Penn Badgley unpacks the hidden meaning of Joe’s final words in YOU, and we all missed it

After five seasons, 23 murders, and enough instances of Stockholm syndrome to keep psychiatrists in work for years, Netflix’s YOU has come to a close with Joe Goldberg’s final incarceration. Penn Badgley, you are now finally off the hook.

I’m not going to pretend like YOU season five was a satisfying end to the show, but at the same time, it wasn’t the worst possible ending. Bronte, Kate, Marienne, and Nadia were the last girls standing as Joe was finally put behind bars for his many (many) crimes. Glaring plot holes and anticlimactic endings aside, having Joe cooped up in prison for the rest of his life is at least some kind of justice for his victims.

Still, after playing the character for nearly a decade, Penn Badgley obviously has some feelings about Joe’s final moments.

Penn Badgley pointed something out about Joe’s final words in YOU

Someone seriously needs to count how many times Joe Goldberg said “YOU” in that sultry “I’m going to kill everyone you love” kinda way. It was a theme that ran throughout the five seasons, so much so that it’s the final thing we hear from Joe Goldberg as he breaks the fourth wall in his prison cell.

“It’s unfair, putting all of this on me. Aren’t we all just products of our environment? Hurt people hurt people. I never stood a chance… Maybe we have a problem as a society. Maybe we should fix what’s broken within us. Maybe the problem isn’t me. Maybe it’s you,” he said.

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Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about that final scene, Penn Badgley noted how the statement drums up a few questions about the message of YOU. Is he merely trying to shift the blame to someone else? Or is YOU some meta comment on society as a whole?

“It’s both. It’s a cop out from him, but it’s also true because, at the end of the day, he’s not real and we are,” he explained. “And so we’ve been watching a show about him, and he no longer exists, so it is about us. It couldn’t be about him. He’s not real. So that’s kind of plain and simple to me.”

He further argued that YOU’s final statement could be interpreted either way, and that it’s mostly down to what the viewer wanted from Joe and the show as a whole.

“I mean, I think again: do we need to see him change? What would actually be the conditions for him to change meaningfully? Is that what anybody wants to see?” he added. “That would actually be a very different show with a very different pace and tone and ethos, and it wouldn’t be as popular as it is. So it’s frustratingly true, I think, his statement in the end.”

Season five of YOU is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

Featured image credit: Netflix