Dhruv Sharma
From your social media security to pretty much everything in every other aspect of your personal life, ‘You‘ is the kind of show that can easily make you doubt your safety in the transparent world that we live in. But more than anything else, the show’s depiction of its main character, Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), creeps right under your skin. With his superficial charm, “nice guy” demeanor, and unforgivable behavior, Joe does whatever it takes to have the girl of his dreams.
The show uses a handful of plot devices, some character attributes, and of course, some lovemaking scenes to keep you entertained as a viewer. As problematic as the Netflix series might seem, if you were even mildly intrigued by it, here’s the list of best ‘You’ sex scenes. SPOILERS AHEAD!
10. Stalker Alert! (Season 1 Episode 1)
When you first see bookstore manager Joe Goldberg, you see an innocent young man who wouldn’t even harm a fly. But then it begins. He meets writer Guinevere Beck for the first time and is instantly drawn to her. Soon, he begins to obsess over her, and Beck, who seemingly does not own any curtains, becomes a victim of his wackadoo stalking. Joe does everything from monitoring all of her social interactions to even getting inside her apartment and stealing some of her stuff. This also reflects on the kind of world we live in. With the ease of access to information, pretty much anyone can get their hands on our personal information.
Joe creeps up on Beck’s window every single day and just watches her, making her a subject of his voyeurism. In the first episode, he first discovers that she already has a boyfriend, and he even watches the two of them have sex through her window. This scene gets even creepier when he actually starts imagining himself with her while he hides in the bushes right outside her home. With this, his obsession for her grows even further, and he targets her philandering boyfriend.
9. Joe Does It Again! (Season 3 Episode 9)
After having dangerous fantasies about Marienne, a single mother Joe meets at the library, he decides he doesn’t want to endanger the unsuspecting woman’s life by having an affair with her. However, one afternoon after consoling her, the inevitable happens, and Joe and Marienne get together. Scenes of their lovemaking are ominously interspersed with shots of the two prisoners Joe has locked in his basement.
By sleeping with Marienne, Joe essentially falls down the slippery slope he’s tried to avoid. He gets the young mother involved in his dangerous affairs, and Love eventually finds out and confronts Marianne with a knife. Marienne is an innocent participant in Joe’s schemes and the lovemaking scenes are tender, emphasizing the brutal reality of who our hero actually is, and what he is capable of.
8. Eight-second Joe (Season 1 Episode 3)
While Joe still tries his best to convince Beck that he is “the one,” Beck seems to be unsure about him. To forget about Benji (who is “out of the way”), Beck hooks up with other men who, according to Joe, are “millennial man-boys.” But soon after this, Joe is finally able to get closer to her, and she even opens up to him about her father. Somewhere near the end of the third episode, Beck invites him home, and the two of them finally make love. Unfortunately for him, he does not last too long and is labeled as “eight-second Joe” by Beck and her friend, Peach. With this, for once, out of sheer disappointment, Joe finally backs off, but the stalking still continues.
7. I Would Kill For You (Season 3 Episode 2)
In this scene, Joe and Love finally reconnect after being at odds ever since they move into their new suburban lifestyle. With the baby keeping them occupied, to say nothing of Joe’s infatuation with the neighbor, the central couple starts season 3 on a distinctly disconnected note. Of course, the fact that they both know each other to be murderers also adds to the tension.
When they finally get together after ages, we see some of the old animalistic sparks that Joe and Love had for each other. It is an extended, tender sequence and acts as a good foil for the ensuing chaos. The scene is also bookended by reminders of the couple’s new situation, and we see them put their infant to sleep before getting frisky. More in keeping with the theme of ‘You,’ soon after they finish making love, both Joe and Love proclaim that they would kill for the other (which is ironically something they’ve both already proved).
6. A Second Chance (Season 1 Episode 4)
During one of his stalking endeavors, he discovers that Beck has been talking to another man, who even invites her to a Charles Dickens festival in Nyack. As expected, out of jealousy, Joe follows her there and makes sure that she has no clue about his presence. He soon discovers that the man she had been texting was no one but her father, and he is also forced to reveal to her that he, too, is at the festival.
One thing leads to another, and Joe finds himself having dinner with Beck’s father and her family. After an argument between Beck and her father, Joe reaches out to her and, yet again, makes her fall for him. This is when they end up having sex all over again, and this time around, Joe not only manages to last longer but also ends up impressing Beck. Compared to other sex scenes of the series, this one has more of a comical appeal, and at the same time, it also catches you off-guard.
Quite often, realism is thrown right out of the window when it comes to portraying sex on screen. Characters just delve right into the act of sex, and there is literally no seamless foreplay leading right up to it. However, in this scene, there is surprisingly some authenticity to it. Along with this, there is a tinge of comedy as well. The two of them end up at Joe’s place this time, and Joe, who has been stealing and hoarding Beck’s stuff all this while, has everything lying around his apartment. So while the two of them make out, he distracts her and, at the same time, tries to hide all of her belongings. This kind of steals away the slight realism that it has but still proves to be mildly entertaining.
5. A New Beginning (Season 1 Episode 7)
Because of certain events that follow, Joe’s relationship with Beck goes completely downhill, and she just gets more distant with time. Surprisingly, he even realizes that he needs to let her go, and he calls off their relationship. This is when, somewhere near the end of the episode, he runs into Karen, and just to get his mind off Beck, he sleeps with her. However, this soon leads to a relationship, and though Karen does not realize it, she seems to be nothing but Joe’s rebound.
4. A Reunion; A Brutal Mistake (Season 1 Episode 8)
Unknowingly, Joe starts comparing Karen with Beck but still feels happy being around her. Meanwhile, though she still misses Joe, Beck moves on with her life and even writes a book about Karen, which becomes a major bestseller. But eventually, to her dismay, she runs into Joe again, and the two of them end up having sex more than once. From bedrooms to changing rooms to many other places, they can feel the thrill of getting caught. And that right there marks the end of all the sex scenes from season one. The episodes that follow take a grim tone and as for Beck, well, let’s just say things don’t end too well. She was better off writing about her dead best friend.
3. A Night to Remember (Season 3 Episode 8)
Few sex scenes are as tense as the ones where Joe and Love decide to have an evening of group lovemaking with their power couple neighbors Sherry and Cary. There is some playful flirtation, and Cary introduces them to his collection of sexual stimulants. However, Love gets increasingly agitated as she watches Sherry climb atop Joe, and actually watches them do the deed! The lovemaking is understandably interrupted by an emotional outburst.
To add another twisted layer, the scene also depicts Joe visualizing Marienne (instead of Sherry) atop himself, even as Love watches. Joe has fantasized about Marienne in the past, but this is his most vivid experience yet.
Apart from being a tense and steamy scene, this sequence also marks the beginning of things really taking a turn for the worse, especially for Sherry and Cary. It also reminds us of how much more attached Love is to Joe than vice versa. Seeing her try and control her violent tendencies as she watches her husband with another woman sets the stage for Love’s subsequent vengeful actions.
2. A New Obsession (Season 2 Episode 3)
Joe changes his name and moves to LA to start afresh. Aspiring to be a “good man” now, he forces himself to leave his old methods behind. But at the end of the day, he is who he is, and the demons of his past will always be with him. He meets yet another woman and starts obsessing about her all over again. However, this time around, he holds himself back from actually getting close to her and keeps things platonic. Time and again, he reminds himself how Love (his new “victim”) is “different from all the other women he has met.”
With this, he eventually does submit to his desires, and after brewing things up for a very long time now, the two of them have sex for the first time, but little does he know that what started as an obsession will later lead to something much more gruesome. Season 3 takes a step back when it comes to unnecessary nudity and sex, and in more than one way, it makes almost every sex scene significant in context with the overarching plot.
1. A Consequence (Season 2 Episode 4)
Episode 4 features another scene wherein Delilah, Joe’s landlady, has sex with a cop. As insignificant as this scene may seem at that moment, it later becomes a major plot point. After Joe’s breakup with Love, Delilah and Joe get close to each other in the episodes that follow.
In the seventh episode, they end up having sex out on the corner of a street, and that’s when a cop catches them. Soon after this, Delilah’s cop “friend” shows up and refuses to help them. However, soon after this, he does a background check on Joe and realizes that something is truly fishy about him. And eventually, it’s Delilah who gets into for being in some sort of relationship with the two men. A minor slip-up leads to some major consequences in the episodes that follow.
Read More: Where Was You Filmed?
