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He’s the Post-er boy.
In the fifth and final season of the Netflix thriller “You” (now streaming), Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) ends up on the cover of the New York Post.
Spoilers ahead for Season 5 of “You.”
The show follows Joe, a killer who considers himself to be a sensitive and intellectual romantic.
During the final episodes, Joe is back in New York City with his wife, Kate (Charlotte Ritchie). Because Kate is a prominent business exec who ends up all over the society pages, Joe becomes famous for being her charming supportive husband who gives to charities.
Later in the season, Joe has an affair with Bronte (Madeline Brewer), which leads to him getting exposed to the world for killing someone.
Naturally, his mugshot ends up on the cover of the New York Post, with the headline, “Joe Goldmurderer.”
Below that, it says, “humanitarian, or homicidal maniac?”
“You” showrunner and exec producer Justin W. Lo exclusively told The Post, “The seventh episode is where the entire world now knows that Joe is a murderer. We felt like the New York Post was so emblematic of the type of coverage that would go wild for that news – so that was why we chose the New York Post.”
In his sardonic voiceover, as he reads the edition of the Post with himself on the cover, Joe says, “there’s nothing quite so painful as being misunderstood.”
“You” co-showrunner and exec producer Michael Foley added, “We knew [the Post] would have the type of headline they were striving for.”
When asked if they took a long time to workshop the perfect Post-style headline before they landed on “Joe Goldmurderer,” Lo quipped: “There was a fair amount.”
The show ends with Joe in prison for his crimes.
He still doesn’t take responsibility for his actions, though. As he reads sexy letters that “fans” sent him, his voiceover scoffs at one letter: “Why am I in a cage when these crazies write me all the depraved things they want me to do to them? Maybe we have a problem as a society. Maybe the problem isn’t me…maybe it’s you.”
Lo told the Post that Joe’s final line “puts it on the rest of us.”
“It would be easy for someone to interpret that as the show saying that we are all to blame, but the point is that it’s Joe who’s putting the blame on us, and his reality is not reality itself,” he explained. “It’s a final punctuation of Joe’s belief that everyone else is the problem and not him, so it’s entirely subjective. That’s Joe’s point of view.”
Foley, however, doesn’t find it concerning that some audiences find Joe sexy.
“Not at all. I think a lot of people not only find him sexy, but they root for him and want to see him succeed,” he told the Post. “And it forces us to explore and have people ask ourselves why.”
English (US)