After four seasons of bloodshed, will Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg wipe his hands clean or finally get caught in his web of lies? That’s the question haunting the fifth and final season of Netflix’s You, which follows the killer escapades of an identity-altering, globe-trotting stalker and murderer.
“At heart, I am a normal guy,” Joe insists in the first official trailer for the final season, released on March 10. Yet the entire two-and-a-half-minute trailer has Dirty Joe back to usual tricks—namely, lusting after a new woman while entangled with his current romantic partner. Back in “the greatest city in the world,” Joe reckons with his new life in the public eye after marrying into a Succession-esque family business. “Fame definitely took a bit of getting used to, but to live happily ever after you had to bury your old self,” he says. But it only takes meeting a red-haired beauty in a bookstore, plus some unsavory headlines about his past, to thrust Joe back into a life of crime. “You want to kill everyone who’s suspicious of us for the rest of our lives,” says his wife Kate (Charlotte Ritchie). He gamely replies, “Is that so wrong if it’s for the right reasons?” On January 16, the streamer released its first glimpse at the show’s remaining episodes, which will bring Joe back to his old stomping grounds of New York City. “Here we are, together again, back to where it began,” he says in a voiceover. “A lot has happened these many years together—identities, cities, loves, complications—but all that led me here, to now, to where I was always meant to be. And the one constant, the one thing that’s always been there for me, is you. You, who have been there the whole time and will be there with me until the end. Goodbye, you.”
Who Is in You Season Five?
Badgley’s Joe ended the fourth season committed (and very much indebted to) his British partner Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), an art dealer who hails from a prominent family. She’s set to return for the new season, along with a few of her family members. The Flight Attendant’s Griffin Matthews will play Joe’s “snarky yet loyal” brother-in-law Teddy Lockwood, who “brings authenticity and empathy to a family for whom such things are a foreign concept,” according to Tudum.
Pitch Perfect’s Anna Camp has been cast as Kate’s identical twin sisters, Reagan and Maddie Lockwood. Reagan is “the cunning, cutthroat CFO of the Lockwood Corp who has her eyes on the throne and will crush any adversary…be they family or not.” Meanwhile, Maddie is “a thrice-divorced socialite whose job is ‘vaguely PR.’ But make no mistake,” the description continues, “a master manipulator lies beneath Maddie’s frivolous facade.”
Lest you think a(nother) marriage license will prevent Joe from setting his sights on a(nother) doomed heroine, The Handmaid’s Tale star Madeline Brewer also joins You as Bronte, “an enigmatic and free-spirited playwright who gets a job at Joe’s new bookstore,” per Tudum. “As the two connect over literature and loss, Bronte stokes in Joe a nostalgia for his former self, causing him to question everything his life has become.”
Rounding out the new additions are Baby Reindeer’s recently Emmy-nominated Nava Mau as Detective Marquez, Pete Ploszek as Joe’s dependable brother-in-law Harrison, Natasha Behnam as fiery hipster Dominique, Tom Francis as aspiring author Clayton, and b as Phoenix, who moves to New York for a fresh start.
The first teaser for the final season also invites the possibility that some of Joe’s former foes and flames, many of which he snuffed out himself, could return to haunt him. Among the faces to pop up were Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle), Benji (Lou Taylor Pucci), Cary (Travis Van Winkle) and Sherry Conrad (Shalita Grant), and Delilah Alves (Carmela Zumbado). “We have kept scrupulous track of everybody who knows anything about Joe who’s not dead,” executive producer Sera Gamble, who transferred showrunning duties to fellow EPs Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo ahead of the fifth season, told TVLine at the conclusion of last season, adding, “The ones who are dead could still appear in dreams and hallucinations.” As Gamble sees it, “There are some very smart people who are alive. Some of them are in jail, and some of them are basically in witness protection, but there’s no reason to believe he’s safe.”
What Will You Season Five Be About?
You’s London-set fourth season ended with a massive twist that unwittingly placed Joe back in the Big Apple. Thanks to Kate, his trust-fund-endowed partner with powerful connections, Joe has unlimited resources to fold back into his old life. After framing his marriage to Love Quinn as an abusive one (on her part instead of his) during an interview with New York Magazine, Joe even regains access to the son they had together, Henry. “We always knew we wanted him to go back to New York, have a homecoming, have his real name, shave his beard, and look like Joe Classic, but that he would be much more in the category of people he used to watch from afar,” Gamble told The Cut. “Now he has near unlimited resources. He has the support of powerful people and he has a lot less ambivalence about what he does in private. So, that’s the setup.”
As for what else to expect in the final episodes, there may be less sex than in previous seasons—but no shortage of deceit. “He’s not on an arc of redemption,” Badgley previously told Vanity Fair of where his impulsive character is headed next. “This seems to be a question on people’s minds, but I don’t think that is what anyone who’s making this is interested in exploring. That suggests a number of things, [and] it’s not what we’re here to do.”
When Does You Season Five Come Out?
Although the show’s fourth season was released in two parts—the first half in February 2023 and the second the following month—all 10 episodes of You season five will drop on Thursday, April 24.
Could Joe Finally Face Consequences?
As much as You has leaned into Joe’s twisted charm and literary musings, the show has never fully let us forget that he’s a murderer with a body count high enough to rival any prestige drama villain. With the final season looming, the question on everyone’s mind is simple: Will Joe finally pay for what he’s done?
The creative team seems determined to give fans some closure. In previous interviews, co-creator Sera Gamble hinted that the show would never let Joe off scot-free. “From the beginning, we always said this is not a story about a good guy,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “This is a story about someone who thinks he’s the good guy. But that delusion can’t last forever.”
And it looks like that delusion will come to a head in New York City—Joe’s personal and psychological ground zero. From his early days lurking in Mooney’s bookstore to becoming a doting husband and father in the suburbs (and later, a London professor and faux detective), Joe’s journey has come full circle. With so many ghosts from the past reappearing—both literally and metaphorically—it’s likely that the show’s final arc will confront the monster Joe’s tried so hard to suppress.
Will the Series End with Joe’s Death?
Of course, the ultimate end for a character like Joe could very well be death—either by his own hand or someone else’s. Fans have long debated whether death would be too merciful a conclusion for someone who’s caused so much pain. Then again, maybe eternal survival is the crueler fate.
“I think a satisfying ending for You doesn’t necessarily mean Joe dies,” Badgley mused during a 2023 podcast interview. “It might mean something worse: accountability. A reckoning. Something he’s never truly experienced.”
Could we see Joe finally brought to justice—perhaps even imprisoned or publicly exposed? The trailer hints at several characters circling closer to the truth, and it’s entirely possible that someone from his past, presumed dead or otherwise, holds the key to his undoing.
What Can Fans Expect from the Final Episodes?
Expect high tension, psychological warfare, and a deep dive into Joe’s fractured psyche. The final season promises to strip Joe down to his rawest form. With Bronte—the mysterious playwright—drawing out the old Joe, and Kate struggling to maintain their image in New York’s elite circles, it seems the cracks are forming fast.
There’s also the looming presence of his past victims—some real, some imagined. If the teaser is any indication, viewers may be treated to a dreamlike collision of Joe’s fractured memories, guilt, and fantasies. And in the end, we may discover that the person Joe has been running from all along… is himself.
Final Word
You season five is shaping up to be a fitting farewell—bloody, seductive, and psychological to the very end. With old enemies re-emerging, new temptations on the horizon, and a reckoning long overdue, Joe Goldberg’s story is about to reach its dramatic (and possibly deadly) conclusion.
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