r/YouOnLifetime

Would the catfish plot work on Book Joe?

I think about this a lot. I have a lot of time on my hands.

Rewatching S4-S5 and I just have a burning question- Joe is repulsed by Love in S2/3 when he finds out that she wants to keep killing. But then in S4/5, he's mad and repulsed by Kate when she wants to... not keep killing?

Clearly Kate has already accepted him for his darkness and past. But he literally begs her to use him as a hitman, and then recoils when she refuses. This is such a huge difference in behaviour from when Love wants to kill or cover up murders with him in S3.

A huge theme of Joe and his love interests is that he wants them to accept him, but still be "pure" (not as evil as him). He couldn't accept Love because she was as evil as him. (There is an argument for Kate also being just as evil but she's not going around lobbing people over the head.) But Kate accepted him and also wasn't as outright murderous, and that seems to be all Joe wants, and yet, he's still disgusted. How does this make sense?

I understand that a major point is that Joe will never be satisfied. But the rationale for not being satisfied just doesn't add up to me. Is this a legitimate plot hole, or do I just have to shut my brain up and watch?

here's mine

1. s3

2. s1

3. s2

4. s4

5. s5

rewatching s3 and she talks about "Missing white woman" syndrome or whatever. Lowkey actual bs. As if when somebody who is black goes missing the world just doesn't care? Or is the show trying to be witty and act like some beacon of progessivness, like she's saying the whole world goes looking for a white woman if she goes missing like YEAH THAT'S THE POINT.

And then she's also lowkey classist a little treating Joe like shit until she finds out he was poor and then she treats him better.

Idk i could just not be getting something i'm overall not political at all

I think that some people are born sociopaths, psychopaths, unable to feel empathy. But I feel like the other half is based off people's environments growing up. Do you believe he was made this way because he was a natural born psychopath? Or was hus environment as a child nurturing his behavior in the future?

While having Joe receive his karma in the final season was very satisfying, its callbacks to previous seasons, and THE due justice for Beck (dare I say also, Peach?). I find that the end of Season 3 would've been such a perfect and imo "realistic" ending to the show. Love is entirely blamed and despised by everyone in the community, meanwhile Joe is presumably "dead" to everyone and free of any scrutiny. He even gets some version of a "heroic" ending, as he's the one to stop Love's murderous tirade and even leaving Henry to be cared for by another family with hope that a normal life prevents him from becoming like Joe/Love.

It really reflects how in the real world there are so many "Joes" that lurk around hurting others and never truly are held accountable for their actions. With that sometimes the justice for their victims is never actually reached either. While Love isn't innocent by any means, her being the only one punished really adds to this narrative that the female characters presented in You are always the ones who have to face the most ridicule/harsh endings for their actions by comparison to their male counterparts who do equally worse.

I've only seen up to midpoint Season 3, but I heard that while many characters at least make cameo appearances in the last Season, Ellie apparently never appears again past Season 2, and is never even Mentioned past one reference in Season 3.

This isn't exactly anything new to me. There are a lot of franchises that have a character that got away. One that just didn't really have a satisfying ending and you don't really get to find out what happened to them, and you felt like there was a need for closure that just wasn't there.

Ellie really hurts though. She relied so much on her sister, and her sister was born out of the picture. So abruptly as well. Then Ellie has a hella relatable freakout about people wanting to get away from her all the time, and literally the last we see of her is Joe saying confidently, but not with certainty, that her sister is probably gone and never coming back, and she literally says that she hates him, and then exit stage left. The only instructions being to get on a train and head east and Joe will consistently send her money.

In Season 3, Joe mentions that he's fulfilling on this promise, And that's apparently the last that we'll ever hear from her.

I wonder how people would have felt if there was just a random line mentioning her in Season 5. In it would have felt awkward, since apparently all the other characters actually get cameos on TikTok, but I wonder how things would have went down if there was just a random line after that montage where Joe mentions that Ellie made a video too. That wasn't helping his case, and we just didn't get to see it. I can understand the decision to not throw in this line, as it would only draw attention to the fact that Ellie didn't physically appear, but it would have been nice and bittersweet.

My head canon is that Ellie was already so mentally distraught by being away from her sister, and then when she saw all this TikTok drama, she just couldn't bring herself to participate in it, and proabably felt a little bit guilty for taking a bunch of Joe's money anyway, and decided to let Justice run its course

It seems so ridiculous to me. When Joe at first said that he kept a spare key, I thought that he meant that he keeps a spare key ON HIMSELF, Not that he had One IN THE CAGE. Season 2 is so weird to watch because Will is in there for literal weeks it seems. And he's entirely mentally stable as well. He would have 100% Found that Key.