New Delhi: The finale of Netflix’s You, released on April 24, 2025, closes the chapter on Joe Goldberg with an end that’s as suffocating as it makes you weep, confusing, right? Unlike the brainy twists & jerks of earlier seasons, where we witnessed women and poor victims trapped in Joe’s chilling glass case, Season 5’s claustrophobia is surprisingly emotional, a not-so-balanced tale of love, obsession, and moral responsibility that leaves you suffering with a constant question of what’s right and what’s wrong.

Penn Badgley’s character, Joe, the serial killer, the psychopath, we’ve begrudgingly followed for almost seven years, finally meets his fate, and while the journey isn’t as smooth as he would’ve expected, it delivers a powerful lesson: nothing, not even a traumatic past, justifies murder. Karma, it turns out, always catches up.

This season finds Joe back in the lanes of New York, free, famous, playing the part of a polished man, also husband to billionaire Kate Lockwood (Charlotte Ritchie), father to their son, Henry, and somebody who has stories of murders, fresh & alive in the back of his mind. But now enters Bronte (Madeline Brewer), a redhead girl with big blue eyes, a writer who stirs Joe’s obsessive nature with controlling characters & fantasy that also unravels his carefully curated life. What follows isn’t the normal, mundane cat-and-mouse chase of old seasons but a psychological quagmire. Joe’s story that plays in his mind was once sharp and seductive, but now feels stale and oppressive, trapping us in his unnecessary justifications. And again! As the title suggests, the suffocation we feel while watching You is nothing we’ve not felt before, but this time the suffocation lies in being stuck in this love-drunk limbo, yes AGAIN! This time, Bronte and Joe’s twisted romance blurs the line between devotion and destruction, making it hard to discern hero from villain. But I think that’s what writers wanted.

The finale chapter leans hard into this moral confusion, which reminds us, as the saying goes, that wrongs have shorter legs; they can only run so far. Joe’s reckoning, while not the blood-soaked spectacle some fans craved, is poetic in its restraint. Without spoiling, he ends up caged, alone, and pathetic, a shadow of the charismatic predator we met in Season 1. Characters like Kate, Bronte, and returning figures such as Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) and Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman) break Joe’s delusions & self-obsession, proving that his lies can’t outrun justice forever. Badgley is magnetic, his charm curdling into desperation, making Joe’s downfall both satisfying and haunting.
Yet, the season isn’t without flaws. The pacing sags in the middle, with subplots like the Lockwood twins (Anna Camp as Reagan and Maddie) veering into melodramatic territory. The double plot, one donning the shoes of the other after killing her for her superior complex and constant bullying, falls flat.

We’ve been seduced by Joe’s rationalisations, yet repelled by his crimes. Season 5 forces us to confront this complicity, asking why we ever empathised with a monster. The answer lies in its boldest lesson: no amount of charm or a “horrendous past” can excuse murder. Final scene where we finally see the women, living their second chances, moving on uplifted, unhinged, accountable, simply gives you the sense of completion. Gives you the sigh you’ve been waiting for.

You Season 5 has come to an end, we won’t see Joe Goldberg attacking any other woman, but the letter from his ‘fans’ that he continued getting in prison also leaves us with a lingering questions: what does it say about us that we watched him for so long? Are there people who sympathise with him? What does that tell us about the society & also YOU…