When I say hate Joe, I mean hating him as a character and not finding him very interesting or entertaining, hating him as a person is obviously fair lol.
It would be more understandable if the cast remained the same every season, but it doesn’t. It’s basically a new cast every single season and we spend most of the show inside Joe’s inner monologue.
If Beck had still said that she couldn’t ever love Joe and wanted him to go to jail, but also revealed she was carrying his child, what would he do?
I’d argue he does feel some form of guilt for killing them, at least before season 5 anyway.
Love’s case isn’t particularly very strong. She was evil like him and tried to murder him, so his seemingly lack of guilt for killing her isn’t exactly invalid. He does look through their wedding photos after killing her and immediately becomes uncomfortable when seeing how they once looked happy in the photos. His hallucination of her is rather just him subconsciously justifying her death by saying she was unfaithful and impulsive. I’d say he feels a very small amount of guilt for killing her.
I think there’s a much stronger argument for Beck though. Her death was more devastating to him because she was innocent and he actually wanted it to work out with her, while with Love he just wanted to get away. His hallucination of her in season 2 seemed like a display of guilt: He cries, is visibly disgusted when he sees the marks on the neck, bangs on glass cage and pleads for the hallucination to not go while screaming he is sorry. Then in season 4, his subconscious doesn’t seem to justify the murder. The Beck he speaks to in his dream doesn’t list the justifications for Joe killing her, it just calls him out for being pathetic and tells him that it doesn’t matter if she hurt his feelings because he literally killed her. Even in season 5, he doesn’t justify the murder of her. He justifies why the relationship was not right by calling her immature and a child, but that’s not the same as justifying the actual murder.
Yes, WITH THE BUN.
it was funnier in my head
Well, at least I think so. 🤷♂️
It’s always bothered me that Joe’s mother wasn’t a bigger part of the show. She is at the root of Joe’s psychology and the first woman in his life who he killed for in the name of love. When I first watched the show, I really thought it was leading up to something with them showing the flashbacks of Joe’s childhood each season, only for it to result in Joe crying on a Tiktok live and everyone liking him again. I think his mother should have replaced Bronte as his last obsession, not romantically of course, but still heavily obsessed and him desperately trying to win her love and approval.
On top of that, I thought the true payoff of Joe’s character would him be fully coming to the realisation that all his delusions are actually delusions and it breaks him because he is unable to handle being that type of person. The ending of season 4 didn’t really do this for me, Joe accepted that he is a killer and he enjoys it. But, he’s still in denial about everything else. He still believes he truly loves the women he’s infatuated with, that he’s a helpless romantic and that he’s a good man. Then at the end of season 5, he’s still very much in denial about everything and he never is forced to fully see himself, or rather he is but it doesn’t have a real impact on him.
So, here’s what my conclusion for Joe would be. It’s not going to be a rewrite, just a general consensus. And if it sucks, well it sucks. I’m no show writer!
Joe still comes back to NYC with Kate, becomes wealthy and famous and gets Henry back. His mother comes back into his life some way, maybe she hears about him surviving Love Quinn and becoming a Lockwood, or maybe Joe uses his resources to find her. Joe becomes obsessed with trying to make his mother love him and give him her approval, in the end she ultimately learns of Joe’s true nature and she calls him out for everything and rejects him. This breaks Joe and in response, he responds like he usually does with rejection, violence. He kills his mother and as it settles in that he’s killed his own mother and the person whose love he’s been trying to replicate with all of his obsessions, he breaks. He realises that he is completely unlovable, that he is violent and abusive and that he’s never truly loved anyone. His collapse is brutal and he can’t function with the realisation so he clings to his violence, the way he’s been solving issues and lashes out more, he attempts to kill Kate or maybe he does succeed and then Henry shoots Joe, which is the parallel to Joe shooting his father to protect his mother.
It’s sort of similar to what happened in the finale with Joe breaking down after Henry called Joe a monster and rejected him, and then him going on to lash out at Bronte. I personally think it would be a lot better if it was his mother who he rejected him and then he lashed out and killed her.
So me personally, I would have preferred Joe’s final obsession being his mother and then her rejection and his brutal killing of her is what leads to him breaking, actually breaking, and he responds with violence like always. He doesn’t respond with self delusion or self acceptance. He just cannot handle the realisation about himself and in the end he is destroyed by his actual true self.
Anyways, those are just my thoughts. I may have been writing utter poppycock, but so be it. Let me know what you think.
Not sure how many you have watched Forbidden Fruits, but oh well. It’s a decent movie so I do recommend it, it’s mainly for the ladies but I guess i’m just in touch with my feminine side 🫠 Victoria has a great performance in it.
He probably wouldn’t be interested in her on the surface because she’s very bubbly and pretty much just objectifies men, and she’s all about her female friendships. Though I do think he might idealise her and believe she’s been corrupted by Apple who he needs to get rid of. (Kinda with how he got rid of Peach so he could have Beck.) She also lost her entire family in a house fire, which would probably spark some interest in Joe.
Not sure about this lmao. I assumed he only framed her as it was just a better opinion strategically speaking. But apparently Sera Gamble thinks otherwise. It would be easier to believe if Joe didn’t speak to Nadia in a patronising way and smirk as he framed her for Eddie’s murder.
I didn’t actually see much of a relationship between Joe and Nadia. He just seemed to respect her intelligence and curiosity, and that was about it. I can’t really remember many scenes of Joe being fond of her or an attachment really growing. She does say to take it with a grain of salt, though it’s interesting to think about.
This has always confused me. People use this as a reason to disprove that Joe cares for Paco and Ellie, to me though, it doesn’t add up.
The argument seems to be that because Joe gains a psychological reward from helping Paco and Ellie, it somehow means his care means nothing. If that was the case, then nobody actually cares for others because we could all chalk it up to be for a selfish reasons. Maybe Spider-man for example doesn’t actually care for any of the people he saves, maybe he just enjoys playing a hero and how it makes him feel like a good person. For every good action a person does, they are likely to gain some sort of psychological reward for doing so, like feeling like a good person and validating their identity. This is likely true for Joe, but it doesn’t mean his care isn’t real. If you look hard enough, you’ll find a self serving gain in every action.
We can all agree that Joe’s primary motivation is just to get with the woman he’s currently infatuated with, Joe helping Paco and Ellie doesn’t move him closer to achieving this goal, actually it’s likely the opposite. Joe could have just simply not have got involved with Paco, he wouldn’t have had to spend time caring for him and could put that attention onto Beck. Joe getting involved with Paco also got Ron onto his case which was a problem for Joe. Similarly with Ellie, Joe caring for her doesn’t benefit his relationship with Love. So the only thing Joe seems to get from these relationships is a psychological reward that makes him feel good inside, and like I said previously that doesn’t mean his care isn’t real.
I think he does care for them, but he also uses them to validate his identity as a protector and it makes him feel like a good person.
Beck probably surpasses Joe in sheer amount of times. But Joe’s have more creativity and significance since they are done in different places. It’s a tough call.
I’ve underestimated how much hate Beck seems to get in this fandom, not just on this sub but in other places as well. I can understand why people are not so keen on her, but she is certainly not the monster some people make her out to be and personally I like her character and I think she deserves more appreciation. The writers and Elizabeth Lail brought a realistic but flawed young woman to life who was trying to figure out her place in the world and would have likely flourished into her best self if she had not became victim to Joe.
#BeckwasNOTunspecialandmediocre
A lot of this fandom seems to have a strong distaste for the female characters, Beck, Marianne, Kate, Nadia, Candace and Bronte. Who gets a lot of criticism and hatred for their actions, despite Joe being way worse than them. Some people believe this is due to misogyny, which I think does play a part in it, but I think it’s primarily due to the framing of the characters.
In You we follow Joe Goldberg, a good looking, charming man who is out to find what he believes to be true love. We spend the show with Joe and live in his mind; we hear his justifications, his thoughts, his witty dialogue and view of the world. Naturally, as with any protagonist, we tend allow ourselves to become aligned with Joe and get involved in his framing. We want Joe to succeed in his endeavours as he is the character we have the closest bond with. Joe is generally well received by fans as he is played by Penn who comes with his amazing acting and endlessly appealing looks, add that on top of his great writing and how entertaining he is as a character and you get a pretty fantastic protagonist. Naturally because he’s so great, we are less horrified or moved by his horrific actions.
Then we have someone like Beck, who receives a lot of criticism for cheating on Joe and calling him out in the cage. I don’t think Beck is disliked because she is just a woman who did shitty things, it’s simply because she becomes a foil for Joe’s plans as she no longer wants him and wants him to understandably rot in prison. She ends up becoming an antagonist and someone who Joe needs to deal with. As she is acting against our protagonist, the person we have built a rapport with and became attached to, there’s more distaste for her because of that.
If the hatred was simply because it’s women doing shitty things, then Love Quinn wouldn’t be so well received. While Love does serve as an antagonist to Joe in the end of season 3, she is also someone whose goals often align with Joe’s and she has a similar mindset. We like her because she is in support of our protagonist and we identify with her way of thinking as we have seen it similarly with Joe. Love kills people to keep Joe out of prison, helps cover up his crimes and often they’re dealing with threats that is a joined problem for them both and we see them working as a team, a dysfunctional one at that. A character in support of our protagonist is generally going to be more well received than a character who is acting against our protagonist.
I’ve noticed a similar thing in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul as well. Walter white is a brilliant character who audiences love, despite how evil he is. While Skylar White is disliked, despite being morally better. It’s because of the same framing. Walter is our protagonist and his goal is to build a meth empire while Skylar serves as a force against him, so again audiences are going to have more distaste for her.
Then in Better Call Saul, there is Kim Wexler. A brilliant female character who is very well received, more so than Skylar. This is because Kim is more supportive and often works with Saul to achieve his goals, compared to Skylar who is usually acting against Walter, and also because Kim is a better character. It’s the same thing with how Beck isn’t well received due to her acting against Joe while Love is because she is usually working with Joe.
We also have female protagonists who are bad very individuals, similar to Joe, like Rhiannon Lewis from SweetPea and Amy Dunne from Gone Girl. Both are well received female protagonists who are morally compromised.
I don’t doubt that there is an element of misogyny as male antagonists in You don’t get as much hatred as the female ones, but I think that could also be because the female ones get more narrative focus.
Summary: Characters like Beck and Bronte are disliked by the audience because they are forces against Joe while a character like Love Quinn is well received because she usually acts as a someone in support of Joe. Not a groundbreaking take, but I have seen a lot of people just chalk up the distaste for the female characters as just misogyny than with how they are framed and the roles they play.
I know this sounds like a stupid question. But in this fandom, there’s a number of people who seem to base their likability of a character on whether that character is a good person or not, and not on how well written the character is or how they are entertaining to the audience.
This has always confused me. For me and I believe most people, we like fictional characters that are entertaining and intriguing because at the end of the day, we mainly consume media to be entertained. Their morality isn’t that important because a character does not need to be a good person to entertain us.
Just to clarify, I have no issue with people who like morally righteous characters and dislike morally evil ones. My main issue is when people try to morally police you for liking an evil character, as if it reflects your real world morals. I don’t think there is anything wrong with liking Joe as a character and not liking Beck for example, because despite Joe’s evil nature, he is a more interesting and entertaining character that has more complexity and nuance than Beck.
Thoughts?
You just can’t please some people.
Such a sweet, honest, gentle loving man. The only bodies he’s ever caught are ones in a warm hug. ❤️
What do you do?
Controversial I imagine, but hear me out.
Before I say anything else, I must make this clear. Feeling love and showing that love in healthy ways are not the same thing and the former can exist without the latter.
An abusive person can care for another, feel affection, attachment and love for that person and want the relationship to continue, while still being abusive. I know this sounds contradictory, but human psychology is often complicated and isn’t as black and white and as neat as some think. Abuse is defined by patterns of harmful behaviours against another person, not simply by whether the abuser has feelings of affection or not.
For example, an abusive parent may feel love for their child, want them to succeed in life and make sacrifices for them, while also controlling them, scaring them or physically hurting them. The abusers feelings don’t make the harm any less real or significant.
I think Joe is capable of feeling love or something that kinda resembles it. He forms deep emotional attachment, experiences grief and heartbreak, feels protectiveness and longs for that person to be in his life. Now at the same time, Joe is also abusive as his mind is heavily distorted by obsession, idealisation, entitlement, possessiveness and a willingness to violate another persons autonomy.
The vast majority of love that Joe does show is pretty much just abuse because of who he is, but that doesn’t necessarily means his feelings aren’t real.
This is just my interpretation of things. What do you guys think?
(Reupload because I wanted to change some things.)
A lot of these are definitely controversial, especially regarding bad and evil
Let me know what you think.
Everyone is free to their own interpretation of Joe’s character. Though it does seem to me that sometimes people try to push things onto Joe that don’t seem to fit, just so they can make him seem even more evil than what he actually is.
Joe is already a misogynistic, narcissistic, perverted, sadistic serial killer and stalker. I don’t see a need to try and reach to make him even more evil, when he’s already extremely despicable.
