This article contains spoilers for the show You.
The time is finally here. Netflix’s hit (or should I say killer) show You is coming to an end, with the finale releasing on April 24. With an incriminating total of 18 kills, eight run-ins with law enforcement, and countless lies, Joe Goldberg’s track record may finally catch up to him in the race to the killer’s end. There’s a lot to remember before the finale’s release, so here’s everything you need to know about the previous seasons and teasers for what’s to come before the killer’s finale.
previous seasons
season 1
In season one, we met Joe Goldberg, a seemingly normal bookstore keeper who ends up revealing his real persona not long after the show’s intro. In this season, Joe’s unfortunate obsession catches hold of Guinevere Beck, leading to the death of her ex-boyfriend Benji, her best friend (and second stalker) Peach, and eventually her own. Between side-quests and flashbacks, we see Joe kill Elijah, the man his ex-girlfriend cheated on him with, and Ron, his neighbor’s abusive boyfriend. In total, Joe’s debut season brought us five victims total.
season 2
Season two starts with Joe in a new place under a new (or stolen) name, Will Bettelheim. Stolen identities come with stolen consequences, leading to Joe’s first kill of the season: Jasper, the real Will’s debt collector. Despite that mishap, this season seems to be promising for Joe. He meets Love Quinn, his latest and most fitting obsession.
On the outside, Joe presents himself as the perfect boyfriend before realizing that Love is his equal in the most disturbing ways, but we’ll get to that later. In an attempt to protect his neighbor, a common theme from the previous season, Joe kills comedian and predator Henderson after recording a confession and framing it as a suicide. Yikes.
Lastly, in another flashback to the past, we see little Joe killing his mother’s abusive boyfriend. This leaves our season two Joe’s victim count at three, but it’s important to note that all of the other deaths this season, Delilah and Candace, were carried out by Love but can be partially credited to Joe and the mess he made in this season.
season 3
Season three turned out to be our least-deadliest yet, with only two kills by Joe and two more by Love. As the season began, and Joe’s obsession shifted from Love to librarian-coworker Marienne, and his first kill of the season was her ex-husband Ryan. After Ryan’s death and before her own, Love kills neighbors Natalie (another obsession of Joe’s) and Gil, whose unvaccinated children sickened her own children with measles.
Joe doesn’t kill again until the end of the season, and this kill may be his most shocking yet. Joe killed Love in a final attempt to leave her after the two had been killing others (and almost each other) until Joe finished it, framing it as a murder-suicide and leaving his old life behind, as well as their baby Henry, before season four. This leaves us at two kills for Joe this season and eight total so far.
season 4
Season four shifts to more of a murder mystery, where the mystery turns out to be Joe blacking out and committing heinous murders under a false persona he created in his mind, maybe as an attempt to separate who he believes himself to be from who he really is.
In this season, Joe murders eight people, some without realizing he was the one doing it and some with every intent. Malcolm, Simon, Vic, Gemma, Rhys, Tom, Hugo, and Edward are the names of season four’s victims. As new victims join Joe’s murderous repertoire, he experiences hallucination visits from his past victims and lovers, Guinevere Beck and Love Quinn. The season leaves us with a total of 18 kills before the premiere of season five.
There’s everything that’s happened so far, leaving us with some ideas for what’s to come. Netflix decided to help us out with that, and between the season five trailer and promotional poster, everything all comes together in the killer’s finale.
what to expect
So here’s what we know from the trailer: Joe is back in New York, married and famous with Kate from Season 5, intense flashbacks to the past, and a new face, maybe even a new obsession. The trailer gives us a look into everything new this season, but the promotional poster gives us a deeper dive into what may come to light in the killer’s demise.
The promotional poster consists of newspapers with Joe’s victims, both dead and framed, surrounding his partially exposed face in the middle. In each of the newspapers, certain letters are highlighted in red, circled, and underlined. When put together, different things can be spelled out, but the most elusive and intriguing combination yet spells out, “Secrets do not stay buried.”
Between the newspaper photos and titles bringing old victims back and the hidden message in the red letters, I think everything (and everyone) from past seasons will come together into light this season, and the killer’s finale will be the finale of Joe Goldberg’s murderous career.
Want to see more HCFSU? Be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Pinterest!