‘You’ Season 1 Messed Me Up, and Here’s Why

No. I will not watch You Season 2

And yes, major spoiler alert.

‘You’ Season 1 starring Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg, and Elizabeth Lail as Guinevere Beck. At first, it was seemingly like a typical love story, boy meets girl, the girl is attractive, the boy fell in love, and then it went far to the stalking and several murders happened. Yup, you ain't watching a romance genre series, it’s a psychological-thriller series, and beware: it may screw your mind.

Why, you may ask? Am I being over-dramatic? Maybe, but here’s why…

It all started with an innocent visit to a book store

by Guinevere Beck, or (only) Beck, for the rest of the series. Beck came to this not-suspicious-at-all book store, strolling around and then met Joe. She asked him about the book she wanted to buy and gave him a super friendly (and kinda flirty?) gesture. Gurrrl, if only she knew that was the beginning of the end.

Wait, what?

Ok, so let’s discuss this from the beginning. Meet Beck, an aspiring writer that apparently does more partying and random hookup than writing that lived in New York. One day, she came to the bookstore where Joe working as a Bookstore Manager and met him there for the first time. After a little chit-chat, Beck paid the book with credit card that had her name on it, and left — unknowingly that she just gave Joe her personal information. Later on, Joe became interested in knowing Beck more and started to look her up in social media. As if he’s not satisfied of the information he got online, he actually stalked her doing yoga classes, meet her thesis advisor, and even when Beck was having her ladies night out (ugh, creepy stalker: mode on).

So later on, Joe learned that Beck has a boyfriend, named Benji. Benji potrayed as a basic f — boy that ran bottled soda business. One day, Joe stalked Beck to her poetry night out (?) in a bar, where she performed her poet in front of her friends and the rest of the visitor, expecting Benji came but he bailed out (because, f — boy, what did u expect girl?). Anyway, Beck was brokenhearted, drunk, crying, and fell off the train station peron. Joe, who stalked her all night long, had no choice but to save her from the incoming train. Beck met Joe once again, had little chit chat in the cab, exchange email because her phone went missing (basically Joe stole it, yup, bare with me) and they met Benji who waiting for Beck outside of her apartment, and showed very minimum sympathy knowing that his girlfriend almost die in the peron.

We’re coming to the ugh part.

Joe thinks that he could save Beck’s life and turned her life better, without her toxic surroundings. Started with Benji, Joe knocked Benji’s head with a hammer and locked him in the bookstore basement. After he finds a lot of useful information, he killed him. By the way, Joe tweeted stuffs from Benji’s phone so people think that Benji’s alive and safe somewhere, and he accessed Beck’s phone as well, reading all of the chats and personal information she had. After Benji died (Beck thought that Benji ghosted her — how ironic), she moved on and started to date Joe. And then, met Peach, Beck’s best friend who is super rich and smart. Besides the fact that she secretly loves Beck, she already smells something fishy about Joe since the very beginning, making Joe and Peach being Tom and Jerry for several episodes. Joe stalked and finally attacked her — attempt to murder her, but failed at first, and then he finally killed her and framed it as a suicide case.

Some episodes also goes by how Joe stalked Beck outside the city and meet her Dad, almost kill Beck’s therapist, broke up with Beck, date the sanest character in this series named Karen Minty, broke up with her, get back with Beck, haunted by his ex-girlfriend Candace (who apparently he killed as well — and the guy she cheated with), helping his 10-years-old-something neighbor named Paco from his Mom’s abusive boyfriend, and all of this just to gave us a damn-real ending:

That he locked Beck the way he did to Benji and finally killed her.

“Sometimes, we do bad things for the people we love. It doesn’t mean it’s right, it means love is more important.”

Joe Goldberg said that in the series. But goddamn, is that even love? Isn’t that obsession? This is what annoyed me the most and messed up my mind

Upon the finale of the series, Beck accidentally found out Joe’s secret box — a glory collection of Beck’s stolen panties, Benji’s teeth, Beck-Peach-Benji-Candace’s phones, and more disturbing stuffs. But the clumsy Beck just being Beck, she accidentally broke the glass and then Joe found out that Beck knows everything, smashed her head and locked her in the basement.

Before that happened, Joe was briefly dating Karen Minty and later dumped her to get back with Beck (lucky Karen). Karen, as a grown-up woman was feeling just fine when the broke up happened, and throughout of her relationships with Joe, everything was beyond fine because Karen got it all and Joe felt like she didn’t need his help, so he let her go and Karen is the only person that close to Joe that got spared from the drama because she played it smart and being a respectful-independent woman being (ladies: please take note, be like Karen Minty). One night after Beck and Joe got back together, Beck met Karen and Karen warned Beck about Joe’s true color (Karen apparently connect the dots and knew who Joe really is and his issue with Candace). Beck ignored it, and it only days after when the truth revealed.

The most disturbing part for me is when Beck woke up in the basement, freaked out and begging Joe to not hurt her which Joe responded with ‘I would never hurt people I love’ bullsh — . Then, Beck wrote scripts (with the typewriter) about how HER THERAPIST ABUSED HER, so she basically FRAMED her therapist (whom she had affair with before) with the hope that Joe would let her free because now Joe has a perfect alibi. It almost worked out, until Beck attacked Joe, try to run away, but she SADLY didn’t make it. It was a good fight, and she delivered good lines I must say, but at the end of the day, she died.

We watched 10 episodes of this guy ‘go all the way’ to make Beck’s life better, only to kill her. No matter how smart and how we root for Beck’s character to win, she lost. She died and gave a perfect alibi to cover Joe’s murder to her. So that script resulted in her therapist being caught by the police, framing him to make it like he’s the one that murdered Beck. Beck’s biggest dream to be an acknowledged book-writer achieved, only after she died.

What about Joe? At the very end of the finale, his ex-girlfriend Candace is back and alive, much to Joe’s surprise. But that’s it. He faced no consequences of killing Benji, Peach, Beck, that guy Candace cheated with, or even Ron — Paco’s Mom abusive boyfriend.

Well, oh well, that was so unfair.

So after I watch the whole series, I feel bamboozled. I spent hours to watch Joe-Beck relationship developed, only to found out Joe killed Beck by the end of it. During the movie, we learned that Joe was raised by an abusive manipulator that owned the bookstore he worked at. We get it, Joe was psychologically bruised since little. But the messed up part is that he believed that he is the good person, the best protector for Beck and manipulate us — the viewer into thinking he did all of that because of love.

But the show portrayed good messages, even though it was intense, crazy, and somewhat disturbing — that some people flipped their mind when it comes to obsession. All of the characters in the series had issues (of course, we are too), but the way Joe jumped in and think that he will save them and their problems are very disturbing. From the most basic when Joe “helped Annika” to post Peach’s ugly picture after being bullied, Joe stole Peach's book for Paco, to the extent where Joe killed every related person in Beck's life including herself. This ‘heroic mentality’ is very dangerous, especially in relationships, and the most dangerous part is, we had no idea who had this damaged psychology issue. It could be your crush, it could be the good boy next door, it could be your friends. This series showed that the world is full of crazy people so you have to protect yourself, be smart, be independent, and don’t fall in love with a stranger. Ever.

And ladies, once again, be like Karen Minty #truehero.