Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘You’ follows the story of a serial killer named Joe Goldberg. He is looking for his perfect match, someone for whom he’ll do anything, even if that means killing a few people. Despite his desire to find true love, Joe always kills the person with whom he sees a future. In the first three seasons of ‘You,’ every woman he falls in love with dies. While there are many reasons why history keeps repeating itself with Joe, he attributes it to the fact that he couldn’t be honest about who he was with any of those women. None accepted him for who he was, but all that changed this time. This time, he comes clean about his past to Kate, and it looks like she has accepted him. But how much does she really know? Let’s find out. SPOILERS AHEAD
Joe’s Realization of True Nature
Throughout the story, Joe Goldberg kills many people. Still, he doesn’t consider himself a cold-blooded psychopath who will kill anyone. There is a reason behind all of his killings. His victims deserved it; he would never hurt an innocent person. At least, that’s what he tells himself. It’s either that or it was an accident, an honest mistake on his part. Joe has always found an excuse for himself, no matter what he did. This changes when Marienne dies.
Despite chasing her halfway around the world, Joe wanted to prove to Marienne that he was not a bad person and won’t kill her simply because she rejected him. However, by the end of Season 4, he does just that. This makes him realize that he is the problem and that killing himself is the only way to escape all his troubles. His evil alter-ego, which has taken the form of Rhys, will never let go of him. As long as his murderous side is alive, his loved ones will always be at risk of dying.
Joe jumps into the river, hoping to end his story but is saved. In the hospital, Kate comes to see him. Because he has received a second chance at life, he decides to come clean to Kate. He admits that his fall wasn’t an accident. However, he doesn’t correct her when she mentions her father’s death. She believes that he was killed for money when in truth, it was he who killed Tom Lockwood. Still, he confesses that he has done terrible things, including killing people.
Kate believes that the murder that Joe committed is that of Rhys Montrose. She already knew that her father had “made” Joe kill Rhys. Tom planned to use this to get Joe out of Kate’s life. But now that Tom is dead, Kate is in charge of his empire, and she uses the resources at her disposal to wipe away the DNA evidence that could have sent Joe to prison for the rest of his life. Kate makes it clear that she is ready to look past all the bad things that Joe has done because she believes that he is, at his core, a good person.
With the promise to keep each other good, Kate tells Joe to tell her everything she needs to know about all the shady things he has done. He begins with his name, but we don’t know if he really told Kate everything he has ever done. Considering that Joe didn’t tell Kate the truth about Tom’s death, we can assume that Joe is not yet ready to show Kate just how ruthless he can be. Falling back into his pattern of playing victim, Joe must have told everything he needed to prove to Kate that he was the person she wanted him to be.
At the end of the season, it is revealed that Kate has used her power to bring Joe Goldberg back to the world. Before this, everyone thought he had been killed by his wife, Love Quinn, who perished in a house fire. Now, the story has been spun so that Joe has come out as the survivor of a violent crime. Love has been painted as the psycho-wife who tried killing her husband, while Joe is the cautious father who puts his son in safe hands before escaping a dangerous marriage. It is possible that Joe told the same story to Kate to convince her that Love was the villain of his story. We can assume he didn’t go into the details of what happened with Beck and Marienne. No matter how much Kate loves him, she wouldn’t have been able to see past the fact that all of his previous girlfriends have died at his hands.
Another detail that suggests that Joe has been very calculating about the truth he revealed to Kate is the reflection he sees in the final scene. Joe had wanted to kill the serial killer inside him, which manifested as Rhys. In the final scene, however, when he looks at his reflection, Rhys stares back at him, and Joe is not bothered by it. He seems to not only have made peace with this side of him but has also allowed it to take over control. Considering all this, it is clear that Joe has not yet revealed his true self to Kate. He told her just enough to come back as Joe Goldberg but kept the more sinister details of his past a secret.
Read More: Did Joe Hallucinate Rhys in You Season 4, Explained
