As Joe Goldberg returns for one final chapter to face the long-awaited music, the mask slips and the series forces us to reckon with the darkness we once romanticised!
If you watched Adolescence and caught yourself thinking, “Alright, I get why people are into it, but it didn’t quite blow me away,” you’re likely someone who’d be more compelled by something like YOU. Not because one is better than the other but because both shows are essentially tackling the same subject, just through very different lenses. YOU dresses up its critique of toxic masculinity and incel culture in the language of a sleek psychological thriller. There’s stylised violence, long-winded, self-sympathising internal monologues, and a slow, seductive peeling back of Joe Goldberg’s twisted mind. It’s a formula we’ve grown used to, even comfortable with: a gradual descent into darkness, just enough suspense to feel cathartic, and a storyline that lets you root for the villain while pretending you’re not. That’s the comfort YOU offers, where discomfort is edited, packaged, and spoon-fed, only to reveal something far more sinister.
On the other hand, Adolescence strips away that comfort. It shows you the rot upfront, with none of the genre polish to soften the blow. And that’s precisely what makes it hit differently if you’re open to letting it. This stark contrast between the two series and what we prefer to watch is where YOU’s fifth and final season ultimately becomes a gut check, not because of what happens to Joe Goldberg, but because it focuses on stating the commentary clearly and spelling out quite literally. The “you” in YOU has always been us; the show has always been about what it reveals about us as the viewers. It was never just about what Joe did. It was about how willingly we watched him do it, and the disturbing part is that we still rooted for him anyway. Across four seasons, we theorised, sympathised, debated who his “best girl” was, and made it into a cult classic, fan-girling all over the likes of Joe Goldberg like a guilty pleasure. But Joe isn’t a guilty pleasure. He’s a predator with a tragic backstory, one who commits horrific acts and sells them to us as love. And time and again, we have willingly bought into that lie, knowing the truth.
That’s what makes Adolescence so essential in this conversation because Jamie may not be as far removed from Joe as we’d like to believe. Give him time and no intervention and he might just get there. Which is why both these shows watched together can be a great study on what happens when a young man, full of unchecked anger, entitlement, and emotional repression, begins to rot from the inside. One of YOU’s strengths has always been its first-person narrative. It traps the viewer in Joe’s head, making you buy into in his logic, even when your gut tells you it’s wrong. That’s why Penn Badgley’s portrayal has been so widely praised, not just for his performance but for his repeated and vocal criticism of the character he plays. He’s been clear from the start, Joe is not a misunderstood romantic; he’s a monster. And what’s remarkable is how Penn has never tried to distance himself from that reality by hiding behind “it’s just a meaty role.” In fact, he’s called out viewers for romanticising Joe, even when the show itself is designed to bait that exact reaction.
However, the sad reality is that we do have a strong appetite for watching messed-up people do messed-up things. We binge on it, dissect it, even write think-pieces and create fan edits. But we rarely stop to ask why we’re drawn to these characters in the first place. Hence, the comparison to Indian films like Kabir Singh or Animal often arises because why can't our actors own up to the toxicity of their characters the way Penn does? But the truth is, those films aren’t structured like YOU. They’re not built to confront or interrogate the viewer. They often indulge the fantasy rather than unmask it.
YOU, on the other hand, was always about drawing us in and then turning the lens back or flipping that obsession back on us. That’s the show’s most brutal twist - it’s not just Joe who’s on trial by the end, it’s us too. Because every time he justified a violent act with a wounded-boy narrative and how he doesn't have a choice, we’re reminded of how easy it is to excuse monstrous behaviour when it’s wrapped in charisma or pain. And every time we went along with it, we became complicit in his narrative. In that way, YOU makes a bold claim that people like Joe Goldberg don’t just appear out of nowhere. We all play a part in creating them. And every time we excuse or overlook behaviour like Joe’s, we’re feeding into the very system that produces more like him.
The final season doesn’t hold back on verbalising this truth. After all the stalking, the manipulation, the murders, Joe ends up right where he started back in New York. But this time, the mirror turns, and he can’t get away. It forces him to confront his past, making him relive every woman he’s hurt, every denial he has lived as the truth and delivers a kind of poetic justice. But strangely, the people who end up squirming the most are the audience. Because what if the real reason we hate characters like Joe is because they remind us of something we’d rather not look at? That’s the quiet power of YOU. It doesn’t let you walk away clean. It forces you to sit with the uncomfortable possibility that the line between fascination and endorsement is thinner than we think. That our appetite for stories about broken, dark, mysterious characters doing terrible things isn’t as innocent as we claim.
And now that it’s over, YOU’s legacy isn’t just about its shocking plotlines or cleverly written suspense. It’s about the long, unflinching stare it forced us to hold with our own contradictions. And much of that is thanks to Penn Badgley, who made it a point to draw a rigid boundary. Joe was never a role to be glamorised. He was a reflection of everything we need to reckon with and Penn never let us forget that! This is what other actors, as well as audiences, can learn from because let’s admit it, we don't want to confront why we buy into specific fantasies in the first place. And isn’t that something we should be more mindful of now more than ever, given that the lines between fiction and reality are getting increasingly blurred? Leaving you with some food for thought!
You season 5 is now streaming on Netflix!
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