‘You’ Season 5 Review: Bad Season, Great Ending

Provision Disclaimer: Netflix provided me with the entirety of You (Season 5) in advance of release to complete this review.

The fifth season of You is now streaming on Netflix; it picks up some years after the events of Season 4 and serves as a finale for the entirety of the show, which sees Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg finally face a reckoning. Light spoilers ahead. 

IS YOU SEASON 5 GOOD?

The season itself, as a single season of TV, isn’t great. The pacing feels off, most of the characters feel unnecessary, and it almost seems like showrunners Michael Foley (How To Get Away With Murder) and Justin W. Lo (Prodigal Son) weren’t aware this was the final season until they started to write Episode 7, titled “#JoeGoldberg“. From then on, it’s an enjoyable three and a half hours that you have to endure about six very sluggish ones to appreciate.

The season starts with Joe meeting his new obsession, Bronte, played by Madeline Brewer (The Handmaid’s Tale). She looks incredibly young, which (intentionally or not) adds a layer of eyebrow-raising to Joe’s attraction, something he tries hard to fight off due to his marriage with Kate Lockwood (Charlotte Ritchie). They’ve returned to New York, and Joe is famous, which is a character beat that the show doesn’t do much with except for justifying how he has certain levels of access. Joe having these resources, as himself, is an incredible set-up that the show seems perfectly happy to ignore until it needs him to buy an apartment, for example. His notoriety is shoehorned into a quick scene in the first episode and not picked up again, which makes for a really frustrating viewing experience.

A great deal of the newly introduced characters feel unnecessary, with many of their storylines failing to land because it seems the season doesn’t understand it’s meant to be wrapping up almost 7 years of storytelling. For instance, there’s a poorly justified twin plot involving way too much Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect) that doesn’t amount to anything spectacular by the season’s (and series’!) end.

Much of the conflict in the first 60% of the season feels like it’s stalling the conclusion rather than setting it up which, when viewing the season in isolation, simply isn’t satisfying.

However…

YOU SEASON 5 IS A SATISFYING END TO THE SHOW

The ultimate resolution of the show, and in particular where characters end up (and how they get there) is genuinely cathartic. The final four episodes of You feel like a real love letter to the fans, calling back important storylines, characters, themes, and the show’s ultimate message about predatory behavior, toxic masculinity, and shepherding the next generation of men. Characters involved in delivering that message are ones the audience has met before, including some major fan favorites who get to be in some of the most important scenes that the show has ever had.

That privilege isn’t just extended to old characters, with one new addition in particular having incredibly juicy hooks to a classic You face. This part is executed incredibly well, with Joe’s modus operandi (research) being used against him in a very slick way that actually does help set up an explosive reckoning.

The way that Joe’s delusion carries him right to the bitter end is a strong, if not slightly risky, move that pays off. People like Joe don’t change, and they will never be wrong as long as they can justify their actions using an internal logic, and the show manages to express that level of narcissism so incredibly efficiently that I wish the rest of Season 5 was written like that.

YOU SEASON 5 IS THE DARKEST OF THE SHOW

The draw for a character like Joe Goldberg is for audiences to see just how far he’ll go so this season makes a big effort to try and cull some of the attraction felt by the audience by making him go past multiple points of no return because, now, we’ve got a new member of the family: Henry Goldberg (Frankie DeMaio). Joe’s relationship with his son is one of the stronger elements of the season and, luckily, there’s a lot of meat in those early episodes to help assuage some of the more frustrating parts from the first six.

There’s a repressive aspect to how Joe interacts with his son that gets very close to neglect, in some regards, with how lackadaisical he is when Henry exhibits some concerning behavior. Reminiscent of Big Little Lies, this season arguably does a better job of showing the effects of the male ego left unchecked than anything in recent memory. Then, Joe’s reaction to an obstacle regarding his son is perfectly in-character for him, and is probably the darkest the show’s gone.

SHOULD YOU WATCH YOU SEASON 5?

As a single season of television, Season 5 of You is bad. There’s no two ways about it: it’s the final season of a show that has a lot of loose ends, and it wastes six episodes on various nothing storylines. But, the final four episodes are so excellent that it makes it difficult to rate the season. I can’t express just how different the those four episodes feel; they’re better paced, they’re incredibly well-written, they’re rewarding, and the ultimate ending for the show is one that I think fans of every character will be happy with. I’m almost tempted to advise you to just watch the recaps for Episodes 1-6 and then pick up from Episode 7, but I won’t. You’ve made it through 40 (Quinn) episodes, you might as well watch the lot.

WHEN IS YOU SEASON 5 STREAMING?

As luck would have it, Season 5 is now streaming globally on Netflix. Check it out here.

In the epic fifth and final season, Joe Goldberg returns to New York to enjoy his happily ever after… until his perfect life is threatened by the ghosts of his past and his own dark desires.

Check out the trailer below.