Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for You Season 4, Part 2.
Told through the perspective of its deadly protagonist, You feels like a desperate attempt by Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) to whitewash his image, as if the audiences are reading Joe’s autobiography. But despite Joe’s attempts to prove that he’s the knight in shining armor, it becomes pretty clear, just by the virtue of the long trail of dead bodies he leaves behind, that Joe is the antagonist of his own story. Like a master artisan, Joe Goldberg has been laying the brickwork for his own doom. No matter the number of flashbacks or the bad luck that tends to chase Joe wherever he goes, it has been clear that a lot of the evils that chase Joe has been of his own making. Following a similar trend, Season 4 of You prepared the stage for a well-deserved death for its hopelessly sociopathic romantic. But in the end, You denies Joe what he incessantly yearned for — a good man’s death. If there was ever a good time for him to bid farewell, Joe Goldberg should have died in You Season 4.
When Joe finds out that the evil Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers) only existed in his imagination, it becomes clear that Joe’s problems lately had only one root cause: Joe himself. When it is revealed that it was not Rhys Montrose but Joe who was digging his own grave, it seemed like Joe Goldberg would find the poetic justice that he well deserved. Being doomed by his own darker alter ego would have meant the perfect farewell to Joe’s adventures. After all, everyone likes a genius sociopath who is too smart to be outsmarted by others but is stupid enough to not see that he would end up inviting his own demise. In the climax, when Joe survives the suicide attempt, only to embrace his dark side fully, it becomes clear that Joe has lost his final chance to die as a character who would still attract some pity from his fans. While Joe should have died in You Season 4 for many reasons, he has been denied a chance at redemption by being allowed to live more.
Joe Was Denied a Hero’s Death
Call it the aftermath of his deadly past or karma finally knocking, the ghosts that chased Joe in the alleys of London were given a red carpet welcome by the man himself. Joe’s trajectory up until Season 4 was that of a sociopath who keeps following the same patterns, makes the same mistakes, pities himself for making them, and then tries to run in hopes that it will fix them for good. You Season 4 had the perfect opportunity to put an end to Joe Goldberg’s crimes as it had invested heavily into making the audience believe that Joe had finally met his match, only to deceive them by revealing that Joe was being haunted by the consequences of his own action. In the finale episode “The Death of Jonathan Moore,” You went to the extent of pushing Joe to the brink of the ledge but denied him a death deserving of any sympathy to ensure that Joe sees the day when he truly embraces his dark side — his real side.
Despite Joe’s many despicable actions, he would have died a hero’s death if he was never rescued after his failed suicide attempt in Episode 10 of Season 4. His death would have marked an end to Joe’s desperate attempts of finding a good man, which probably never existed, in himself. As Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) suggests in one of Joe’s hallucinations, Joe could have put a stop to all the deaths once and for all. At least one more death could have been avoided if Joe would have never been rescued. Moreover, had Joe died after his suicide attempt, Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman) would have been successful in her struggle to expose Joe’s dark past.
Not only death would have followed Joe but also bad publicity would have made an appointment with him in the afterlife. And after all, one thing Joe despised more than being caught by the law is being seen as someone who was capable of the evil that he housed within him. Eventually, the world would have come to know about the deeds of Joe Goldberg, but at least, Joe would have died believing that he was the unfortunate hero who never received his due. By breathing to live another day, Joe might be set by the makers of the show to meet an end that wouldn’t attract any pity from fans or those around him in You’s world. The decision to drop the flashbacks in Season 4 also indicates this direction.
Joe’s Suicide Attempt Was Possibly His Last Chance at Redemption
Joe’s death in Season 4 would have helped Joe achieve what he had been craving through the seasons – to be acknowledged as a man who tried but was never able to shun his demons. By living to see another day, Joe has not only been robbed of the opportunity to finally make amends, but he has also been taken to the point of no return as he’s ready to embrace the immense power that his association with Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) has brought to him. At the last when Joe looks at his own reflection and sees Rhys, it serves as a silent acknowledgment that Joe Goldberg will no longer be running away from his ugly actions or his uglier reality. After being in denial for the longest time in his life, the life-changing events of Season 4 have prepared Joe to finally embrace his true self.
With Kate’s unlimited resources at his disposal, Joe will no longer have to even resort to violence to slide things under the carpet. However, as things often go haywire with Joe, he needs to maintain his status quo with Katherine Lockwood, his new love interest, if he wishes to enjoy the freedom he has now. In any way, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Joe falls out of favor with Kate, in which case Kate might also end up meeting the same fate as Love. The possibility of him going through another endless cycle of murder and mayhem is not far-fetched if there is to be another season.
Regardless of Joe’s eventual fate, his internal struggle with his own demons seems to be over for the moment, making him all the more dangerous. Most importantly, having explored this storyline once, it would seem to be a misstep story-wise to send Joe exploring the option of killing himself. If Joe doesn’t take a leaf out of his lesson book, it’s very likely that we will keep repeating the same mistakes. For someone else to stop Joe, it would take more than just genius now. Also, if Joe is doomed to meet his end at the hands of someone else, it wouldn’t be a fair death to a character who’s made to be as pitiable as he’s despicable. Regardless of what’s bound to happen to him, Joe should have died in Season 4, as it was the perfect opportunity to make him the architect of his own fate, just the way Joe likes things to be in his life.
