You Season 5 Review
Director: Marcos Siega, Pete Chatmon, and Erica Dunton
Date Created: 2025-04-24 17:00
2.5
You Season 5 Review: Directed by Marcos Siega, Pete Chatmon, and Erica Dunton, and developed by Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo, the last season stretches over 10 episodes, each about 50 minutes long. The cast is led by the ever-creepy-yet-charismatic Penn Badgley, alongside Charlotte Ritchie, Madeline Brewer, Anna Camp, Griffin Matthews, Natasha Behnam, Pete Ploszek, Tom Francis and others. The story resumes with Joe attempting to live a “normal” life in New York, but, of course, his past and internal demons will not remain buried. And the big question is: does this final ride provide fans the closure they were looking for?
You Season 5 Review
If you’ve been watching You on Netflix from the start, you may have realised that, however twisted and deplorable Joe Goldberg may be, there’s a part of us that still felt compelled to keep watching him to see just how far he’d go — and, if we’re being really honest with ourselves, we maybe even rooted for him a bit along the way. I’m guilty of it too. It has been a wild, guilty-pleasure ride full of obsession, lies, and murder. But coming into the final season of Netflix’s psychological thriller You, I was hoping for a well-executed and meaningful conclusion. Instead, it was that the story felt like it was trying to be too much too fast.
Let me start by saying that this season did something fans (myself included) have been asking for since the beginning: it finally showed Joe actually facing repercussions for his actions. But was the journey there earned? Not really.
This time, Joe is in New York, under a new identity and with a new crush, Bronte. To be honest, I expected better of her character. She appeared intelligent and not the type Joe normally goes for. And for her to ultimately prove to be one, outsmarting Joe at his own game, felt like the show had to bend over backwards to arrive there.
All season long, we watch Joe both trying to flee his own past and hatch a new future — maybe in Canada, where he has a fake passport and Bronte’s beside him. But as ever, Joe’s past comes back to bite him in the ass, and this time it’s not just some woman that he did dirty. It’s about all of his mistakes, every death he’s caused, all the lies that he’s lived, finally catching up to him.
But if there’s one thing the show has always managed well, it is Joe’s inner monologue. The part of it still got me. His voiceovers are cutting, mocking and brutally true. They’re maybe the only reason I didn’t give up midway through the season. You can feel his tug of war: father, partner, predator. That duality has always been the most interesting part of his character. But by now, it also feels repetitive. We’ve seen Joe “try to change” a million times, and there’s no point anymore. We know how it ends. And unfortunately, this predictability also reduces the impact of the finale.
One of the most powerful moments, at least for me, was when Joe’s son, Henry, labelled him a monster. That moment hit hard. No matter how hard Joe tried to keep a lid on everything, the people around him still understood who he really was. Now Henry’s words were a mirror, one that lifted itself up and showed Joe how low he had fallen. But it didn’t matter, Joe still could not help himself. Which was why he was such a dangerous character; he never thought he was in the wrong, really.
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The issue with Netflix You season 5 was that it attempted to tie up too many loose strands. We had Kate’s soap-opera journey, Maddie’s murder-red herring, Nadia emerging from prison, and even Marienne’s career as a painter. Too much was going on, and it felt like the writers were just checking off boxes instead of allowing the story to breathe. Some of the plots felt forced, such as Maddie’s all-too-easy escape because of her pregnancy or Bronte’s unplugged phone still working enough to call for help. It was too much, too fast.
The trial part in particular felt like it was phoning in its plot developments. And after all we’d seen Joe get away with, the show didn’t even let us see the courtroom drama. Instead, we just learn that Joe has been convicted and, well, there you go. No justice speeches. No breakdown in court. Just what happened in a voiceover. It was a huge disappointment, especially since we’ve been waiting for five seasons to finally see Joe face the music.
As for Joe, his last moments are a chilling reminder that society has a tendency to romanticise even the most hardened criminals. (Being Joe, he still blames the world for making him a monster.) He still won’t even accept blame in full.
And that’s where I have mixed feelings. On one hand, the show finally served Joe what was coming to him. On the other hand, we didn’t have time for it to resonate. We deserved more than voice-over and some quick scenes to reflect upon the life his past life had stitched together with him. And though I’m glad he’s not dead (that would have been way too easy), I wish the final season of You had been more considered, less chaotic.
Summing Up
On the whole, You S5 is not terrible, but it is really just disappointing. It was grounded, with a quirky main character and a warped charm that drew us in. But where did it seem to lose its fire? The finale was too rushed, the characters insufficiently developed, and the storytelling employed an excess of familiar tricks. If it truly is the end of Joe Goldberg’s story, then I must simply will it away with the words … good riddance, yet thanks for the ride.
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You 2025 is now streaming on Netflix.
