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Warning: the following contains spoilers for You season 5 finale.You‘s showrunners reveal how they decided on Joe Goldberg’s (Penn Badgley) fate at the end of season 5. Following a turbulent season 4, the final season takes Joe back to New York with Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) by his side, but when Kate’s company is threatened, Joe decides to take things into his own hands. Meanwhile, his karma is catching up with him in the shape of someone new. Instead of letting Joe off the easy way, the series finale sees him tasting his own medicine by landing in, essentially, a cage.
In an interview with TV Insider, co-showrunners Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo talked about how they came up with Joe’s endgame. Check out their comments below:
Michael Foley: That went on in a really loose way for multiple seasons. We always thought that, in success, we would get to complete the story, that we would likely bring him back to New York, bring him back as a different person than the person he left as. Coming into Season 1, we started to zoom in and discuss, and we found ourselves on the same page with the creator Sera Gamble, Greg Berlanti, and all the writers just in terms of some bigger ideas. Which is, Joe’s going to get his comeuppance. We are not going to redeem Joe. Joe is not going to get away with it. Joe will face some of those people whose lives he ruined. When it came down to, will he die? Will he be captured? Will he be on trial, in prison, and whatnot? That was later in the season, when it was time to make those decisions, a specific shape of it. But the overall ideas were known throughout the season. This was going to be the end for Joe Goldberg.
When asked whether there was a debate about Joe dying in the end, Lo confirmed that it was one of the ideas they talked about. He also touched upon whether Joe could escape from prison, shutting the door on the possibility. Read his comments below:
Justin W. Lo: Yes, that was definitely one of the options. And I would say we operated with that option in mind for a few months before we decided to change it at the very end. So yeah, that was definitely on the table.
I think in our minds, yes, he is [in maximum security]. I don’t think we want people thinking he could get out. We want people thinking he is there, trapped for the rest of his life, without the opportunity to have love or touch or to project his thoughts onto someone else, anyone outside of the people who are giving him these letters, or the guard he sees for a flash of the day. We wanted to isolate him because we knew that would be his greatest punishment.
More to come…
Source: TV Insider