Hello, you. Joe Goldberg returns to Netflix this week for the fifth and final season of You, the popular dark thriller series. It’s been a long road to this week’s series finale. The show premiered in 2018, inspired by the book You by Caroline Kepnes. It’s been an even longer journey for our anti-hero main character Joe, with a trail of dead bodies left in his wake. Whether you’re an original fan or just finished watching all four seasons, there’s one question on everyone’s minds going into the series finale: Will this finally be the time that Joe gets caught?
From what we know, Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) is many things at the start of season 5: husband, father, budding philanthropist. And he’s hoping that all of those things are enough to keep his more murderous instincts at bay. Back in New York where the show began, Joe accepts his dark side and is prepared to use all the tools at his disposal to help his wife Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) run her late father’s multibillion-dollar business. Kate’s siblings (new cast members Anna Camp and Griffin Matthews) aren’t going to make that easy, as we see in the official trailer. Plus, it’ll be hard for Joe to rely on his usual tricks when he has the spotlight of the entire world shining on him. Complications are sure to grow as another new woman, Bronte (Madeline Brewer), enters Joe’s life.
Here is everything you need to remember about You and when you can expect season five to drop. A brief content warning: You is rated TV-MA for mature audiences. The series deals with themes of abuse, violence and suicide.
You season 5 release date and time
All 10 episodes of season five will premiere on Thursday, April 24, at midnight PT (3 a.m. ET) on Netflix. You can catch up on the show now with any Netflix subscription.
You is exclusively available on Netflix so you’ll need a subscription to watch it. You can grab the ad-supported plan for just $7 per month, or you can upgrade to the standard plan ($15.50 per month) or the premium plan ($23 per month) for additional features. You can check out our full review of Netflix to see why it’s CNET’s top choice.
You season 4 recap
You don’t need to rewatch the entire show to understand season five, but there are some important things you need to remember. Beware: There are major spoilers in the season four recap below.
Joe has been infatuated with many women throughout the series: Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), Candace Stone (Ambyr Childers) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), but it’s his obsession with Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle) that sends him across the pond at the start of season four. Single mom Marienne met Joe in season three at the San Francisco library where she worked. But after learning that Joe killed her ex-husband, she flees the country and heads for Paris. Joe eventually catches up with her on a work trip in London but he surprises her by letting her leave unharmed.
Joe is still presumed dead in the US, so he adopts the name Jonathan Moore and gets a job as an English literature professor. Joe quickly falls in with a group of wealthy socialites, including art gallery director Kate, who captures his attention. But things get messy fast as members of the group are targeted by the “Eat the Rich” killer. That’s made even worse by the fact that Joe has a stalker of his own, who threatens to frame him for all the murders.
Joe suspects that the killer is Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers), a popular politician and friend of the group. When Joe confronts Rhys, we learn the Rhys that Joe has been talking with all season is actually a figment of his imagination, a stress-induced hallucination meant to represent all his darkest urges. After fighting with the imaginary Rhys — and killing the real guy — it’s revealed that Joe is behind the “Eat the Rich” murders.
Joe actually didn’t let Marienne return home to Paris. Instead, he locked Marienne in a cage. Joe believes he left her there to die. Luckily, one of Joe’s students, Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman), catches onto his plan and teams up with Marienne to fake her death. Marienne gets one of the few happy endings in the show, returning home to her daughter in Paris and out of danger as Joe thinks she’s dead.
Joe’s psychic split, as Netflix calls it, is his breaking point. Imaginary Rhys taunts Joe, urging him to give into his murderous desires, which he momentarily does when he kills Kate’s billionaire father. But he’s convinced that he is ultimately the biggest threat to her well-being and he attempts to take his own life. He survives and, in the hospital with Kate, he reveals some of his past. (His real name and that he’s killed people. He omits that he killed her father.)
Kate is no stranger to ethical quandaries and still feels guilt from her work at her father’s company. She still wants to be with Joe, saying they could keep each other honest and try to do better. Joe’s take on that promise is to embrace his dark side. He frames Nadia’s boyfriend for Rhys’s murder, then frames Nadia for her boyfriend’s death. The season ends with Joe and Kate together in New York and, newly empowered by Kate’s family money and power, more dangerous than ever.
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