S05.E10: Finale

[Spartan Girl]

Quote

Hoping to decisively close the book on the past, Joe embarks on a risky new chapter. But as with every great story, one last twist awaits.

 

[NeenerNeener]

I should feel like Joe got what he deserved, but with the exception of Maryanne, most of the people he killed or tried to kill deserved it (Love, Kate and half her crew in England) or were just so unlikeable that I didn't care  (Beck, Peach, Bronte and her crew, the other half of Kate's crew in England). Joe was sort of the Dexter Morgan of love.

I also have a problem with them trying to retcon Joe into the classic serial killer type. He didn't kill randomly or compulsively.

Edited April 25 by NeenerNeener

[Black Knight]

It does bother me the show routinely didn't include Candace, who was his first girlfriend/victim. And I know Jenna Ortega is very busy these days, but tying up Ellie's loose end would have been welcome too since IIRC the last we knew of her she was on the run with Joe sending her money periodically.

Anna Camp was a MVP this season. Maddie, Reagan, Reagan-as-Maddie, Maddie-lousy-imitation-Reagan, Maddie-excellent-imitation-Reagan, Maddie-as-Maddie-but-finding-her-own-steel. Phew.

I wasn't crazy about Louise being the final one who took Joe down. I liked Kate, Nadia and Marienne working together and would have liked Louise to join them and for the quad to take him down in the finale.

The show made a decision in S1 not to show us Joe actually killing Beck. I wonder if they always had it in mind to essentially show it in the finale with Joe strangling his last victim.

It had become exhausting watching Joe fall "in love" with woman after woman, and I liked how this season kind of twisted that by showing how increasingly desperate and blind he was becoming in his choices. Louise was clearly never a woman who was going to be down with the murdering no matter how much he kept insisting that Louise saw and loved all of him, and he ignored all of those signs in her throughout the season even as he was quick to pick up Kate souring on him which sent him looking elsewhere in the first place.

I appreciated that Joe didn't get the quick out of death and was sent to jail, and that Louise listened to his final big rant and reminded him that he wasn't the victim. That was another cathartic thing this season after four seasons of You, multiple women recognizing his bullshit and not giving in to the manipulation anymore.

[Chaos Theory]

Ok.  May take me a little while to process this fully but I really enjoyed the finale.   Everything about it worked for me.   I think in the end Bronte even worked as a character.   She is the stand in for the universal "You".  The woman who falls for Joe even knowing who and what he is.   Why do women still fall for him.   I think Marienne said that to her nicely last episode and Bronte said it to Joe.   Women fall the for the fantasy of a guy like Joe because they have to deal with the reality of a guy like Joe.    I know people are upset that it was  Bronte who brought Joe down but it kinda had to be her.    Kate was too connected to Joe's sins to be the one to bring him down and I think that killing Joe would have been the easy way out.  Sometimes a worse fate especially for a guy like Joe is being subjected to a trial and  dick jokes.  

My favorite scenes though was when Joe was talking to Henry.  The  "You're the monster." scene hit me harder then it should have considering how true it was.  I also liked what the show Is ultimately saying about Henry.    That it is ultimately up to him what kind of man he wants to be.  I also liked the ending for a lot of the surviving characters.   I also really appreciated Nadia's ending.  

I have been watching this show since it was on Lifetime and I am glad that Netflix picked it up and kept it going.  I was a fun dark show and I am glad it ended on a good note.  Joe being killed would have left him believing he was the hero of the story.  The last scene I am not sure was needed but I think it was there to show that Joe is never going to change but also show that it is ulitimately us that allow men like Joe to exist.  Women will continue to send Joe love letters even in prison which gives him an excuse to put blame on other people and not himself.  

Edited April 25 by Chaos Theory

[Spartan Girl]

Joe’s comeuppance was glorious perfection. Not only does he spend the rest of his life behind bars with no one but crazy fan letters to keep him company (which he can’t even enjoy because they’re so nuts he can’t project his fantasies of them)…he got his dick shot off. He is neutered in every sense of the word. I never dared to dream of such a perfect insult to injury, and it was all for social media to mock.

As much as Louise annoyed me this season, she redeemed herself quite nicely with that. Bravo.

Kudos to Penn Badgley. You can tell he’s been waiting for this moment forever. Finally, Joe’s mask was off. All that incel misogyny that he’d been keeping in his internal monologue broke out for us all to see. It was horrifying and satisfying all at once. 

“The fantasy of a man like you is how we cope with the reality of a man like you.” Yup, there it is. 

2 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

My favorite scenes though was when Joe was talking to Henry.  The  "You're the monster." scene hit me harder then it should have considering how true it was.  I also liked what the show Is ultimately saying about Henry.    That it is ultimately up to him what kind of man he wants to be

Loved that too. I’m a little leery of Kate keeping custody of him—I thought he’d go back to his Madre Linda dads, but she’s the only parent he really knows. Maybe he can still visit them though?

It was good to see Nadia and Marianne get their lives back, and Beck and the other victims finally get the justice they deserved. Not so sure Harrison and Maddie deserved their happy ending, but as long as Gretchen is happy.

As completely insane as this final season was, it managed to get us where we needed to be. I don’t care if some people will whine it was too much fan service, I needed the catharsis. Poor Penn is going to find it difficult to go back to playing actual decent male characters though.

[bettername2come]

I like that they had Taylor Swift in season 4 and series finales, though I would personally like "No Body, No Crime" for the show.

"It wasn't enough that you took her life, you had to take her fucking voice too?" Such a great line. 

Henry calling his dad a monster was so good. And so mature. Penn Badgley is such a good actor. The breakdown he has after that while he says "I love him so much" is really well done. He sounded kind of resigned when he said he got away with it before like he doesn't want to keep getting away with it. When the phone would dial I wanted to yell at her to say "Hey, Siri, call 911." Yay for the cat's ears! Didn't expect them to stay in the wound. A pretty good ad for those. "The fantasy of a man like you is how we cope with a man like you." Well put. I was ready to be happy with him being embarrassingly arrest in his underwear looking like a deranged lunatic, but then she shot him in the dick. "Joe doesn't deserve a dick."🤌 I didn't see that coming. Social media really is his downfall. 

I am so glad Maddie didn't have to serve time. So fair! Kate's alive! And of course they called it "Bronte's Inferno." I hope she has him in contact with Madre Linda dads. Hopefully with her representing Marienne and Marienne being friends with them some sort of relationship can be maintained. I thought she was going to be meeting them at the restaurant instead of her brother and his husband. I feel like seeing them and Ellie would've been an improvement.

I'm glad Beck's book has been corrected. The fantasy of her signing the new version at The Strand was nice. 

Penn Badgley must be so happy with how this ended. It was so good. 

[DrSpaceman73]

I knew Bronte was going to be the one that caught him and turned him in. But thought it was a good finale. 

Was mich like the finale of Barry.  Murderer meeting his end at the hands of those he long abused. Tries to justify doing it for his son.  

[Spartan Girl]

33 minutes ago, bettername2come said:

"It wasn't enough that you took her life, you had to take her fucking voice too?" Such a great line. 

Even more so because Beck wasn’t the only voice he took. He stole Candace’s voice (by faking her Facebook/social media posts after he thought he killed her) Peach’s voice (fake suicide note), and Love’s voice (ditto) not only to cover his tracks, but also because he always wanted to control the narrative and have the last word. He even did it to Nadia, he didn’t kill her but he made her too afraid to speak in her own defense for three years.

Now he’s the one sitting in prison without a voice.

[Artsda]

It was a good ending, I like that Kate lived, Maddie got the family she wanted. 

Everyone has a little more fear and darkness in them but they all finally got their lives back to move forward.

While Joe sits in a cell forever with crazy people letters. He had enough childhood trauma, surprised they didn't do the insanity plea. I guess they wanted to leave it more closed ended with jail. 

[KaveDweller]

I was pleased with the ending. At first I thought Bronte hadn't really earned being the one to take him down, but at the end it worked. She won me over with some of her lines to him and with making him redact Beck's book. And I was surprisingly pleased to see Kate alive.

Really glad he went to prison and didn't get the easy way out of death. It was nice that they mentioned how he got convicted of the lesser characters he murdered,.

I agree the one character who didn't seem to get closure was Jenna Ortega's from season 2. I don't remember what happened to make her go on the run at the end, but I do remember it really sucked for her.

On 4/27/2025 at 5:26 PM, Artsda said:

While Joe sits in a cell forever with crazy people letters. He had enough childhood trauma, surprised they didn't do the insanity plea. I guess they wanted to leave it more closed ended with jail. 

I think he killed way too many people to pull off an insanity plea. 

[peachmangosteen]

On 4/25/2025 at 10:18 AM, Black Knight said:

It does bother me the show routinely didn't include Candace, who was his first girlfriend/victim. And I know Jenna Ortega is very busy these days, but tying up Ellie's loose end would have been welcome too since IIRC the last we knew of her she was on the run with Joe sending her money periodically.

These were the 2 big problems with this season for me. I'll allow the Ellie one because yea I can imagine they just couldn't get Jenna Ortega. (Although, I don't see how it would've been too hard to get her to send in a little video they could have added to the TikToks of past characters from the #JoeGoldberg ep.) But to not mention Candace at all is just weird and annoying.

I wasn't really into this season until episode 5 and then 8-10 were very good. The finale from when Louise pulled the gun on him until the end was fantastic. I cried lol. I found it hard to like Louise and Kate most of the time but I was so relieved and happy they survived. I would have liked to have seen Nadia and Merienne (who I also never truly liked tbh) again too, though.

[Chaos Theory]

I know a lot of people wanted the show to deal more with Candace but she hasn’t really been a factor in the show since the second season and if I remember correctly it was Love who killed her and not Joe.    Including Candace would have been far too messy.     That is also why it avoided an actual Law and Order Trial.    It would only have made sense for a 6th season and since there isn’t going to be one the show had to decide who to  include and give redemptive arcs to.   The biggest dead character that needed one is Beck.    Otherwise the show focused on the characters still alive and how they move on from a man like Joe.  
 

If anything I would have cut the final couple minutes and ended with Brontë.  But then the show has always been focused on Joe so he needed to have the last word.

Edited April 30 by Chaos Theory
Autocorrect is not my friend.

[Black Knight]

10 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

I know a lot of people wanted the show to deal more with Candace but she hasn’t really been a factor in the show since the second season and if I remember correctly it was Love who killed her and not Joe.

Love ultimately killed her, but Joe nearly did and believed for a long while that he had...like with Marienne. Candace suffered so much coming back from that and then she tried so hard to stop him from doing it to another woman. I just feel like she deserved to be included when there would be the quick flashbacks of Joe's girlfriends/wives, because she was the first to get the Joe Treatment.

10 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

But then the show has always been focused on Joe so he needed to have the last word.

Yeah, the writers wanted us to know that the trial and prison didn't change Joe. In the end he once again avoided self-awareness. And I do think that was rather an important takeaway. People like Joe don't change.

[Anela]

I was hoping that there were no viewers still crushing on Joe, and then I thought of the women who write to serial killers, and they showed him reading letters (and blaming women for his behaviour).  As long as he is safely behind bars, he can be that fantasy. They won’t live out the horrific ending to most of his love affairs.

I’m glad that Kate was still alive. I liked seeing everyone else get a happy ending. 

On 4/29/2025 at 9:05 PM, KaveDweller said:

I was pleased with the ending. At first I thought Bronte hadn't really earned being the one to take him down, but at the end it worked. She won me over with some of her lines to him and with making him redact Beck's book. And I was surprisingly pleased to see Kate alive.

Really glad he went to prison and didn't get the easy way out of death. It was nice that they mentioned how he got convicted of the lesser characters he murdered,.

I agree the one character who didn't seem to get closure was Jenna Ortega's from season 2. I don't remember what happened to make her go on the run at the end, but I do remember it really sucked for her.

I think he killed way too many people to pull off an insanity plea. 

Ellie’s sister had started a fling with Joe (I think she managed the apartment building they lived in). Love found out, and put her in the cage. (?) Or Joe put her there, but Love killed her.

https://you.fandom.com/wiki/Delilah_Alves
 

Edited May 2 by Anela

[Spartan Girl]

I guess I'm not really surprised by all the netizens that found Joe's last bit so offensive. Obviously, society DOES have a problem with romanticizing any pretty asshole with a good sob story, we saw in happen with Luigi Mangione. And for all the people that complain about the feminism being too preachy, considering the backlash to #MeToo and other recent current events...well, I digress.

But the main takeaway that those people obviously are missing is that Joe is always going to be Joe: delusional and playing the victim until the bitter end.  

[Black Knight]

18 hours ago, Anela said:

Ellie’s sister had started a fling with Joe (I think she managed the apartment building they lived in). Love found out, and put her in the cage. (?) Or Joe put her there, but Love killed her.

What happened was that Delilah discovered the cage, so Joe locked her in it. He promised her, however, that he wouldn't kill her, because she was so afraid of Ellie being alone. He concocted an elaborate scheme where he was going to leave the country and she would be released through a lock timed to open after he was gone. But Love discovered Delilah in the cage and killed her.

[Anela]

36 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

What happened was that Delilah discovered the cage, so Joe locked her in it. He promised her, however, that he wouldn't kill her, because she was so afraid of Ellie being alone. He concocted an elaborate scheme where he was going to leave the country and she would be released through a lock timed to open after he was gone. But Love discovered Delilah in the cage and killed her.

Thanks.  I remembered her finding the cage.  She found the storage unit, then the cage.  

7 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I guess I'm not really surprised by all the netizens that found Joe's last bit so offensive. Obviously, society DOES have a problem with romanticizing any pretty asshole with a good sob story, we saw in happen with Luigi Mangione. And for all the people that complain about the feminism being too preachy, considering the backlash to #MeToo and other recent current events...well, I digress.

But the main takeaway that those people obviously are missing is that Joe is always going to be Joe: delusional and playing the victim until the bitter end.  

It’s just that most of us may have had our moments, or potential Joes, but a lot of women didn’t like him. That’s why they ended up dead. Or almost did. 

Spoiler

I was rarely boy crazy, because of certain childhood experiences, but also because I watched my mother deal with gaslighting like that. I dealt with some gaslighting like that. Another family member chose a gaslighter.  

Spoilered a little personal stuff.  

Edited May 2 by Anela

[Spartan Girl]

Penn Badgley, I adore you.

[Spartan Girl]

Table read of the final episode

Interesting to see certain lines that were cut, like Kate going to jail for a year for her involvement in covering up Joe’s murders.

LOL Penn smirking at Joe getting his dick shot off—and another cut line was that it was damaged beyond repair. Hooray!!

[tennisgurl]

Joe finally gets what he deserves and it is so sweet. It would have been easy to kill him, in his mind he could die a tragic hero, its so much sweeter that he got his dick shot off, became a an internet joke, and ends in prison for the rest of his sad miserable life alone. He also has learned absolutely nothing, after a life of judging everyone he meets while never admitting to his own crimes, he ends up even blaming us, classic Joe. 

My favorite season is still season three, the show has never been funnier than when Joe and Love were killing their way through suburbia, but this was a really good season and I think they stuck the landing in the last few episodes. I love that we got so many call backs, so many appearances from past characters, that Joe was specifically convicted for killing supporting characters that have been dead for years like Peach and Forty, and of course the season is all about Beck. I would have liked to see at least a few references to Ellie and Candice, but I like what we got as all of Joe's past crimes came back to literally and figurately haunt him. 

I punched the air when Henry called Joe a monster, what a smart kid. I was hoping he could go back to his two dads, but maybe part of Kate's redemption tour is letting them see him again. I think losing Henry is really the thing that finally broke Joe, while his love is still selfish given his nature, he is the person Joe is closest to actually loving and it actually seemed like it almost hit him what a monster he was, and then of course he doubled down right away.

Bronte/Louise really frustrated me this season but she came through in the end and she got some great lines. She read Joe for filth when she said that women buy into Joe because he's the fantasy of a perfect guy so they don't see until its too late that he's their worst nightmare, fully refuting Joe's obsession with being a white knight and the last true romantic. 

I am glad that every surviving characters got happy endings, and even the dead ones finally got justice, I especially liked that Beck's book was finally published under her own words and we got that brief shot of her at the book signing. I started this show way back when it was on Lifetime and followed it here, it was not always a perfect show but it was fun and creepy and I am glad it got the chance to wrap up like this. Penn Badgley is just such a good actor, no way would this show have worked without his natural charisma and talent, I hope that he gets to use that charisma for good in his next role. 

[TiffanyNichelle]

I was struggling with this last season because I was really afraid that somehow Joe was end the season on top with everyone around him dead and he goes off with Henry to start the cycle up with a new target all over again. When Bronte/Louise had him go through the book and it felt like she was unnecessarily dragging things out I thought, of course, he'll get into her head again.

I should have put some faith in that fact that Penn is one of the producers and has been openly talking for years about how much he can't stand the character of Joe. There's been times reading comments on the show that I felt like Zoolander where I was taking crazy pills because Joe was never a root for-type character. He has always hated women even as he pretends he loves him. He literally made my skin crawl. So thank goodness for that call to Henry to help bring her back on track.

I wasn't too happy that Bronte/Louise got to do the big takedown because I soured on her once we found out she fell in love with him. I wanted it to be Marienne because she really got screwed by him. But at least with the confession Kat got on tape, Nadia getting out of prison, and Marienne being alive everyone got to play a role in taking him down.

All in all, I'm happy that Joe ended up behind bars for life while everyone, including his son, goes on without him. I was root for death several times in this episode but leaving him alive really is better. He doesn't get to be a victim or some martyr built in people's minds. Just sad sad man living out the rest of his days in prison.

[Madding crowd]

I was happy to see the endings the living characters got and Joe being in jail. Not a fan of Kate who used her families millions to evil intent until she decided to change into a different woman. Also didn’t like Brontë. When she said Joe erased her I thought what was there to erase? She stalked Joe for years over a woman she barely knew. She was just as obsessed with Beck as Joe. Kudos to all the actors, especially Penn; no one else could have played Joe. As a writer myself, I loved seeing Beck’s book restored and the general emphasis the show had on reading and writing.

[Slovenly Muse]

I'm late to the party here, but I loved this finale. I really enjoyed that first season, and how the show set out to deconstruct the typical "fairy tale romance" tropes, and expose the darkness that those kinds of expectations can invite. I thought it lost the plot a little in later seasons, when it seemed more about Joe as a killer, but that first season was a real statement. I'm so glad to see the finale return to those roots.

I remember after the first season aired, Penn Badgley said in an interview that he had been getting really disturbing fan mail of the "Stalk me, Daddy" variety. People were totally missing the point of the show, which was that Joe only SEEMED like the perfect romantic partner, but was in fact utterly terrifying and repellent, and the charm and good looks that draw you in are a trap that must be seen through and resisted. So returning to those story roots, and including the fan mail for Joe at the end, with a nod to the viewer to examine our own culpability, I think that was dynamite. And Bronte, the stand-in for the viewer, the romantic with the rose-coloured glasses, being the one to stop him by finally deciding NOT to buy his bullshit and to see what was real instead of what she wanted to be true... that was a perfect touch.

I know it might not be what everyone wanted, but I feel like the show succeeded at what it set out to do, and I think everyone involved should be proud of how it all turned out.

This season was so much fun. I'm going to miss this show! What a ride!