season, offered an opportunity for the writers to satirize and dig beneath the Hollywood scene, influencer lifestyle and wellness culture that permeates the surface of Los Angeles. Though, Gamble mentioned that it was imperative to balance the pokes at L.A. culture by representing a different side to the city, citing that "I think when you squint at it from far away, it seems like a city that's sprung up around the entertainment business which is technically true to a certain extent, but a lot of the portrayal of LA that people have seen in stuff like Entourage... and what you see in tabloids, where you think it's all famous people running around to their plastic surgeon and in BMWs, and that's actually a very small slice of a city that's this vast patchwork of neighbourhoods. We're all very lucky that Hollywood is here because it's paying our bills... the reach of Hollywood is vast... but people have much fuller, deeper more expansive lives than that, once you're here." In an interview with Boston Herald, Gamble stated that "Joe will always have biting thoughts about other people," further highlighting that "so it's fun to drop him into an environment that gives him a lot of fodder. He had judgments about the crowd in New York, and he also does about the crowd around him in L.A. And since we [the show's creative team] all live in Los Angeles, that's a lot of fun for us. We're really excited to do the other side of the coin."
reception and impact[]
audience viewership[]
On January 17, 2019, Netflix announced that the series was on track to be streamed by over 40 million viewers within its first month of release on the streaming platform. On December 13, 2019, Netflix announced over 43 million viewers had completed watching the whole season since its release on the service. On December 30, 2019, Netflix issued a number of official lists, including the Most Popular TV Shows of 2019. The series was among the most viewed in the U.S. market, where You was ranked fifth among series. On January 21, 2020, Netflix announced that the second season had been viewed by over 54 million viewers on its service within its first month of release, referring to viewers who had watched at least 2 minutes of one episode. According to the year-end summary from Nielsen, You was in the group of top ten most-watched original series in the U.S. market between December 30, 2019, through December 27, 2020, where it ranked tenth based on minutes watched, with a 10.96 billion total minutes of streaming.
critical response[]
season 1[]
On the review aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has a 93% approval rating with 60 reviews, with an average rating of 7.10/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "You pairs thrilling drama with trashy fun to create an addictive social media horror story that works its way under the skin – and stays there." Review aggregator Metacritic gave the first season a normalized score of 74 out of 100 based on 29 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Alicia Lutes of IGN gave the first season an 8.4/10, stating that it is "so insane, you're bound to be riveted and engaged if nothing else" and that the series is "a horrifying love letter to all those romantic ideals and expectations that have permeated our society". Liz Miller from IndieWire gave the first season an "A−" grade, mentioning in a positive review that it invokes "the best qualities of David Fincher's Gone Girl and Mary Harron's adaptation of American Psycho", and that the series "juxtaposes the idea of love as glamorized by the romance industrial complex with its dark side". Kylie Nixon from Stuff complimented the first season in her review by adding that the "show will mess with your head. You might feel super, super awkward a couple or fifty times, but by God, you'll be entertained."
season 2[]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the second season has an 87% approval rating with an average rating of 8.01/10, based on 45 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Penn Badgley's perversely endearing serial stalker keeps looking for love in all the wrong places during a second season that maintains the subversive tension while adding some welcome variations on the series' formula." On Metacritic, the second season has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Joshua Rivera of The Verge gave the second season a positive recommendation, writing that "At first, it seems like You is simply repeating itself, playing the same beats with a different woman in Joe's sights..." but adds that due to "a combination of Badgley's performance and the incredible savvy of every member of the crew that points a camera or light at him, you frequently suffer whiplash for liking him, as he goes from charming book nerd to sardonic lead to super creep in the same shot." Clémence Michallon of The Independent gave the second season a very positive review, writing: "What follows is a dark psychological thriller that manages to be in every way as enthralling as its predecessor – a rare feat in a world where too many TV shows fail to quit while they're ahead." He said further, "Rivetingly told and well acted, You manages to make a viscerally unlikable protagonist endlessly interesting. That is no small achievement."
season 3[]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the third season holds a 96% approval rating with an average rating of 8.00/10 based on 53 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "You takes its thrilling saga to the suburbs with superb results, made all the more delicious by Penn Badgley and Victoria Pedretti's committed performances." On Metacritic, the third season has a weighted average score of 77 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
In a positive review of the third season, Clémence Michallon from The Independent wrote that, "With such an established fanbase, You could be resting on its laurels by now, endlessly recycling its initial premise without recreating the excitement of the beginning. Kudos, then, to the writers who have succeeded, exquisitely so, in taking it to new heights." Cass Clarke from Comic Book Resources recommended the third season in her review by highlighting that, "Season 3 does a fine job at showcasing the vapidness of a Silicon Valley-like suburb, where neighbors are mostly concerned with intermittent fasting, drugs and updating their Instagram stories on the hour every hour", further praising the narrative, by adding that "You's writing is at its best when Love is given a chance to outsmart Joe, as opposed to being just more fodder for him to play with and destroy. Without spoiling the bloody mayhem to come, the You Season 3 finale showcases Pedretti's most captivating performance to date."
Brian Lowry from CNN praised the third season, stating that it "continues the greatness of the first season and delivers a satisfying, bloody good time". Kayla Cobb of Decider gave the third season a very positive review, writing: "You season 3 is a marital therapy session wrapped in murder, lies, and even more glass cages. Stick with it, and you will be rewarded beyond your wildest, blood-soaked dreams." She said further that, "The acting is stronger than ever, now that Badgley's Joe has a worthy opponent, and you won't be able to see the season's big twists coming. No matter why you initially enjoyed You, you're going to fall in love with this new season, and Love Quinn."
cultural influence[]
You gained a dedicated following soon after its release on Netflix. Once the first season became available to stream worldwide on Netflix, the series' popularity increased dramatically with an estimated 40 million people having viewed it, in its first month on the streaming platform, dwarfing its viewership from Lifetime. The series later became the subject of numerous online discussions and debates surrounding the romanticization of the serial killer and stalker protagonist in question. According to many reporters and critics, concerns were expressed regarding the viewers who have positively identified and connected with Penn Badgley's character on multiple social media platforms, despite the transgressive acts that the protagonist displayed and committed over the course of the season. Among the viewers who took an affinity to Joe was Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown. Brown took to social media, sharing her initial thoughts in a video by downplaying Joe's questionable acts but subsequently, changed her position on the matter after watching the entirety of the first season.
After Badgley received tweets from various fans and viewers of the series, seemingly glorifying Joe's violent behaviors in the process, the actor responded in tongue-and-cheek replies on Twitter and Instagram, by denoting the importance of not romanticizing the actions of a psychopathic murderer. In response to the growing concerns of viewers romanticizing Joe's vicious behaviors, Elizabeth Lail conveyed her thoughts surrounding the conversation in an interview with Image. Lail expressed her alarming concerns on the audience's reactions and impressions initially, but later explained that "I think we are programmed that way. Myself included. With all the rom-coms and fairytales we've read, we're programmed to root for the hero at any cost, unfortunately. And so, my hope is that these women notice that inside themselves; and ask themselves, 'oh gosh, why do I love this terrible man?' I hope they recognise it as an unconscious bias (that's inside most of us), and actively work against it."
Victoria Pedretti, the lead actress of the second season, responded in a commentary to the audience's strong alignment to Joe's perspective. In an interview with Variety, Pedretti stated that, though she is aware of the phenomenon behind the reactions and concerns after the series gained a remarkable following, it is fueling the conversation, citing that it "talks about the kind of horrors of being a young person on the internet today. These kinds of things affect everyone, but obviously that's what the show is focused on. And I think it's really been a warning sign to some people; I know people who have changed their passwords and re-maneuvered their relationship with social media because of the show—really thinking about how much we're putting our private lives into the hands of the public. And because I think it's a really smart way to discuss this trope that we've romanticized so much — this idea of this man that Penn plays. We know these people, and they're really hard to pluck out because they see themselves, and we see them, as the nice guys."
accolades[]
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Saturn Awards | Best Actor in a Streaming Presentation | Penn Badgley | Nominated | [3] |
| Best Actress in a Streaming Presentation | Elizabeth Lail | Nominated | |||
| Best Streaming Horror & Thriller Series | You | Nominated | |||
| 2020 | Casting Society of America | Television Pilot & First Season – Drama | David H. Rapaport, Lyndsey Baldasare, Beth Bowling and Kim Miscia | Nominated | [4] |
references[]
- ↑ "Filming Now in New York City". City of New York (2017).
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedLA - ↑ Mancuso, Vinnie (July 16, 2019). "Avengers: Endgame, Game of Thrones Lead the 2019 Saturn Awards Nominations". Collider.
- ↑ Lewis, Hillary (September 24, 2019). "Artios Awards: Succession, Pose, Dead to Me Among Casting Society TV, Theater Nominees". The Hollywood Reporter.
