The Black Girls That Got Away From YOU
The final girls you should have seen coming
This piece is part of A Week of YOU here on Hi Shelli! In celebration of the fifth and final season of the series!
Rooting for a Black female love interest in YOU feels almost counterintuitive.
On one hand, Black girls deserve love (and mainstream validation) as much as anybody. On the other hand, do they really deserve to get it from Joe Goldberg? Murderous psychopath and resident pervert?
YOU doesn’t always do right by its female characters. The show has a habit of romanticizing red flags, but somehow, through the chaos, the Black women of YOU have consistently held their own against Joe and they deserve their flowers ahead of the final season.
Karen Minty
Most people think of the one that got away and attach it to missed opportunities, but when it comes to Karen Minty (played by Natalie Paul), I can only think of dodging a bullet (or whatever Joe’s weapon of choice is on the day).
Karen had a brief fling with Joe in season one, shortly after he was dumped by Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) for the first time. She was upfront with her desires, snagged him with some mind-blowing sex, and got the hell out of dodge before Joe had time to realise she was a much better catch than Beck—and make her the next object of his psychosexual murder fantasies.
Sure, there’s something to be said for her adherence to the Disposable Black Girlfriend trope, as Joe breaks things off because he just has to get back together with Beck... and also after literally cheating on Karen with Beck.
Beck’s bad news, I’m sorry. But hey, it’s all good for Karen either way. She’s one of the few girlfriends who make it out alive at the end of the day. One can only wonder what she’s been up to since. Will she pop up in the final season to tell Joe that he’s a freak (and not the good kind)?
I’m happy she went where she was celebrated—not tolerated—but also…I need her to get her lick back. Pronto.
Sherry Conrad
Despite its WASPy setting, season three features not one, but two Black female characters in prominent roles. First, we’ve got Sherry (Shalita Grant), a mother of twins, mommy blogger, and queen bee of Madre Linda, CA, where the newly married Joe settles with Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). She’s positioned as one of the biggest obstacles to Joe and Love as they settle into wedded bliss.
Her obvious insincerity—controlling the social scene with a passive-aggressive smile and thick layers of faux sympathy—already makes Sherry one of YOU’s most nuanced and interesting characters. But the series goes even further, peeling back the layers behind Sherry’s mask. She and her husband Cary (Travis Van Winkle) even proposition Love and Joe for group sex, leading to some hilariously cringeworthy moments.
Sherry’s one of a few lucky ladies to confirm that Joe is, ahem, a “big boy.” (He’s still a total psycho, but good for her!) But the real fun begins when she and Cary overhear Love confess to the string of murders she’s committed, and they get locked in Joe’s glass dungeon.
Love tries a few mind games to poke holes in a marriage she believes is performative, thus validating whatever weird thing she’s got with Joe. In the end, though, Sherry and Cary’s joint will is stronger; their love gets them through alive.
There’s honestly nothing more satisfying than seeing a Black woman loved unconditionally, and though YOU doesn’t always get it right, they actually nailed it with Sherry.
Her love story stands out as a rare, beautiful exception, proving that even in the most twisted narrative, a Black woman can be both complicated and cherished.
Marienne Bellamy
Season three also introduced us to Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle). Joe’s obsession with Marienne is a nuanced one: it combats the Disposable Black Girlfriend trope that we saw with Karen, all while holding a mirror up to Joe.
Marienne’s very existence stands in contrast to Joe’s White Knight complex, his disproportionate obsession with white girls, and how it all feeds into a little phenomenon called “Missing White Woman Syndrome.”
Through her, Joe gets a crash course in allyship, and paired with their shared love of academia, it’s not impossible to see why Marienne would make perfect “you” material.
As Joe’s relationship with Love crumbles, he starts to wonder whether all this marital strife was designed to lead him to Marienne—and we’re wondering if the love of a good Black woman can fix Joe, for real this time. (It won’t, for obvious reasons. But we did wonder!)
Joe does the same shit with Marienne that he does with all his obsessees. He breaks into her home, jacks off to lewd pictures of her, kills for her, etc. But she does escape from his clutches alive… it just takes a long time, an extended stay in his glass dungeon, and faking her own death just to get away from his ass. Well played, Marienne.
A brush with Joe Goldberg is not without suffering, after surviving the mess Joe made of her life, here’s hoping she’s now out there just raising her daughter in peace, far from his deluded reach.
Netflix’s soapy, self-aware melodrama isn’t always great to the girlies. Whoever Joe Goldberg sets his beady eyes on is just as quickly doomed by the narrative, and after nearly five seasons of toxic habits, this is a pattern I’m more and more receptive to Black characters missing out on.
In a show that thrives on chaos and obsession, it’s refreshing to see these women survive it all.
Extras:
She may not have been a love interest, but let us not forget our literal Nigerian Princess, Blessing (played by Ozioma Whenu). She is rich, mean, and gorgeous—AND SHE TOO SURVIVES JOE as he is killing off a bunch of Kate’s friends as the “Eat The Rich Killer” in season four.
Who else wanted to tell Beck about herself when she said “Little Miss Karen Minty!”1
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Editor’s Note: Hello, it’s me—Shelli. I added this in because I just need to know that this bothered other people. Ok thanks, talk later.
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