You Almost Ended With Joe’s Death — Here’s Why It Didn’t
The show almost had a very different ending.
Spoiler alert: This post discusses the series finale of You.
Joe Goldberg’s fate was up in the air when You’s writing team was working on the fifth and final season. Ultimately, the killer series ended on a note of dramatic irony with Joe in a cage of his own as he faces a lifetime in prison for his various murders. But before that was the ending, there was a plan to cap off the show with Joe’s death.
“[That] was very much an option,” co-showrunner Michael Foley revealed to TVLine. “We debated it as a room. We were on the same page in terms of him getting his comeuppance, having to face what he is, and giving a voice to the victims and to the loved ones of the victims. We were all very much on the same page about all of that, but when it came down to the specifics of his capture versus death versus seeing him in court and all of that, there were just too many ways to go — and we were not all on the same page.”
Apparently, the writers’ thought process mirrored Bronte’s in the finale, with both coming to the conclusion that death would be “too easy” of an ending for Joe.
“We thought he needed to be punished, and we liked the idea of him being in a cage of his own, not being able to enjoy the touch of somebody he loves, and being completely powerless,” Foley said. “That was a better punishment, not to mention a better visual than a tombstone.”
The team also discussed a surprising, supernatural ending for Joe, toying with the idea that he really did die at Bronte’s hands and realized he was a ghost in the show’s final episode. But in the end, the prison scene wound up making the most sense, and also gave Penn Badgley the opportunity to make his biggest criticism of Joe clear with You’s final line.
