This Week, It's All About YOU
A farewell to TV's most delusional "nice guy"
The first line inYOU is:
Hello there, who are you?
And after four seasons of trying to figure out who in the actual fuck Joe Goldberg is, the show’s fifth and final season drops this Thursday. Joe’s been stuck in an identity crisis for almost eight years now. He’s played every role—loving dad, the perfect husband, the sweet, nerdy boyfriend, the bookseller with a heart of gold—and honestly, like a million other things.
But in reality? He’s just a condescending whole ass serial killer with insane mommi issues, who loves to monologue—and, hello, I am absolutely obsessed with him.
I didn’t watch YOU from the start, I actually had never seen a single episode until about 3 years ago when my fiancé put me on to it.
It was a show that I will forever connect to falling in love, which is wild because it’s a show about a guy who thinks he’s falling in love but is actually just twisting reality one mediocre white woman at a time (WITH THE EXCEPTION OF MY ABSOLUTE QUEEN LOVE QUINN GOLDBERG) to fit his very screwed up idea of it.
Joe Goldberg is, objectively, a terrible person. And yet—somehow—he has a fanbase. This man has literally put multiple women in a fucking CAGE. He’s stalked, manipulated, lied, gaslit, and committed a whole slew of ACTUAL murders. And still, here I am, deeply invested. Not just watching—but actively rooting for him. Catching myself (not every time, but often enough) high-key hoping he gets away with it. and I’ve been doing it for four fucking seasons.
WOT. IS. WRONG. WITH. MEEE?
Is it Penn Badgley’s fault? Is it the voiceovers? Is it all the heavy wool blazers he wore in season 4?? EYE DONUT KNOW. but the final season is here and I’m ready to wrap it up!
In one of the posters for the fifth season, Joe is waist-deep in water, inside that glass cage that’s been part of his story since before we met him. It’s got that 2021-era red TikTok glow, with To the last breath floating above him.
It’s VV dramatic but also kinda dead on? The cage used to be his comfort zone, where he felt most in control, but now it looks more like his grave.
If you look closely, every part of Joe’s life (that we’ve watched) is in the poster. The stairs behind him feel like the ones leading down from Mooney’s. The door looks like it came straight from under the bakery in Madre Linda. And the ceiling? Hella reminiscent of that underground hellhole where he kept Marianne in London.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it (I’m absolutely fucking not), but it feels like a full picture—like everything he’s done, all the mistakes, all the bodies, are finally catching up. His past, piece by piece, is closing in around him.
To celebrate the final season of YOU, I’m teaming up with the crew at Netflix to bring you a full week of all things—well…YOU.
I tapped two of my fav writers—
of Culture Craft and THEE Lyvie Scott—to bring it all to life. A few pieces will be rolling out this week touching on the vibes of the show that I thought def needed to be zoomed in on.Pieces on Joe and his VERYYYY unresolved mommi issues (Hello, Freud), a completely necessary ranking of his love interests (from the chaotic to the iconic), how the Black women in the series are depicted (I will defend Sherry Conrad until the end of gotdamn time), and an ode to my unhinged queen and the only one to ever match Joe’s energy—Love Fuckin’ Quinn.
All those (and maybe a few more) will be coming out this week!
The season releases THIS THURSDAY APRIL 24, and I’ll give you the weekend to binge in peace before I drop a piece breaking down eggzaklee how I felt about it.
I’ve already done my rewatch ahead of season 5 BUT if you haven’t done yours you can follow these steps:
Watch one season a day starting tomorrow (Tuesday)
Stay off social media ‘cos you need a break anyway and to remain spoiler free
Order pizza on Saturday at noon
Put on cozy clothes, set up the couch, and read the articles here on Hi Shelli until your pizza arrives at about 1:30
Get comfy on the couch, put your phone on DND, start binging season 5 at 2:00 PM
Take a break at 7:00 PM, perhaps place an order for tacos and send articles from Hi Shelli to your friends
Resume binging, eating, and snacking
Wait for Penn to likely post some wild shit on Tiktok and also await Cardi B and her review on season 5
If you don’t want to follow my PERFECTLY LAID OUT REWATCH PLAN ABOVE, just watch Penn recap seasons 1-4 and then go in the comments to tell me your favorite moment from the series!
Extras:
We must talk about this article over on TUDUM breaking down YOU by the numbers. It’s perfect and nerdy and I love it very, very much.
I read the first book and omfg he is so horrible in it and I was very much not rooting for him at all.
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He’s a BAD man, Savannah!!!!