Of course I had heard of the hit Netflix show “You” before this year. Who hadn’t? But every time I saw a trailer for it, I couldn’t help but think it was just not a show for me. It looked like something watched by those stereotypical lonely women who want a boyfriend so bad that they don’t care about obvious red flags.
Definitely not for me, I thought. But then I watched it anyway. I was bored.
“You” quickly cured my boredom, which is something I didn’t expect. The show follows sociopath Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgely) as he searches for love. However, instead of falling in love the traditional way, Joe cyberstalks his crushes to make sure they’re living their best lives. If they’re not, Joe will meddle in their lives to make sure they’re happy, even if it means committing murder to remove toxic people from the equation.
It sounds absolutely ridiculous when you read that out loud, but in execution, “You” is a pretty profound show. Despite the show being about a stalker and murderer, Joe, you can’t help but sympathize with him and his situations.
The show also complicates things when you realize that Joe is actually right about the toxic people in his womens’ lives. They’re bad people and the women would likely be happier without their presence. Does that give Joe a right to kill them? No, but he does it anyway in the name of love. Talk about a paradox.
The show does still provide those cheesy, stereotypical moments and lines that I imagined would come from the show. Yet somehow “You” has managed to balance those aspects of the show with creepy-serial-killer vibes found in shows like “Dexter.” Yes, I just compared “You” to “Dexter.” What kind of world are we living in?
Would I say “You” is as good as the earlier seasons of “Dexter?” No, but it’s still mighty good television. Surprisingly, I found that the seasons increased in quality as the show went on.
Season one started off slow, but laid all the necessary groundwork for us to understand Joe’s psyche. The lead female of the season, however, Guinever Beck (Elizabeth Lail) is difficult to watch. While Lail gives a good performance, the character herself is a mix of every bad-aspiring-artist cliche rolled into one person. The finale was good, but heightened only by season two’s finale.
That’s because the second season of “You” introduced multiple femme fatales, notably Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). Love becomes Joe’s new…well, love. The catch? She’s just as crazy as he is (which makes the name Love even more ironic). Having Joe interact with Love allows him to look in the mirror, and he chooses to deny he’s even remotely like that. In reality, they’re exactly the same. They are, in my opinion, soulmates.
But Joe refuses to believe that coming into the third season, which is thankfully a continuation of pre-existing storylines. Season two was a clean slate while also being somewhat about season one, but season three picks up right where the second one left off, and that’s when the show is at its best.
Not only does Joe try to justify his actions yet again, but he has a greater lover-turned-foe: his wife, Love. It leads to messy antics from the both of them, and those antics raise the question of whether or not they truly love each other.
There’s something both deeply philosophical and perverse about this show, which is probably why I’m so drawn to it. Hardly anything in “You” is black or white, and exploring those grey areas in a way that adds tension every episode is something very impressive.
Would I recommend “You” to everyone? Not exactly, but I will absolutely be tuning in to watch the fourth season when it eventually airs. The first three seasons of “You” can be found on Netflix.
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