By Hannie Durham Arnold, Year 10
If you’ve been browsing new releases on Netflix fairly recently you may have noticed a new show called “you”.
Warning! There will be spoilers ahead!
The Netflix original starring actors Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail follows the love story of Joe Goldberg and Guinevere Beck. Joe notices Beck in his bookstore, she is portrayed as “ not like other girls” and when they speak there is an instant connection. The first several episodes are narrated solely by Joe, a sweet, funny, hopeless romantic who soon becomes extremely obsessed with Beck. He eliminates obstacles just to be with her, even if that means committing various crimes, Joe is wholeheartedly devoted to making Guinevere Beck his one and only.
The show has an eerie vibe to it as we watch Beck fall in love with her stalker, the dramatic irony is constant and intense. The series also toys with the audience’s feelings for Joe, despite him being a creepy stalker, his charm and good intentions makes the watcher like him as a character and want him to win over Beck. We don’t want to love Joe, but we just do!
An interesting way this is shown, is in an episode where Paco (Joe’s young neighbour) is reading Frankenstein, Joe mentions that the reader knows that Frankenstein is bad but still likes them anyways. Joe sees himself as the hero, even though he’s the villain.
Joe does worse and worse things the more we watch, the show gets increasingly intense and more like a thriller than a romcom.
Finally (massive spoiler alert) Joe has to kill Beck as she finds out what he has been hiding this whole time. He tries to make her understand that he is the good guy, he tries to show her he just wanted the best for her and in an attempt to escape him she pretended to be persuaded. The audience is not aware she is faking it (although it was easily predicted).
Finally he has to kill her. Whether this was expected or not completely depends on you. As some believed his obsession and love for Beck would overpower his ability to kill her. However others have said that a killer will be a killer no matter who the victim.
At the end of the series Joe sees his ex Candace, who is mentioned many times during the series as there was an interest as to where she had gone after her split with Joe.
Overall I believe the show was captivating with a perfect balance of humor and thrill, and I strongly recommend the show to anyone.
