You (Season 5): Top 10 Things to Remember Before the Premiere

Since Season 1 of “You,” Joe Goldberg has racked up a growing body count. He kills 5 in season 1, including Beck’s ex Benji, her best friend Peach and Beck herself, as well as Paco[a]’s stepdad. In Season 2, he added two people to his list, and we see another in a flashback. Joe scaled back in Season 3, too busy cleaning up Love’s crimes, but he did dispatch Marienne’s ex and ended the season by murdering his wife. In Season 4, Joe nearly doubled his body count, killing three of Kate’s friends, a security guard, and Rhys Monstrose. He also kills her dad, Tom Lockwood and his bodyguard, and Nadia’s boyfriend, Eddie. That’s 18 people total…that we know of.

Season 4’s biggest twist was the reveal that Rhys Montrose was not the Eat the Rich Killer, or the person stalking and framing Joe. It was all in Joe’s head; he was the culprit and never even met the real Rhys. Joe is so horrified by his violent actions that he completely dissociated, separating that dark part of himself and creating a persona to blame it on. We saw a preview of his increasingly fractured mind in Season 3 when a measles-induced fever dream made him hallucinate a version of himself, another personification of his true nature. In the finale, Joe sees “Rhys” in his reflection, implying we haven’t seen the last of him.

Joe’s realization that he was kidnapping and killing people without knowing forced him to come to terms with who he really is — a murderer. In another trippy dream sequence, he’s confronted by the women he’s killed, including Gemma. But it’s Beck and Love who tell him he needs to face the truth that he’s a danger to every woman he falls for. After he “saves” Kate from her invasive father, Joe decides to take his own life, knowing that she would end up like his other victims. “Rhys” tries to talk him out of it but Joe jumps off of a bridge into deep water. However, he miraculously survives.

Rarely do any characters on “You” get a happy ending, specifically the women who are unwitting objects of Joe’s obsession. But thanks to Joe’s, or Professor Moore’s, student Nadia, Marienne became the exception. Nadia finds her in a glass cage and the two come up with a plan to trick Joe into thinking she took her life. Believing Marienne’s deceased, he leaves her body on a park bench for someone to find. Nadia revives her and she gets to go home to her daughter in Paris. Hopefully, Joe never finds out Marienne’s alive. But with Nadia in prison, maybe she’ll return the favor by helping clear her name. While Marienne’s return isn’t officially confirmed, actress Tati Gabrielle was spotted on set in May 2024.

Before we met Tom Lockwood, we already knew he wasn’t a good person. As CEO of the T.R. Lockwood Corporation, he had power and influence in every industry. Kate tells Joe her father was an “activist investor,” gaining control of companies to dissolve them. Tom also used his resources to make criminal charges and, as we see with Adam, people disappear. Unlike him, Kate felt guilty about the people who suffered from their actions and left the company. Now that she’s at the helm, she can focus on philanthropic efforts. She has six siblings, at least three we’ll meet in Season 5, but Tom wanted his favorite daughter to take over, though he probably didn’t expect to be murdered for that to happen.

The last time we saw little Henry Forty Quinn-Goldberg was in the season 3 finale. After killing Love and torching their home in Madre Linda[b], Joe left him with his library coworker Dante and his partner Lansing. An older Henry will appear in Season 5, meaning he now lives in New York with his dad and new stepmother, Kate. But we don’t know how much he heard about his biological mom while growing up in Madre Linda. While his maternal grandparents stopped fighting for custody, there’s no telling if they’ll try to be in his life now.

We can all agree that Joe has done a fair share of terrible things. But one of the most shocking moments of Season 4 was watching him frame his former student Nadia. Joe caught her and her boyfriend Eddie snooping in his flat for evidence. He then killed Eddie, deleted photos on her phone, put the knife in her hand, and calmly explained she would go to prison for Eddie’s murder. For good measure, Joe framed Eddie for the murder of Rhys Montrose. Nadia knows he has significantly more power, resources, and her word against his would be an uphill battle. We just hope she’s spent her time behind bars coming up with a plan and we’ll see it play out in Season 5.

By the season 4 finale, Joe and Kate have left London behind for New York City. While he’ll likely play some role in Lockwood Corp, we know running Mooney’s bookstore is where his passion lies. This is where he’ll hire the literary-loving and aptly named Bronte, who is — you guessed it — his new obsession. Maybe he’ll bring on his old Mooney’s co-worker Ethan, or run into his former neighbor Paco, or his ex Karen. We’ve also been dying to see him reunite with his mom and half-brother Jacob, though who knows if they, or anyone else we named, are still in New York. We do know that Beck’s friend, Annika Attwater[c], rightfully and publicly accuses him of killing Peach Salinger.

The Joe Goldberg rebrand will lure some of his foes out of the woodwork and there are a lot of people who’d want to see his downfall, including Nadia, Marienne, and anyone from Season 1. Season 2’s Ellie Alves[d] was briefly mentioned in the last two seasons but we still haven’t seen her. In Season 3, Joe saved Theo Engler after Love tried to kill him, so he and his stepdad could show up. Cary and Sherry Conrad capitalized on their time as captives in Love’s bakery basement but they’d likely still want to expose him. Love’s parents sent a hitman after Joe in Season 4; maybe they’ll try again. And, of course, we’d love to see more of Beck and Love in spectral form.

Joe Goldberg has donned many identities — Paul Brown, Will Bettelheim[e], Jonathan Moore. Kate uses her new power to reinvent Joe, using his real name and rewriting his past in a way that paints him as a victim. While it’s not clear if she knows he killed her father or all of the other crimes he committed, she accepts him for who she thinks he is. For years, Joe has stayed under the radar, which is how he racked up a body count of 18 people deep, but now he’s a public figure. He lost his anonymity but gained unlimited resources, including fixers on hand to control the narrative. He’s also accepted his true self — a remorseless killer. No one is safe.