Spoilers ahead.
How many more times can Joe Goldberg get away with murder?
With the fourth season of You now streaming on Netflix, the future of the hit drama—and the serial killer it follows—may well be on viewers’ minds. In the latest instalment of the series, Joe (Penn Badgley) turns over a new leaf in London, where he’s now working as a professor, but his past catches up to him when a not-so-anonymous killer starts targeting members of his rich new friend group and pinning the murders on him. By the end of the season, he discovers who’s been framing him—himself!—and things only get wilder from there.
Here’s what we know of Joe’s next chapter.
Has You been renewed for season 5?
Yes! Netflix announced the news on March 24 and confirmed that the fifth season will be You‘s last. Seasons 1-4 show-runner Sera Gamble will remain as an executive producer, but producers Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo will step in as co-showrunners for the final go.
Gamble said in a statement:
“As I step back from day-to-day show running to focus on new projects, I’m immensely grateful to co-creator and all-around genius Greg Berlanti, Caroline Kepnes, my friends at Berlanti Productions and Alloy Entertainment, and our steadfast partners at Warner Bros and Netflix. Making the show alongside our writers, producers, directors, cast and crew has been an honour and ridiculously fun. And I feel lucky to have worked with an artist as gifted and thoughtful as Penn Badgely. I’m proud of what we’ve all accomplished and feel privileged to pass the torch. I’m excited to watch and support the You team as they bring Joe Goldberg’s journey to its delightfully twisted conclusion.”
Producers Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter added in their own statement that they “intend to bring [Gamble] every idea we can from our company for years to come.”
Even before the announcement, a renewal seemed highly likely considering the show’s popularity. Gamble had previously expressed her plans for You to span multiple seasons. She told a known Hollywood publication back in 2019 after season 2, “I am not scared at all of saying that we definitely could follow Joe for several more seasons.”
In a 2023 interview with an international media house, the show’s star Penn Badgley made it clear that he thinks You needs “to do another season.”
“It feels to me like Joe needs to get what’s coming to him, and now he has further to fall because he has all this power and wealth,” he said. “But of course, that’s not up to me. I don’t know where it’s going. But to me, with this concept and with this character, we always wanted to be responsible and it’s not just the kind of thing we can let keep going because it’s doing well.”
Badgley continued, “I know the creators of the show always had this next season in mind as its last, should there be another one. And then it will probably be a spectacular resolution because it feels to me like something is in the works by the very end of this season.”
He did say that if the show ends with the season four finale it would be “somewhat satisfying.”
“But I think what’s particularly dystopic or chilling about it is he has effectively won. You have taken this man and shown him going out on top. In that sense, I don’t think it’s the conclusion that anybody wants,” he added.
What would season 5 be about?
The final season of You will take place in New York, where it all started, and someone from Joe’s past is set to return. “Though I can’t say who just yet, we all know there are many loose ends from Joe’s past,” Badgley revealed in a video during Tudum. “The question is: Who are you?”
“You’ll know what the next season would be when you see the end of this season,” Gamble told a known Hollywood publication in February. “We tell you what the idea is.”
Sure enough, the setup becomes clear in the season 4 finale (again, be warned of spoilers): Joe reveals his true identity and murderous past to his girlfriend Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), who not only accepts him for who he is, but also protects him and his reputation. With the help of her, her wealth, and connections, he’s able to return to New York with a clean record and new narrative: that he is a survivor of a violent partner (Love Quinn), and now hopes to change the world with his new #girlboss GF.
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Under Kate’s protection, Joe would be untouchable. He even says in the finale that the killing will be a lot easier now. And after spending the whole season trying to suppress his dark side and become a good person, he’s learned to accept his identity as a murderer. (Hooray for self-love, I guess?) It’s still unclear, though, if Kate knows that Joe killed her billionaire father, Tom Lockwood (Greg Kinnear). That could possibly lead to some drama in season 5.
“In many ways, when you’re not in denial about your intentions, you can plan better,” Gamble told ELLE.com of Joe’s future. “So it’s less that we think he’s going to cut a bloody swathe in New York City, although we also wouldn’t put it past him. It’s more that he is just more conscious of this side of himself and he’s less likely to be like, ‘Oops, I totally didn’t think I was going to shove that guy down the stairs. Now what am I going to do?’”
Also now that he’s in New York, Joe’s story is coming full circle, in a way. “He looks and sounds like Joe Classic,” Gamble added. “He has regained his name and now he is much more in the circles that he used to watch from afar and just judge. He can have all of that access, all of those resources, and none of the anonymity that he used to have in New York.”
And then there’s Nadia. Joe’s intelligent literature student figures out that he’s the Eat the Rich killer, but before she can turn him in, he kills her boyfriend Edward and frames her for the murder. By the end of the finale, poor Nadia is in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Here’s to hoping she gets out, and maybe gets some revenge, in season 5. As for Nadia’s and Marienne’s potential return, Gamble tells us, “Honestly, the real answer is that we haven’t gotten in the room yet to really hammer it out. If we get to make another season, that’s what we’ll do.”
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Tati Gabrielle hopes, for Marienne’s sake, that justice is served. “Marienne’s story feels still feels unfinished, and [it] still feels like she has something else that she needs to see through,” she told an entertainment news platform. “I don’t think that Marianne is a vengeful person, so I think that she would want justice not necessarily revenge.”
Despite the long wait ahead for a potential fifth season, Gamble is already playing with plot ideas for what comes next. She told an international publication:
“We have an idea for season five that we’re excited about. It was never anyone’s intention to run this one into the ground. When we’re done, we’ll be done. And we’ll pack it up. Even in the early conversations with Penn, the idea was not to crank out episodes forever; it’s to feel like we have told the complete story. And though I feel like tonally, we’re very different and we are not trying to sell Joe as any kind of a hero with a straight face. This is a show that is in the tradition of these single-lead shows with a guy who does increasingly bad things. The beautiful thing about it is that when his arc is complete, so is the show.”
Who will be in the cast?
Unless the You team throws us a total curveball, we’re banking on Penn Badgley to continue leading the show as Joe. As we’ve seen in the past, he usually finds himself in a new crowd—sometimes even in a new city—each season, so we wouldn’t be surprised to hear of new casting announcements once season 5 is confirmed.
In early March 2024, it was announced that The Handmaid’s Tale’s Madeline Brewer has a role in season 5. She will be playing Bronte, “an enigmatic and free-spirited playwright who comes to work for Joe Goldberg at his bookstore. As the two connect over literature and loss, she stokes in him a nostalgia for his former self, causing him to question everything his life has become,” according to Netflix.
Later that month, an American magazine reported that Anna Camp of Pitch Perfect and Griffin Matthews have joined the cast and will be regulars for the final season. Camp will be playing both of Joe’s twin sister-in-laws, Raegan and Maddie Lockwood.
Per the magazine, “Raegan is the cunning, cutthroat CFO of the Lockwood Corp who has her eyes on the throne and will crush any adversary…be them family or not. Maddie, on the other hand, presents as the unserious twin, a thrice-divorced socialite whose job is ‘vaguely PR.’ But make no mistake, a master manipulator lies underneath Maddie’s frivolous façade.”
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As for Matthews, he’ll be portraying Teddy Lockwood, Joe’s “snarky yet loyal brother-in-law.”
A Hollywood news platform also announced in May that Natasha Behnam of The Girls on the Bus, Parks & Recreation’s Pete Ploszek, Sunset Boulevard’s Tom Francis, and b from Station 19 will all be in season 5. Ploszek is Raegan’s husband and former professional football player Harrison, Francis is aspiring author Clayton, and Behnam and b will be playing characters named Dominique and Phoenix, respectively.
As for other current season 4 cast members, which range from Lukas Gage to Tati Gabrielle, we’ll have to wait to see who returns.
Will this be the last season?
Yes, sadly.
Badgley previously hinted that You was drawing to a close when he told a British fashion magazine, “I know what Greg [Berlanti, the co-creator] pitched me a few years back as what he thought was the right way to end. If there’s another one, it’s going to be, I think, a grand finale.”
When the season 5 renewal was announced, Peter Friedlander, Vice President of Scripted Series, Netflix, US and Canada teased, “We’re excited — and a bit terrified — to see how it all ends for Joe Goldberg, but one thing is for sure: YOU are in for an unforgettable ending.”
Has You season 5 started filming?
You’s fifth season began shooting on March 25, 2024, and Joe is back in New York City. Badgley was first photographed standing outside of Bleecker St. station wearing a maroon button-up with a black coat, and most importantly, a gold wedding band on his left ring finger.
The following month, on April 4, he was photographed filming with Ritchie (Kate) and a young boy played by Frankie Demaio. Details on who this character is have not been revealed, but fans can’t help but speculate that he may be Joe and Love’s son, Henry. This would also imply that there’s been a time jump of a few years because we last saw Henry at the end of season 3 as a baby, when Joe left him to be raised by his former co-worker at the library, Dante, and his husband, Lancing.
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