Whitney Walmer
Arts & Culture Associates Editor
The whole fantasy of boy meets girl comes to life when you meet Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), a charming book connoisseur who will do anything for what his heart desires. Joe takes his actions further than most to ensure those same feelings are returned.
When the series starts, Joe falls in love with a customer in his book store named Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) when he first lays eyes on her, and will do anything to have her, even if it means stalking her, stealing her passwords, breaking into her apartment, and lastly murdering her friends. From even these moments, you can’t help but love him and continue watching the series as he gives you the stalker’s obsessive perspective.
Engaged in the thought and narration by Joe Goldberg, you find yourself enduring a similar pattern of infatuation and fantasies, but faced with more obstacles. You find out his back story explaining why he is the way he is, and understand that his upbringing was crappy. This is not to give you a sob story in hopes that you will feel bad for him or think of him any less, but to get all of who he is.
Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), a gem that Joe finds in his bustling, busy lifestyle, resides in the heart of Los Angeles and brings him ease and, of course, love. Ironically Love witnesses the same obsessive behavior from Joe but sees through his flaws and learns to love him. She loves him so much that she would kill for him. Unfortunately, in the chaotic, psychotic love that is Joe and Love’s relationship, they try to make things worse after seeing the worst of each other.
Just when you think that the story of Joe and Love ends happily ever after, there is the pleasant surprise of Netflix airing a third season of “You,” taking the viewers through a psychological binge. At the end of season two, Love Quinn and Joe Goldberg are at each other’s throats, literally. But, leaving you with the cliffhanger of Love being pregnant makes you want to know more about how their relationship will go as they start fresh in a new neighborhood.
Starting fresh is always thought to be a good idea, right? Wrong. Where there is unfamiliarity, there is always an adjustment. As Love and Joe try to make their marriage work for their son, the imbalance and complexity of their lives only get worse. Joe still had his way about him but with less killing and more cleaning up the actions that resulted from Love’s impulses.
Would I recommend the show? Sure, but there are things I would change because even though you are left with a sinister ending for the main character, not all questions were answered. I will not spoil any further, but I will leave you to find out for yourself what Joe has in store for “You”.
