S01.E10: Bluebeard's Castle

[bettername2come]

Young Joe does not look like a young Penn Badgley. He also looks like he's from the early 90s instead of early 00s. "Mr. Miyagi, if Miyagi was a soviet prison guard." Bwahaha. 

"Hiatus 'cause they ain't us" is more amusing than it should be. Especially since it doesn't make any sense. 

I've picked on the Beck character a lot, but Elizabeth Lail did a great job with the role. It's not her fault Beck sucked for 9 episodes. She played the breakdowns and anger so well in this episode along with the manipulation and bringing up concern's for Paco's safety. I'm so surprisingly sad she died. But so happy Candace lived. I'm half-hoping there's some kind of mistake in Beck's death and she's not really dead as well. I mean, we didn't see her dead body, just him getting a body from the trunk. Maybe it was Rob. Did we see police finding the body or just him getting it from the trunk? Maybe they have enough to declare her dead from a missing person's case. Especially if there's blood involved. So maybe she'll be back next season like "Bitch, where's my royalties?"

I think Joe sees a lot of himself in Paco and loves him. But that probably just means perpetuating this dark vicious cycle now that he's witnessed (and become accessory to) a murder and feels he owes Joe.

There was a spare key in the cage this whole fucking time?!!? 

On 11/12/2018 at 10:32 PM, tennisgurl said:

Shout Out to the very appropriate Bluebeard reference in the title! Its one of my favorite lesser know, creepy fairy tales, and it works horribly well for Joe. 

I really did like Beck's fairy tale comparisons at the end, especially about getting Prince Charming and Bluebeard all in one. It was very creepy and a good description of Joe. 

[Lakebum]

On 11/12/2018 at 6:24 AM, Spartan Girl said:

Another stupid and fatal mistake Beck made was writing a FULL NOVEL implicating Dr. Nicky. One or two pages might have been enough to trick Joe, but nope she had to go all out, practically giftwrapping a patsy for Joe to use for her murder.

I do agree this was the most sympathetic we saw Beck, even moreso than in the novel. I did feel some sympathy during the writing sequence where she admitted how she self-victimized herself. The "werent you asking for it" bit? Oy. That was powerful, especially in this current time.

Joe mentions that he augmented Beck's "Dr. Nicky" story with everything other readable thing that she had ever written. (And when she gave him the pages to read, there weren't very many of them.)

[methodwriter85]

On 1/7/2019 at 10:52 PM, bettername2come said:

Young Joe does not look like a young Penn Badgley. He also looks like he's from the early 90s instead of early 00s. "Mr. Miyagi, if Miyagi was a soviet prison guard." Bwahaha. 

He's too tall and his features aren't elfin enough.

[ursula]

On 11/12/2018 at 7:24 AM, Spartan Girl said:

Another stupid and fatal mistake Beck made was writing a FULL NOVEL implicating Dr. Nicky. One or two pages might have been enough to trick Joe, but nope she had to go all out, practically giftwrapping a patsy for Joe to use for her murder.

 

I've been noticing a form of this throughout the thread, and I checked on the show. Beck didn't write a novel during her imprisonment. She wrote a few chapters at most, basically the excerpt of a memoir that was never completed. The back page of her novel says: "this posthumous collection of her prose, poetry and memoir is her first publication".

Edited January 10, 2019 by ursula

[ally862]

On 1/6/2019 at 6:46 PM, ribboninthesky1 said:

I never watched Gossip Girl, so I wasn't familiar with Penn Badgley.  His sardonic narration plus the great production values saved this for me.  That said, I wasn't the least bit sympathetic towards Joe, and I'm sure I was meant to be.  I mean, for all of his "I just want love" schtick, he murdered Beck entirely out of self-preservation.  So glad that Karen got out alive - she was the only functional, sane character in the entire series. 

Also, was Joe meant to be so thin and borderline sallow? Because it was made clear he wasn't in great shape, and he looked like a solid wind gust would have knocked him off his feet.  I get that with the Benji and Elijah murders that he caught them off guard.  But I kept thinking Peach should have been able to take him down easily.  Hell, even Paco could have, if he wanted. 

In any case, I was hoping Beck would get out and live.  For all of her flaws, she's not a killer, and didn't know that Joe has a titanium skull that is impervious to all blows.  She was focused on escape, so her last actions didn't bother me.   

You'd be surprised how strong someone who is frail can be.  Especially when they have adrenaline.  I used to work in an assisted living facility and we had a locked memory care unit.  There was a 90 something year old woman who couldn't have weighed more than 90 lbs and one day she tried to leave behind me when I came in.   At first I tried to pull the door closed but she pushed back and I was shocked how strong she was!  I couldn't get the door closed because she was pushing so hard.

 

Anyway, this might be a dumb question but in terms of Candace, were we supposed to think he faked the Instagram photos under her new name?  I actually thought she was alive based on that and that Joe had scared her off so she needed a new identity.  Maybe I'm just naive though.  

[Chaos Theory]

16 hours ago, ally862 said:

 

Anyway, this might be a dumb question but in terms of Candace, were we supposed to think he faked the Instagram photos under her new name?  I actually thought she was alive based on that and that Joe had scared her off so she needed a new identity.  Maybe I'm just naive though.  

I assumed up until the moment she showed up that Joe had killed her.  Joe is a “Casanova Killer”.  Someone who is good looking looking for love obsessed with old fashion ideas of romantasism.  I could see him killing the people  who get in his way of the woman who he is obsessed with and then killing the woman when she ultimately fails him.  The fact that Candace survived him is actually surprising.

[ribboninthesky1]

17 hours ago, ally862 said:

You'd be surprised how strong someone who is frail can be.  Especially when they have adrenaline.  I used to work in an assisted living facility and we had a locked memory care unit.  There was a 90 something year old woman who couldn't have weighed more than 90 lbs and one day she tried to leave behind me when I came in.   At first I tried to pull the door closed but she pushed back and I was shocked how strong she was!  I couldn't get the door closed because she was pushing so hard.

 

Anyway, this might be a dumb question but in terms of Candace, were we supposed to think he faked the Instagram photos under her new name?  I actually thought she was alive based on that and that Joe had scared her off so she needed a new identity.  Maybe I'm just naive though.  

With regard to adrenaline, so did Peach, who was quite slim herself.  

As for Candace, of all the murders, we never actually saw that one, implied (as in showing a body bag) or otherwise.  I didn't think Joe set up her new profile, as that would have taken considerably more work to fool others.  But we were supposed to handwave all manner of things in this season (for example, Joe's blood should have been all over the Salenger house - in the bathroom at minimum), so I guess that might have been another one.

[TheYacht]

I thought Joe was a gross creep the minute he mentioned Beck’s bracelets in ep 1. I’m shocked at how many viewers are sympathetic towards him.

[MissScarlett]

I thoroughly enjoyed Season 1 of this series! 

If Beck could have continued her facade for a bit longer, she might have been able to make it out alive. 

Everyone assumes that Candace was killed but what if she wasn't and took off to Europe as Joe said? He probably kept social media tabs on her and was able to find her easily when she changed her last name. It seems like she went into hiding and maybe came back to expose him.

Let's say Beck and Joe's break-up was permanent and that they never got back together. He'd have no reason to kill her but he would keep tabs on her, while still dating Karen. He only killed Beck because she found out about him and couldn't accept him as a result (and rightly so) or so it seemed. During the season, there were these weird moments where Joe seemed oddly accepting of his fate with Beck. I can't tell if he would have continued with his obsession until he found someone else or if the obsession would have played itself to lend to Beck's death anyway.

Most of the characters were not very likable in a traditional good-guy versus bad-guy kind of way. They were all pretty flawed. I'd say that Peach was most similar to Joe and had some sociopathic tendencies herself. Which, is why she and Joe didn't like one another. It was a "takes one to know one" kind of scenario. Their scenes together were the most fascinating, imo. 

My heart broke for Paco. He's exposed to and is part of these terrible and horrible events, which are likely formative to who he becomes in later years. 

[MCMLXXVII]

Great show!

By the way the PI was looking at the car, I think that’s what will eventually trip Joe up. How is he so crafty yet hasn’t yet traded in a bright-red classic car for a 10 year old silver Accord or something? Duh.

[halkatla]

For some reason I didn´t want to watch this series, people were mentioning it a lot on facebook and since my taste in tv/movies is often quite different I was sceptical and had decided that "You" was probably just a lame love story sjw-crapfest from netflix. I only finally gave it a chance a few days ago when the fb crowd was discussing how problematic they felt watching a show about a likeable stalker. What? Stalker? I´m in!!! And then I went through 2-3 episodes a day and I haven´t loved a show this much in a long time (not since Twin Peaks S3 and Game of thrones were on). So anyway. I liked Beck from the start and Joe was just the main character, I neither liked him or hated him, I just enjoyed what he was getting up to. Until this last episode. It all turned around. I was totally digging how Joe came together fully as this disturbed anti-hero who I hated to love and loved to love at the same time! I felt bad not feeling that bad for Beck, lol, but... The ending was quite magnificent, so simple yet it had every single thread tightly wrapped up. I´m just in awe. I wish every show could be this good now-a-days. And the books, I loved the setting in the bookstore so much.

On 1/8/2019 at 3:52 AM, bettername2come said:

I really did like Beck's fairy tale comparisons at the end, especially about getting Prince Charming and Bluebeard all in one. It was very creepy and a good description of Joe. 

This was one of my favorite parts in the whole series.

Edited January 16, 2019 by halkatla

[TV Diva Queen]

Thank you bronchitis for allowing me to find this series and binge it in less than 24 hours. 

I was t thrilled with the ending and Candace showing up alive saying they some unfinished business. I feel that I didn’t know enough about her to make that the ending/cliffhanger. All in all, I really enjoyed this. 

[MerBearStare]

Since Chicago is currently an arctic hellscape, I binged all of season 1 today. It kind of reminded me of Dirty John, in that obviously the psychotic criminal is the worst one, but every other character is so damn unlikable you're not really rooting for anyone.

Having said that, I'm still sad that Beck died in the end. So many women in real life are hurt or killed by their partners - and so many men in real life are abusive stalkers - that I would never be happy to see the abusive asshole survive over the girlfriend/wife.

[HelenCrump]

On 1/7/2019 at 10:52 PM, bettername2come said:

I really did like Beck's fairy tale comparisons at the end, especially about getting Prince Charming and Bluebeard all in one. It was very creepy and a good description of Joe. 

I liked that too ... my favorite moment from the finale.

This was an unlikely series for me -- I'm closer to the Captain's age than Beck and Joe.  I was frequently annoyed by the texts and social media tidbits.  But I kept hearing about the show and was curious.  Binge watched the series and finished at 1:30 this morning.  

I'm an old time CBS soap viewer and recognized Daniel Cosgrove (Ron) as Billy Lewis on Guiding Light and Michael Park (the Captain) as Jack Snyder on As the World Turns.

I've never seen Penn Badgley before this show, but he is a revelation as Joe.  I absolutely believed him as the character every second he was onscreen.  

I'm really curious to see where they take the show next season. 

Edited February 3, 2019 by HelenCrump

[Jax7917]

22 hours ago, HelenCrump said:

I liked that too ... my favorite moment from the finale.

This was an unlikely series for me -- I'm closer to the Captain's age than Beck and Joe.  I was frequently annoyed by the texts and social media tidbits.  But I kept hearing about the show and was curious.  Binge watched the series and finished at 1:30 this morning.  

I'm an old time CBS soap viewer and recognized Daniel Cosgrove (Ron) as Billy Lewis on Guiding Light and Michael Park (the Captain) as Jack Snyder on As the World Turns.

I've never seen Penn Badgley before this show, but he is a revelation as Joe.  I absolutely believed him as the character every second he was onscreen.  

I'm really curious to see where they take the show next season. 

And he played Matt on Beverly Hills 90210

[Blakeston]

I definitely interpreted Paco's refusal to open the door as him thinking, "Beck knows that Joe killed Ron, and she wants to tell everyone, so I can't let her out." As opposed to, "Joe's killed a bunch of innocent people, but I don't care, and I'm going to let him kill Beck now."

Of course, that wouldn't stop him from being consumed with guilt once he learned that Beck died. And if he assumed that Joe killed Beck just to stop her from telling the truth about Ron's death...ugh, that's just too depressing to think about.

Did anyone else think the red ladle was going to be more significant to the plot? They certainly made a big enough deal about it.

[jaigurudeva]

On 2/6/2019 at 11:04 AM, Blakeston said:

I definitely interpreted Paco's refusal to open the door as him thinking, "Beck knows that Joe killed Ron, and she wants to tell everyone, so I can't let her out." As opposed to, "Joe's killed a bunch of innocent people, but I don't care, and I'm going to let him kill Beck now."

I took it as Paco thinking, "Joe only kills bad people, like Ron. If Joe's trying to kill Beck, Beck's probably a bad person who deserves it, too."

On 1/10/2019 at 1:20 PM, ally862 said:

Also, was Joe meant to be so thin and borderline sallow? Because it was made clear he wasn't in great shape, and he looked like a solid wind gust would have knocked him off his feet.  I get that with the Benji and Elijah murders that he caught them off guard.  But I kept thinking Peach should have been able to take him down easily.  Hell, even Paco could have, if he wanted. 

Men are surprisingly, scarily strong, even if they aren't heavy-lifting beefcakes. For as "thin and sallow" as he looks, Penn Badgely seems able to carry Victoria Cartagena around pretty easily. I think having an actor with a more average-Joe (ha) body-type works better for the character. He's less threatening, more unassuming, and it allows his violence to go undetected for longer.

[JoeyCrown]

How did Joe make it look like Dr Nick did all the killing?

[dubbel zout]

IIRC, Joe messed around with Dr. Nick's phone, computer, and social media.

Edited February 14, 2019 by dubbel zout
names are useful

[Door County Cherry]

I don't remember that but my memory gets the book and show confused sometimes. 

Even if Joe didn't do anything with Dr. Nicky's social media, there was sufficient evidence of the affair, of Dr. Nicky trying to reach her after she went back to Joe and Joe buried her in Dr. Nicky's backyard.

[LeGrandElephant]

Forgive me for posting before finishing the episode, but at the beginning of the finale all I can do is root for Beck to quickly grow some street savvy! I mean, I don't know how I'd react in this situation and her whole world is being shaken, she doesn't have the luxury of having much time to think rationally, so I can't necessarily claim I would be any more clever than her in that situation... but I REALLY wanted her to get what was going on quickly enough to play along with it and get herself out of there. "Oh, Joe, this is actually kind of hot - I know its weird, but having you in control is kind of a turnon" and "wow, I've never known someone who would do that much for me, risking themselves - it makes me realize how much you love me". If she was able to say all that with the right acting, she could probably get out of there and have a chance to go straight to the police. Similarly, at the end of the last episode, since she was smart enough to try to act normal and try to get out of there, she should also have been smart enough to immediately text Annika all the creepy details she had found and that she felt she was in danger. 

 

Ok, and now I'm closer to the end and I have to post again. She finally went with my plan (a little late), but then again I was ranting at her for her lack of street smarts - you don't take the moment to yell at him, you GO right away! Ok, she couldn't have predicted the second cage door, but she COULD have hit him in the head with the mallet until he was dead or truly incapacitated, before taking the keys. I know I can't blame her for not having a fighter/killer instinct, but I was really rooting for her to escape - though, once I saw a second season was scheduled, I knew it was highly unlikely. Not sure if I can watch a second season of this if they're just going to let him keep getting away with everything in order to keep the show going indefinitely. Might have been better as a limited run series. 

I'm not going to read the book. Can someone tell me if the end is roughly the same, i.e., him killing Beck and getting away with it? I was thinking that if they didn't have a season 2 in the works they would have been more likely to end everything with Beck managing to get the upper hand and Joe being punished, but maybe they were basing the ending on the book, not just on leaving it open for a second season. 

If the second season is just more of the first, I'll be very disappointed. I don't want to see him stalk another innocent girl and kill more random people. 

 

Wait, does the line that Peach wanted her to stop seeing her therapist make any sense? Didn't she start seeing him after Peach died? Well, maybe that'll be hard for him to prove with Joe planting evidence left and right... 

 

On 11/12/2018 at 6:49 AM, BooBear said:

I think there are a lot of women out there like Beck and hopefully that might make them think a little about their actions.

Jeez, I hope this show makes MEN think about their actions. 

I also hope it makes the people who produce romantic comedies think twice. 

[Black Knight]

Oh, Beck. RIP. I'm glad the show chose not to show her murder. Too often there's a creepy emphasis on making violence against women as explicit and graphic as possible. Though, if they HAD shown it, viewers might be a little more firmly against Joe.

I was kind of amused at the way they changed up the classic trope of the Villain Monologue - this time instead of the villain talking too long and incriminating himself, Beck just had to let Joe know exactly, in great detail, what she really thought of him.

And we saw from his voiceover at the end, as he started to creep on the "new" girl before realizing she was Candace, that he learned absolutely nothing from anything Beck said.

[methodwriter85]

On 4/9/2019 at 10:56 PM, Black Knight said:

I was kind of amused at the way they changed up the classic trope of the Villain Monologue - this time instead of the villain talking too long and incriminating himself, Beck just had to let Joe know exactly, in great detail, what she really thought of him.

I still cannot believe she was so focused on telling Joe what she thought of him that she actually didn't take the keys with her. I did like that they DIDN'T go with the cliche of Beck defeating Joe and becoming the Final Girl, because Beck really just did not show the kind of smarts needed to be the Final Girl. There was a great indie horror movie about final girls where the girl you think is the final girl is actually revealed not to be, with pretty subtle hints along the way that she's not.

Speaking of, I liked the inversion of expectations with Candace turning out to have been the Final Girl all along.

[Miss Bones]

On ‎2‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 9:46 AM, Jaclyn88 said:

And he played Matt on Beverly Hills 90210

I knew the name Daniel Cosgrove rang a bell.  I can't believe that was him!

[Anela]

That was creepy as hell, and the fact that the little boy became complicit? No. 

[paramitch]

Ugh. Sera Gamble, how could you? What a disappointment.

I was really bothered and upset in a low-key way by this, honestly. 

I mean, the whole point of the show is supposed to be that we watch Joe, this toxic redpill guy who thinks he's so smart about women, subtly show us how little he actually knows, before he is gloriously taken down. 

I get that he's stalking and victimizing women, but I was still okay with this because eventually in the big picture, my agreement with the show as a female viewer is that he's going to get taken down. That's why I'm there. That's why I was there all season long.

Instead, this just made me feel dirty for watching.

I feel like the show started out as one thing -- sucking me in as a viewer with the promise of watching Joe descend -- Joe gloriously shocked the entire time -- after all his hubris and grotesque toxicity and misogyny and victimization. But absolutely brought to the hell he deserves. Not YET, here (I get that we have potential seasons to go), but that he would still be thwarted in some satisfying way.

So I felt betrayed by this finale, in a weird way. I knew it was coming -- I had suspicions the moment Joe went from the 8-second wonder in bed to being the greatest thing Beck had ever experienced (I still find this so hilarious I can't even). I mean, the setup was all there -- Joe's breathy voiceovers for weeks telling us viewers how he would please this woman,  how he would attend to her pleasure -- then he just jumps on top of her, flails, and he's done! HILARIOUS perfection. It was BEAUTIFUL writing -- that's exactly what the reality of these redpill asses, with no care for a woman's actual pleasure, would do.

But then the love scene that followed was more "Guy kisses woman, rolls over on top of her (missionary, of course), we get a slow-mo montage of how good it is, regardless of the actual statistics for this, then boom, Beck is texting her friends that Joe is some kind of sex god. I mean, oh, good lord.

Anyway.

The problem is inherent to the show for me at this point. I feel like the show thinks I'm watching "Dexter," that with all of Joe's warm, breathy voiceovers and abused urchin salvations, I'll feel something for him, get chummy with him, want him to succeed.

But I'm not on Joe's side. I'm never on Joe's side, and I never will be. I was on Dexter's side (most of the time), in a thrilling bad-for-me way. He was still going after serial killers. I got to be on his side and have fun with the show. And feel bad when things went wrong (and still root for him to get retribution).

Reality check: Joe is not Dexter, no matter how much the show seems to think we'll empathize with him. (I mean, yes, I get that people do, and it depresses me, but it's not the same thing.)

So there's that. Then there's the fact that the plot required Beck to be brilliant enough to write an entire novel to free herself (and I loved that little element) but that she wouldn't be smart enough to TIE THE HANDS of the man who had attacked and imprisoned her when she had him unconscious and immobilized? Seriously?

Adding to that, the fact that the urchin then utterly faces a woman begging for her life -- and abandons Beck in support of his buddy Joe? Seriously, f*ck that kid so much.

I resented this finale.

I resented that it had to embrace all the cliches it pretended to subvert -- oh, right, Beck is no match for Joe's masculine preparation, ferocity and presence! She's just a silly girl who deserved to die for not believing in him, for betraying him, for disappointing him! It's gross. 

I found this occasionally entertaining, and it's slickly produced, but I think I'm out. I feel lightly coated with slime for getting through the finale -- and look, I'm speaking as someone who loved HANNIBAL. But HANNIBAL was always honest. It never tried to convince us that Hannibal was a good person. I just rooted for him anyway.

What this show is doing is dishonest, because it wants it both ways. 

So this, for me, was just icky. 

Rant over (sorry).

Edited April 28, 2023 by paramitch
fixed parenthesis

[Chaos Theory]

I am working from home a couple days a week so I decided to rewatch this (yay to getting a final season) and in rewatch Beck actually doesn’t bother me as much as she did the first time I watched this.   Yes there are ALOT of oh honey moments and Beck missed a lot of red flags but the episode where you met her father and stepmother went a long way in showing why Beck was the way she was.    She also did break up with Joe at one point.  I actually think her texting him right away was her biggest error in the whole thing.   Maybe I really am socially awkward but texting an ex five seconds after you run into them with their new girlfriend is kind of thirsty.  
 

I did think she handled Joe while in the box fairly well.   The tragedy always was that he was never going to let her out.  I think Beck was just outmatched and never what Joe wanted and Joe was always lying to himself about who Beck was.   Beck comparing Joe to Prince Charming and Blue Beard all in one was pretty apt.

My favorite relationship of the season was Joe and the kid (whose name keeps escaping me).   How Joe protected the kid but also kind of infected the kid with darkness and just might have turned him into a killer as well.  

Edited October 19, 2023 by Chaos Theory