'YOU' Season 2: The Spoiler Review

Hello, you. If you’re reading this then you’ve binged, murdered, Kombucha’d and acid-tripped your way to the end of YOU’s delightfully deranged sophomore season. (SPOILERS FOR YOU SEASON 2 FOLLOW) After a great debut that came out of nowhere and challenged millions of Netflix subscribers’ morals as we embarked on the journey of a toxic, homicidal creep, this second season could’ve gone a different way. Under the pressure of expectations, and at Netflix where writing for binging sometimes saps the episodic propulsion out of a TV series, this could’ve been a sophomore slump. Instead, whether the end result of Joe’s love (wolf) affair with Love works for you or not, it’s hard to argue that this collection wasn’t just as thrilling and morally complicated at times, forcing us to remember we're rooting for a de facto serial killer.

But let’s go back to that ending, which is huge. For much of Season 2, the show is fun albeit redundant. The sharp dialog and incisively meta millennial satire trades Manhattan for LA—Joe works at a send-up of Erewhon Market, and finds himself surrounded by gossip columnists who invoke Ronan Farrow, trust-fund Hollywood thirst lords, and Chris D'Elia playing a popular comedian. There's a cop named...David Fincher. Joe has another precocious child he builds with, another girl he’ll kill for, another ridiculously named codependent person in her life he has to contend with. Ellie, Forty…Paco and Peach by another name. All throughout, the tension of whether the season will just end in a similar fashion—which would be very lame—hangs over, or whether the show will man up and hold Joe responsible for his actions. Instead, the series takes a hard swerve and goes full Gone Girl on us. Love Quinn is just as willing to kill for love as Joe, in fact, recognizing their kindred darkness is what drew her to him. She’s spent the season manipulating events and playing him as much as he has her. The season ends with them together, and Joe trapped in an even worse hell than LA: suburbia. Season 3 should be a hoot.

Complex PC editors khal and Frazier tore through the season which was made available to critics in its entirety over the last month, here they break down the twists in detail.

The Big Twist

Frazier: I love the idea that Joe doesn’t actually warm to Love being like him, because it feels extremely true to life. Obsessive psychos like Joe create an image or idea of a person in their head; he puts the Becks and Loves on this pedestal of perfect imperfections. He’s not looking for kindred spirits here and you can see the revulsion on Penn’s face as he processes all of this, it really helps sell the twist. And it is a great twist for the most part. In the midst of the “Who Killed Delilah” arc in “P.I. Joe,” I did call it maybe being Love not too long before it actually happened. But I did not see the season-ending as a funhouse mirror version of Gone Girl.

khal: The season as a whole worked for me...for the most part. I was growing tired of the way the story mirrored so much of Season 1 for the most part, but the way they infused things like Joe trying to get over Beck or Candace showing up to fuck up the fun were dope. I just wished there was a different structure to the season overall, which is why I loved that twist. You were definitely on the money, and I had a feeling Love was going to ice Candace when she was standing over the trash bin, and I love how she flipped the script. Getting introduced to Victoria Pedretti in The Haunting of Hill House had me hoping we’d get more of her darker side, and when she unraveled the story from her side, I was hype.

Now they set Season 3 up perfectly, with Joe being ushered out of the LA doldrums into a posher, more suburban lifestyle. It’s kind of telling that he immediately gets infatuated by someone else, and I like the idea of him lusting after a new “you” while now trying to avoid his current girlfriend from literally murdering him.

Joe's New World

Frazier: The first two episodes definitely took some getting used to, mostly because New York was such a key component of Season 1’s appeal. This is a junk food, soapy ridiculous show, sure, but the writing and dialog can be very sharp. Season 1 expertly skewered the Manhattan millennial scene and at first, Season 2 was beset by a bunch of cliche New Yorker-hates-LA jokes. But once Joe and Love stop dancing around each other and Forty comes into sharp relief, things click. Forty grew to be such a fun character. If I have one real criticism of the final episodes, it’s that his mistrust of Joe seemingly comes out of nowhere. He supported Joe when the mid-season Candace bomb dropped, now he all suddenly believes her re: Beck? And enough to go to Dr. Nicky then later pull a gun? Taken with the Love reveal and her monologue, it all felt rather rushed which almost derailed the twist altogether. Joe in the suburbs brings the show even closer to Dexter territory, but Love complicates that of course and opens up all kinds of opportunity for battles of the wits and then some, on her Amy Dunne shit. But I feel like killing Forty was the easy choice; imagine how he could’ve continued to complicate that dynamic further. Also, if Love is sticking around I wish they cast more interesting parents, no disrespect to Saffron Burrows of Deep Blue Sea fame.

khal: I totally forgot we got to see Dr. Nicky! That was a dope call back that ultimately did...nothing? I think that’s kind of my beef with Forty. While that bumbling wannabe helped set up some of the dicier segments of Season 2, his storyline was all for naught. I understand it if its her friend group; they seemed to play the background more than Peach did, but Forty was in there for a bit! He was the center of whole episodes, and then he was dead. He might be lost...even if it's just for Love to reminisce on him a few times, but I’d gladly have taken him over the parents. Moms slapping the shit out of her grown ass daughter on the one hand, then getting Joe high on the other? I was good on that, and definitely don’t think they will be a highlight of the third season.

I do think it was dope to get those flashbacks to how Joe grew up. His POS mom (damn, I’m noticing a pattern) lowkey turned him into a killer, although I kinda wished there was a lamp or flashlight/book situation in that closet he kept chilling in. Do you think they did a good job of giving us more of Joe’s past this season?

Frazier: It worked when it connected Joe’s mindstate to the story at hand. When Henderson gets into Joe’s head with his trauma survivor talk and forces yet another of Joe’s best laid, nobody-will-die plans to end in murder, the flashbacks in that episode help sell the idea of Joe letting his guard down. Other times it was laid on a little thick. Damn his mom sucked, and damn that is one sad looking kid. We get it! Joe doesn’t need a supervillain origin story, this show teeters the line of normalizing and sympathizing an incel enough as is. It’s television’s Joker!

The New Girl

khal: If Joe is TV’s Joker, that’d make Love Harley Quinn? And I’m cool with it. Again, she was one of my favorite parts of The Haunting, but seeing her blossom here was definitely something. Plus, I don’t really read books, and certainly not ones that give us shows like You, but Victoria had to do a lot! She’s a chef, she’s rom-com meet-cute sweet, she’s sexy, and also mad vicious and broken. For a show that’s a character study on bad incel energy, it’s dope to see them basically recreate that archetype with a strong AF woman. After the big reveal, it didn’t feel like there was enough time to show Love really going in with her darker side. I don’t want it to be a full-on A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, where Joe is just walking on eggshells trying to please Love, but the possibilities are endless—does Love spot him scoping out the neighbor lady early on? Does neighbor lady end up getting 86’d? Will Love’s mom survive (I’m hoping she doesn’t!)...hell, will Joe survive?! It feels like the possibilities are endless.

Candace

Frazier: When book readers kept highlighting that an alive and vengeful Candace was the show's major departure, it was a red flag. As such, the Candace arc doesn't play out poorly but I wouldn't call it a slam dunk either. Her actions put Joe on the defensive a few times, and her existence validates itself in the final third of the season to get Joe and Love where they need to be. But quite simply, the character was a pretty boring foil. She was never actually a match for Joe, she just got lucky. Watching her blunder around at his own game got pretty boring, and since the show was clearly never interested in taking her trauma at Joe's hands all that seriously, it was hard to empathize with her. Maybe we needed a Candace episode?

khal: A Candace episode would've helped. I remember loving how her story got weaved into Season 1; the whole twist was that we thought she was dead, and she shows up at the very end of Season 1, leading the way for Joe to become Will in the City of Angels. And I was hoping that we'd get a little more of her sleuthing or following Joe like he did Beck and Love; I really thought the twist for Season 2 would be that Candace somehow becomes Joe. That said, while her importance was indeed validated, there just wasn't enough of her throughout this season for it to truly mean something. I guess it's fine, as she told Love everything she knew about Joe, but truth be told, it's one of the things I dislike about this series—Joe gets away with everything because anyone tying him to his real shit is either gone or gone. Candace could've been so much more, but hopefully what she lent to the series by way of informing Love of what was really going on will live on in Season 3.

I have to wonder: how long can this show go on? I mean, we’re going into Season 3, and what exactly has Joe gotten in trouble for? Sure, people saw him as a creep, but he’s gotten off relatively scot-free! Can we see this going past a third season? Do we want it to?

The Future

Frazier: When I was trying to guess how this ending would subvert Season 1, I wondered if the twist would be Joe actually being held accountable—especially given Penn Badgley’s deep discomfort with the conceit of casting Dan Humphrey as a creep working a little too well on fans tweeting Joe could murder them any day. Maybe Season 2 would actually end with Joe outsmarted before some wrench gets thrown in to complicate things. Or better yet, before we just end there, on some BBC shit.

Instead, we’ve circled the soapy drain and gone even deeper into camp-melodrama. YOU Season 3 could unpack Joe and Love’s shared trauma and further examine why they do what they do as more bodies drop. But this scenario of Joe and Love as wolves in suburbia, stalking their neighbors and each other will likely take the show even further from reality. And trying to top that for a Season 4 could arguably lead to the twist that topples the entire series. I’m perfectly fine with this show ending at three seasons, but they’ve surprised us thus far.

khal: My ultimate hope is that YOU doesn't overstay its welcome. Season 1 was such a surprise, and they found a way to up the ante for Season 3. Netflix might be on our side; they seem unafraid to cancel a series after a certain number of seasons (with many wondering if the three-to-five season range is their sweetspot). YOU, while addictive, feels like it has a defined lifespan. Once dude gets away with New York murder, and finds his soulmate in Los Angeles, the perfect culmination is a suburban murder spree between Love and Joe, right? Let's put a defined end to this series before it becomes a mockery of what we loved about YOU in the first place. Pun intended.

The Golden Goldbergs

Cleanest Kill: The loan shark or whatever guy who was quick to chop a finger. What the fuck was good with that?

Best LA Ether: Anavrin for Erewhon

Wasted Cameo: How do you cast You're the Worst's Kether Donohue as a blunt talent agent and only have her in one scene?

Love or Beck?

Frazier: Beck was basic, but she had a charm about her. I already had Love pegged as needy and co-dependent before the knives came out. Beck had better friends, too.

khal: I love Love, but watching Season 2...made me realize how much I rocked with Beck. A lot of the shit about her (and her friends group) that annoyed me on my first watch didn't seem so bad when thinking of Love's squad. They were fine, but we didn't get a Peach Salinger, aka a friend you love to hate.

Cast Joe's neighbor for Season 3:

Frazier: Madchen Amick, pull up.

khal: Madchen is amazing, and would make sense—judging by the wedding ring and what appeared to be note-taking, maybe the neighbor is some kind of teacher or professor? It looked like she was a brunette though, so maybe Linda Cardellini—who is already doing big Netflix things on Dead to Me—has some time in her schedule to be the object of Joe's obsession.