Hey 'You'

When my partner asked me if I wanted to watch “You”, the rather innocuous title did not catch my fancy. When it was then explained to me – that the plot centres around a stalker – I was perhaps a little more put off but curious.

Curiosity definitely did not kill this cat.

Season one of You is based on a book of the same name by Caroline Kepnes and it follows the story of Joe Goldberg as he falls head-over-heels in love with the aspiring writer of Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail). Kepnes specifically set up the typical rom-com tropes to deconstruct them, highlighting that the activities and actions that we see as adorable in romantic-comedy are actually toxic and worrying when seen in reality.

I have not read the book. I cannot comment on how well the first season stuck to the source material. But that should not really be the issue – adaptations, whilst taking inspiration and ideas from the source, are still their own entities and are allowed their own identity. I would argue, however, that the show deals with the themes originally presented in Kepnes’ book rather well; both versions attack these themes through the use of the main character, Joe Goldberg.

When Kepnes first wrote this character, she was reticent to label him as anything in particular. The casting of Penn Badgley was incredibly crucial for the character of Joe. The showrunners were aiming for a specific look: they wanted a man that looked like your typical romantic lead but was able to take on the creepier aspects of the character. Badgley was perfect for this role aesthetically, naturally handsome enough to play the trope whilst looking awkward enough to play up to those darker parts of his nature. Badgley has been confronted with many questions about how it is to play such a role and has been brutally honest with his response:

"There's a lot I don't enjoy about him. To be honest, I don't enjoy nearly everything about him. However, it ends up being a deep, deep psychological exploration for me.

And it seems to bear fruit. There's a lot about him that I struggle with and yet I'm always trying to humanise him as much as possible."

(Taken from an interview with Digital Spy)

But why does Badgley have such a love-hate relationship with Joe?

Season 1 of You, in terms of its writing, is a masterpiece. The entire show is narrated by Joe and, because of this, the audience has a much stronger connection with him. Much like Iago in Othello, we are able to understand his thought processes and, because of this, end up liking the villain as opposed to the hero. However, where Joe differs from Iago is in the fact that he is both: he is the antagonist and protagonist of his own story. Throughout the entirety of the first season, Joe is committing heinous and atrocious acts (murder, manipulation, stalking etc.) and spends the majority of his time justifying his actions to himself and the viewers. And the brilliance of the writing is in this: there are points where we agree with him! I cannot count the amount of times I was genuinely rooting for this character to overcome all the issues that he found himself in; I was, at points, really wanting the relationship between Joe and Beck to work. Then I would catch myself thinking this way and would berate myself for it. This is the beauty of this show – much like Joe is consistently trying to prove to himself that he is a good man, you are trying desperately to believe it.

The general plot of season one follows Joe’s obsessive acts surrounding Beck and questions what love really is. To Joe, love is where you give everything for the other person and, for him to do this, he needs to know the other person completely. The show also has a sub-message of social media privacy and takes in a little bit of the idea of cyber-stalking; it is actually quite frightening how much Joe can find out about the other characters in the show

just through their social media. But, as the show continues, you are more aware of Joe desiring the ‘perfect relationship’ (ironically, the sort of relationship that you would see in your typical romantic-comedy) and his obsession with this causes him to want to control outlying factors. In wanting to retain the ‘perfection’, Joe turns to killing anyone that promises to get in the way. It also becomes apparent that he is blind to the realities of love: Beck is not a nice person. At least, not all the time. She lies, she cheats and, like Joe, she manipulates. Eventually, Joe’s obsession causes him to murder her.

AND YET! You struggle to outrightly hate the man. Yes, he murders…by the end of the show, he has murdered at least four people. But three of these murders actually improved things for certain individuals. Peach and Benji’s murders actually allow Beck to escape the individuals using her and not allowing her to grow. And Ron’s murder also saves Paco and his mum from an overtly abusive relationship. The latter is the culmination of the sub-plot to Joe’s love-life: Joe helps and protects the innocent child that lives across the hallway.

This is why I loved the first season so much – Joe is consistently skirting the line between good and evil and, by the end of the season, I still had not quite made up my mind as to where Joe ultimately lay. In the final stages of the season, once Beck has been killed and Joe is getting over the loss of the woman he murdered (and he does wax lyrical over the grief that he feels), a problem from his past turns up: Candace. This is Joe’s previous girlfriend, one whom he had also murdered and presumed dead.

And this is where we join season 2!

To be entirely honest, I was a little apprehensive about the second season. The first had been fantastic and, if there is anything that I have learned from Disney sequels, there is always something left to be desired by the second outing. The joy or, rather, the intriguing nature of the first season was that Joe’s character and obsessions; his beliefs and quirks; his good and bad side were slowly revealed as the season went. You learnt about the depth of his obsessions and desires, slowly peeling away at his mentality until you discovered just how far he would be willing to go for his toxic view of love. This slippery slope had been journeyed so where else could they take Joe’s character after this?

Much like the initial season was based on the first book, also entitled You, the second series is an adaptation of the second book, Hidden Bodies. By this point in both the Netflix series and the books, there was something of a cult following in terms of Joe. Badgley himself had to reassert his feelings on Joe as there were many that were pining for the character. Next step: Badgley having to respond to thirsty Joe tweets on Twitter:

Twitter user: “Said this already but @PennBadgley is breaking my heart once again as Joe. What is it about him?”

Penn Badgley: “A: he is a murderer”

And what Badgley says is not wrong! He is a murderer…he is a serial killer for all intents and purposes (he does have the blood of four people on his hands by the start of the second season). This was something that Kepnes was surprised to hear after writing her books:

"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 realise you have written a serial killer."

So what direction are they going to be taking this character in during this season?

You season two begins with finding Joe in L.A. (under the name of Will) as he is running away from Candace. Their conversation is presented through a series of broken flashbacks that present her as, what do you know, obsessed with bringing Joe to justice for the crimes that he has committed. So, Joe creates a new life and tries to change for the better…only to fall immediately at the appearance of the new love interest: Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti).

I actually really enjoyed the structure of the first episode. Throughout the whole hour, Joe is proclaiming about how much he has changed. The show continues with the same formula of Joe’s narratorial voice overlaying the events, allowing us to be privy to his thoughts and feelings about situations. What we learned from the first season is that, often, this voice is unreliable and hypocritical: Joe views things the way he wants to view them, not how they actually are. Season two continues this approach from the offset through the revelation of information at the end of the episode. After Joe has been harping on about how much he has

changed and how he is determined to do better this time, it becomes known that Joe saw Love beforehand and all of his choices have been due to her. That unreliability and hypocrisy is mirrored within the structure of the narrative. At the end of the first episode, is history doomed to repeat itself? Is Joe any more trustworthy as a narrator than he was last season?

Penn Badgley is absolutely superb, once again putting his all into a very difficult and challenging role as Joe Goldberg (now posing as Will Bettelheim). He has described this role as particularly isolating; most actors might argue that they would relish to play such a nuanced character but Badgley has said the opposite. He had some concerns about playing the role and believed that they were possibly doing “something irresponsible” (interview with IndieWire). Whilst having come to terms with the nature of the character, Badgley still finds the role inherently exhausting. And you can understand why this is: Joe is every shade of grey imaginable and epitomises the nuanced nature of humanity. Badgley brings a sense of charisma and awkward charm to the role, playing around with all the archetypal romantic-comedy tropes that come with a leading man of the genre. With that accompanying his natural good looks, it is easy to see why people are able to humanise the character even against all of the terrible things that he has done. It is a genuine pleasure to see Badgley at work in this role, presenting all of the bad decisions that Joe makes and all the dreams that he envisions implode on screen. But how do you portray such a difficult character? In a different interview with IndieWire, Badgley stated:

“…in order to make him real, I do — most of the time, to be honest — I just play him like he really is striving for the things that he says he’s striving for. And so to me, rather than him being an actual killer, he’s an allegory for our own blindness, each one of us.”

This is perhaps why Badgley is able to convey such an innocent naivety through the role and perhaps why Joe is so hard to hate and persecute. Making him an allegory for everyone allows everyone to connect with him. Penn Badgley was a perfect choice for this role and has clearly done his research.

With this season, a plethora of characters have been introduced. The supporting cast are fantastic choices, every one adding a different obstacle for Joe to overcome (or murder, depending on how he is feeling). The one thing I would say, however, is that there are a lot of convenient similarities between the first and second seasons. Paco and his mother have been replaced by Ellie (Jenna Ortega) and her older sister Delilah (Carmela Zumbado). Both Ortega and Zumbado are relatively well cast, portraying a dysfunctional sororal relationship. Ellie is as frustrating and know-it-all as teenagers get, with a headstrong nature that gets her into a lot of trouble. Yet Ortega is able to get across a vulnerability underneath all of the teen bravado which is perhaps what Joe is drawn to. She is a likable character but I would argue that she does not really grow as the season continues. She does not learn anything throughout the episodes. However, she is a pleasant constant throughout the show and appears to be landing on her feet by the end. The one main issue I have with her is her reactions in the final episode. By this point, she has learned some stark truths that would be ground-breaking for the majority of people, let alone a vulnerable teenager. Ortega does an adequate job here with the material that she is given but I do feel that the character is forced down a road because it suits the plot rather than because it is what the character would do. On hearing about her sister in the final episode, why does she not demand answers? Why

does she comply so calmly with Joe’s requests? Oh yes, it is because she cannot do anything else with a cop watching (they do not know he is there, by the way) – that will get Joe into trouble and, apparently, the writers did not want that. A similar situation happens with Delilah. Zumbado does a nice job of portraying the traumatised woman and is exceptionally talented at getting across the troubled and obsessive nature of her character. But I am always a little confused about her reasons for allowing Joe to stay in her apartment complex. The writers use her character to reintroduce the current state of society in the very first episode: “you’re not on the socials…thought you might be some kind of freak”. The dark humour, nicely employed here by Zumbado with some dramatic irony, embodies the tone of the series. But why would a landlord not want to question a possible tenant further before giving him the apartment? Then, she threatens Joe after he is seen talking to Ellie (the latter of whom started the conversation); after this, she apparently hates the guy. She then continues to do so for quite a while in the season. But why? Being an over-protective – and ineffectual – guardian for her sister is fine but, in this instance, what did Joe actually do? If she had thought that he was a creep before him talking to her sister, which would explain the reaction, why did she give him the apartment? Aside from this, however, Zumbado does a good job of portraying the damaged woman. She grew nicely throughout the season, Joe allowing her to regain some self-esteem after her troubles, and she was another pleasant addition to this cast.

A parallel to the previous character of Benji is Forty Quinn, the irresponsible and babied brother of the love interest. Played brilliantly by James Scully, Forty is rather irritating at the beginning of the season and, whilst this irritating nature does not dissipate, it evolves to become rather endearing and funny as opposed to frustrating. Scully brings a heartwarming quality to Forty, one that allows the character to develop throughout the series. By the end, the character still holds the foundations of the protective and co-dependent brother but has more confidence and genuinely has his sister’s wellbeing at heart. Personally, I had found Forty to be immensely infuriating at the beginning, a leech that was a massive obstacle to

Joe and Love’s relationship (which I actually wanted to work as explained above). But Scully’s portrayal of the character had actually changed my perception of him and he had become one of my favourite personalities by the end of the season. His naivety and innocence was an adorable addition to the series.

It was rather funny how Forty became unwittingly tangled up within Candace and Joe’s war. Candace is portrayed by Ambyr Childers and her introduction at the end of the last season was definitely a shocker. After an entire season of believing she was dead, the last thing that I was anticipating was her dramatic return. Whilst Childers’ portrayal of the character is good, I do not think that she makes a very good extortionist. I suppose that this is the point at the end of it – Candace is supposed to be a normal person who has been driven to the ends of her sanity by the actions of her ex-boyfriend. Yet, because of this, I do not entirely understand her reason to be there. She does not pose an overall threat, if anything she does not affect anything to do with the plot except to act as a reminder for Joe’s less saint-like past. Candace, instead, serves as a warning for obsession. In my opinion, Candace was one of the more frustrating characters within this season as she served very little purpose beyond sewing discord in the minds of the others. This could have been completed in far less time than was devoted to all of her scheming. However, I do have to commend Childers for her attempts at portraying the PTSD-like symptoms that the experience with Joe has had on her. There is a brief show of this in episode 5 that was absolutely brilliant and that was the one moment I truly felt the severe

and life-changing effects that Joe had on her. She genuinely came across as sympathetic and vulnerable in that moment as opposed to the (understandably) bitter and twisted ex. The one question I always had was ‘why did she not go to the police?’. This was answered in a series of flashbacks, which I was personally horrified by. I cannot say a know a lot about how the American police force works but I sincerely hope that they are not as bad as what is portrayed in the show. However, regardless of any questions of competency that I have, Candace only has a proper impact at the end of the season, which is very hurriedly dismissed by the next piece of action.

Which leads us to the final character addition: Love Quinn. Victoria Pedretti had quite a tough job in trying to recreate something that would work for the show but was a very different character to her predecessor, Guinevere Beck. But she definitely did just that. As Love burst onto our screens (with a little bit of punning with her name), Pedretti conveyed a much more forward and vivacious character than that of Beck. Her actions actually drove

quite a lot of the initial moments of Love’s relationship with Joe and meant that Joe’s more stalker-like nature and the actions that bled into that aspect of his personality were immediately cut off: he does not need to obsessively hound her because she is the one pushing and driving for the relationship. Whilst this is a breath of fresh air amidst a sea of parallelisms, it does force Joe into a different role. This has problems that I will come back to. However, Love Quinn was relatively refreshing and Pedretti gave a very real and nuanced performance.

***MAJOR SPOILERS***

There was always something a little off about the character, however. It was perhaps more because I knew that the writers would not want to copy the plot of the previous season that I could tell that Love was going to have a different ending and, once Delilah’s demise had become apparent at the end of episode 8, I had a rather good idea where it was leading to. However, even then, the brutality and suddenness of the twist still took me by surprise and I was expecting it! It was at this point, after her confession of killing Delilah and Candace, that Pedretti made her mark on the show. If her acting had not been compelling enough by this point, she came out roaring during this section of the season. In an interview with ‘The Oprah Magazine’, Pedretti stated her own views about the character:

"She has core qualities of passionate and protecting and loving and nurturing. These qualities, in an extreme, can be taken too far. She has a warped perspective by the fact that she’s never had consequences for her actions in her life."

And here, Joe is mirrored beautifully in female form. Pedretti brings a more vulnerable nature to her part here, one that reflects Joe’s need for love but one that is less calm. Yet the psychopathy shines through as she manically tries to justify her actions. There is one clear difference between Love and Joe at this point, however: although they both know of each other’s darker side, Love accepts Joe’s whereas the opposite is not true. Ironically, Joe

confronts an image of himself and despises what he sees. Pedretti commented on this in the same interview:

"She gets to speak for herself—and that is the moment Joe falls out of love with her"

Pedretti does a very good job of making the two sides of Love’s character feel in sync with each other and there is a very believable nature to the change of character. Whilst the ‘twist’ was guessable, it was still handled surprisingly well and Pedretti definitely has the range to handle it and match Badgley with her energy.

***SPOILERS OVER***

I could never criticise You on acting ability; every single actor that has appeared in either season has been very successful at getting their characters across. However, one problem I had with this season was the writing at pivotal moments. Joe’s dialogue was much the same as the last season but seemed to lack a finesse that the last season had – however, this could be due to trying to convey Joe’s conflicted and ‘changing’ mindset. I did have a problem with some rather large coincidences that happened throughout the season. Like the cop just happening to remember a random jaywalker and linking him to a random murder because of some headphones (yes, I know that the headphones were ‘limited edition’ and expensive but that does not mean someone like Joe could not have a pair). Then there were responses that made no sense such as Ellie’s response to Joe in episode 10 (previously mentioned) and plot holes such as what happened about the final two murder victims. And why did Candace have such a big part to play? Whilst there were some absolutely lovely moments for her, they were few and far between; the main purpose for her existing was to

threaten Joe with exposing him but never really act upon it. Forty’s suspicions grew out of very little to go on and, whilst I appreciate that Forty’s sober state is much more perceptive than usual, why would he believe his crazy, lying, manipulative ex over his friend and sister’s boyfriend? I am not arguing that the incidents or changes in perceptions are completely impossible but the speed in which they take place and how easily minds are changed is worryingly quick at times.

I also have an issue with how Joe is presented in this season. As I have already stated, Badgley continues his stellar performance as Joe Goldberg but there is something severely lacking in his character as a whole throughout the season. Last season was able to explore the creepier side of the romance and the stalker element to Joe’s character. This was no longer an option: Love’s forwardness and direct attitude plus the fact that he works with her reduces the need to be predominantly ‘creepy’. The stalking is significantly lessened, which is fine, but it is replaced by…Joe’s fear of Candace? Perhaps an overly exaggerated hero complex to try and compensate? But because that creepiness and subversion of romantic-comedy tropes is lessened, what is left is…murderer. Whilst Joe has always been this, a serial killer by now (sorry Kepnes), there was more to him than murder although none of it was very positive. Whilst at my parents’, I watched one of the episodes and my mother exclaimed, “Oh, it’s basically Dexter.” I tried to explain that it was not but this season was scarily reminiscent of it. For me, there was a complexity that had somewhat been lost in the bridge between seasons.

However, overall the show was enjoyable to watch and, whilst it had depleted in nuance in my eyes, it was still a joy to see Badgley recreate his character. Pedretti was also an excellent addition the cast; after watching her in The Haunting of Hill House I was highly anticipating her performance which did not disappoint. The complete ending of the season was frustrating but that was because it was supposed to be – it made complete sense for the characters. I am wondering, however, how much longer this show can keep running. I already feel that season two has lost a little something and how much more can Joe do before it starts to grow stale. However, the acting and themes are still wildly intact and very impressive. If there was to be an end here, it would very much fit and work accordingly. Kepnes is planning at least two more books so there is possibility for further seasons; season three has been unofficially confirmed to be in the works by Penn Badgley so anything is possible. I sincerely wish, however, that they spend time really thinking about where they want the next story to go if further seasons are to happen.

(Pictures are stills from the show or are promotional art for it)