‘You’ Boss Reveals Who Would Have Killed Joe If He’d Died in the End

[Warning: This post contains MAJOR spoilers for You Season 5.]

Joe Goldberg’s (Penn Badgley) reign of terror is over. You‘s fifth and final season saw the twisted serial killer with a penchant for cages and narcissism get the comeuppance he deserved.

While many wondered (and some hoped) if the lead character would die in the series finale, given that he took the lives of so many, Joe was still breathing when the final credits rolled. After being set up by the few still-living women he’d wronged, Joe was sent to prison for the rest of his life.

You co-showrunner Justin W. Lo told TV Insider that killing Joe was “definitely on the table” when the writers were figuring out his endgame. “I would say we operated with that option in mind for a few months before we decided to change it at the very end,” he said.

So, of course, we had to ask who would have killed Joe if the writers had pursued his death. “We knew it would have been at the hands of Bronte,” Lo revealed.

Clifton Prescod/Netflix

In the final season, Bronte (Madeline Brewer) was introduced as Joe’s new love interest. She initially sought him out to get justice for her friend, Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), her former TA, who was killed by Joe in Season 1. However, Bronte developed real feelings for Joe despite her better judgment. Thankfully, Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) returned to give Bronte the wake-up call she needed to see the truth about Joe.

Bronte, whose real name was Louise, knew she was the only one who could bring Joe down. She saved him from the fire at Mooney’s and accepted his proposal—all a ruse to distract him. They went on the run after Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) sent a recording of Joe’s confessing to killing Love (Victoria Pedretti) and Tom (Greg Kinnear).

After Bronte confronted Joe about Beck, they got into a brutal fight, but Bronte ultimately gained the upper hand. Joe begged Bronte to kill him, but she let him live (after shooting him in the genitals) because his future was going to be a fate worse than death. He was convicted of murdering Beck, Love, Benji (Lou Taylor Pucci), and Peach (Shay Mitchell), and sent to prison for the rest of his life – his own permanent cage.

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Co-showrunner Michael Foley knew Bronte had to be different from all the women in Joe’s life. “What helped us was that she was catfishing him so she could create an identity that was basically somebody someone Joe would love, which was a wounded bird, a woman who seemed to need Joe to tell her what she could be in life,” he said. “And more than that, we modeled her after Joe. The plan in the writers’ room was, let’s have Joe fall in love with Joe. So every word out of her mouth about literature, about New York City, her openness to violent nature, and whatnot, that was all obviously very deliberate. Because of the catfish, we could just craft the perfect woman for him.”

And that “perfect woman” was Joe’s downfall.

Are you happy with Joe’s endgame? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

You, Season 5, Streaming Now, Netflix