A few days before “You” Season 5 premiered on Netflix, I went to see Christopher Landon’s “Drop” in theaters. As we emerged from the “punchy, ridiculous thriller” into broad daylight, my friends were quick to dismiss it, to engage in the common but misguided practice of conflating highbrow quality with entertainment value. “Drop” is no cinematic hallmark (though some of Marc Spicer’s shots will stay with me for a long time), but it kept me engrossed, entertained, and invested in the final outcome.
The same approach will pay off with the end of “You,” created by Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti and brought to the bloody finish line by showrunners Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo. If you’ve stuck with the series thus far, you signed up for outrageous twists, cartoonish characters, and an exorbitant number of murders, all tied together by Penn Badgley‘s bewitching performance. It’s not prestige TV, but it’s unapologetically entertaining, and Season 5 delivers on everything that got audiences obsessed with this series.
Set a few years after Joe rose from the dead in London, he’s now part of a prolific power couple with wife Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) and back in his old Manhattan stomping grounds. Kate and Joe are adored for their against-all-odds love story and fierce philanthropy — but when someone threatens their new status quo, Joe handles it the old-fashioned way and lights the fuse on blowing up his entire life.
There’s also a new liability in the form of Bronte (Madeline Brewer), a manic-pixie-literary-dreamgirl perfectly calibrated to unravel Joe with just a look. She’s written as a vexatious ingenue, which has to be deliberate, highlighting just how unimaginatively Joe perceives women and how little it takes to tempt him away from the life he allegedly holds so dear (Badgley and Brewer are close to the same age, but Bronte is clearly supposed to be in her early twenties — which reads less as Joe’s patronizing impression of her than a classic Hollywood gaslight).
In fact, Joe and Bronte’s interactions lead to some of the season’s best comedy, all at the expense of our pseudo-feminist murderer (she loves books! she hates the rich! is she The One??). Badgley is legitimately laugh-out-loud funny as his character reacts to her smallest hints of flirtation, falling into his usual patterns with sitcom-level predictability, all reinforcing his constant failure to change. Badgley is still magnificent in a dark, demanding, and disturbing role, turning Joe into a masterclass of internality that never softens his sinister nature. It’s been a killer performance, from start to finish, and undoubtedly the reason that the show found both popularity and endurance.
He’s not the only one having fun during the final hurrah; a cast highlight has to be Anna Camp as Kate’s twin half-sisters, both equally exaggerated and delightful. The “Pitch Perfect” star is all but showing off in the scene-stealing dual roles, sinking her teeth into the series’ unhinged tone like she’s been there from the start (what better way to lean into the show’s campiness than with literal Camp?). Griffin Matthews deftly balances this out as grounded brother Teddy, and more players pop in and out throughout the ten episodes.
Like its previous seasons, Season 5 starts slow before gaining momentum — but Netflix made the smart decision to release the whole thing at once, unlike Season 4’s misguided two-part drop. The midway twist paves the way for uncharted narrative territory, from Joe’s close relationships to his public persona and the unanswered questions from his past.
Surely, he can’t outrun his fate forever — but my goodness, it has been fun to watch him try.
Grade: B-
“You” Season 5 is now streaming on Netflix.
