This article contains spoilers for the final season of You.
“It’s unfair, putting all of this on me. Aren’t we all just products of our environment? Hurt people hurt people. I never stood a chance… Maybe we have a problem as a society. Maybe we should fix what’s broken within us. Maybe the problem isn’t me. Maybe it’s you.”
Those are the last words uttered by newly-convicted serial killer Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) in the You series finale, which sees him fittingly punctuate his closing remarks by breaking the fourth wall and gazing back at the viewer one last time from the bed of his tiny prison cell. But is his hypothesis right? Are we really the problem for gleefully bingeing Joe’s five-season-long death spiral, or is this just him refusing to take culpability for his crimes?
For Badgley, the answer isn’t that cut and dry. “It’s both. It’s a cop out from him but it’s also true because, at the end of the day, he’s not real and we are,” he tells Entertainment Weekly. “And so we’ve been watching a show about him and he no longer exists, so it is about us. It couldn’t be about him. He’s not real. So that’s kind of plain and simple to me.”
Badgley on ‘You’. Courtesy of Netflix
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Still, the 38-year-old actor says the answer really depends on what viewers wanted from Joe and the show itself in the first place.
“I mean, I think again: do we need to see him change? What would actually be the conditions for him to change meaningfully? Is that what anybody wants to see?” he asks. “That would actually be a very different show with a very different pace and tone and ethos, and it wouldn’t be as popular as it is. So it’s frustratingly true, I think, his statement in the end.”
Badgley explains that any series — You included — wouldn’t nearly be as popular if its story wasn’t “socially relevant” or didn’t cause its viewers to look inward in some way, shape, or form.
“This one [You] does have something to do with our… I actually think it’s like a cultural-level love addiction, which is not at all actual love. And so in the end, I do think it’s about us rather than him,” he says. “But there is a version where that’s such an emotional and psychological and moral cop out from him because he’s still skirting responsibility.”
And, just to be clear: Badgley doesn’t blame audiences for falling for Joe’s charming nature and wanting to see how he gets away with (literal) murder throughout the last five seasons.
“He has always been a romantic icon. That’s what he’s meant to be, while also wearing the hat, so to speak, of a killer to deliver this satire and social commentary, you know?” He says. “People are meant to fall in love with him and see him as a romantic figure. That is actually the point. And so I think all throughout, I was trying to make that point, which is like, ‘Let’s just remember the point of the exercise, though.’ And now the exercise is over.”
Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg and Madeline Brewer as Bronte on ‘You’. Courtesy of Netflix
And what has Badgley learned in the end? Well, he may need some more “time and perspective” away from Joe to fully comprehend the character’s greater impact on his life.
“I’ve just been reflecting on how I have had to sit with this character for the better part of 10 years. All of my 30s,” he says. “It’s possible that these reflections have led me towards being a better man and husband and father. It’s possible. I don’t know, but it’s possible.”
The final season of You is streaming now on Netflix.
