It’s been two long years since we last heard from Joe Goldberg, but he’s finally back and creepy as ever. Netflix just released the trailer for YOU season 5, which shows Joe (Penn Badgley) back in New York City living a life of fame and luxury after his misadventures in London last season. After four seasons of bouncing around from New York, to Los Angeles, to San Francisco, to Europe, for the show’s fifth and final season, Joe is back where it all began at Mooney’s book shop in NYC. Of course, now he’s got a few more murders and brief bit of psychosis under his belt, but that’s just how it goes for Joe Goldberg.
Season 5 picks up three years after the events of season 4, with Joe married to über-wealthy Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), reunited with his son Henry, and a life in the public eye. “We liked the idea that he’s been in exile and he’s gone to a lot of different places,” YOU showrunner Sera Gamble told the Netflix blog Tudum. “He assumed a very different identity in Season 4, and we talked about it as the return of Joe Classic. When he returns to New York, he’s exactly the kind of person he could only ever watch from very far away the last time he was in New York. He has all of the privilege he only ever dreamed of, and also judged, before.”
Season 5 releases on Netflix on April 24, but before it does, here’s your recap of what happened to Joe in the YOU season 4 finale.
What Happened In The YOU Season 4 Finale?
Image Credit: NetflixSeason 4 of YOU went total Knives Out with a murder mystery vibe. Joe Goldberg (or Jonathan Moore, as he was going by) wound up in the mix of a a group of posh London socialites. A mysterious murderer was slowly picking them off, and Joe took it upon himself to help solve these “Eat the Rich” killings. By the end of season 4, Joe had solved the case and pegged the murders to the writer Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers)… or so he thought. In one of the series’ biggest twists, the audience learned that Joe had hallucinated an entire relationship with Rhys after he became obsessed with his book. Not only that, but Joe actually committed the murders himself and disassociated each time did it. I mean, it makes sense that after all the major psychological trauma and head injuries over the years, Joe would have a little break from reality. In fact, I’m actually surprised he isn’t disassociating all the time.
Once Joe realized that he was actually the murderer, he also realized that he’d been keeping Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) hostage in one of his famous glass cages. He found her dead and removed her body, but it turns out, Marienne actually faked her own death and was able to escape to Paris. Joe never learned that though, and he was distraught over all the murders he just couldn’t seem to give up, including the murders of the real Rhys and of Kate’s father.
So, he went to a bridge and pushed his “darker self” aka Rhys over the edge. That wasn’t enough, though, and Joe himself jumped, too. For a moment in the season 4 finale, it looked like that might have actually been the end of Joe. But, real ones know Joe is like a cockroach who just keeps on keeping on.
Joe was rescued after he jumped, and he woke up in a hospital bed with Kate looking after him. Coming off of his big moment of reckoning, Joe decided to tell Kate the truth about his identity, and surprisingly Kate fully accepted him. She accepted him so much that she helped him rebuild a life in New York using all her resources as an aristocratic billionaire who inherited all of her father’s money. She helped paint Joe as the victim of everything that went down with Love (Victoria Pedretti) in season 3 and set Joe up as her business partner. At the end of season 4, the two of them did an interview in which they said they had plans to “change the world.” Hopefully they means they’ll change it in a good way, but knowing Joe, that’s probably not the case.
