In the psychological thriller You season 1, which originally aired on Lifetime, obsession masquerades as love with devastating consequences, showing how romantic fixation can twist into manipulation, surveillance, and ultimately murder. Penn Badgley’s portrayal of Joe Goldberg perfectly captures this disturbing contradiction—a seemingly gentle bookstore manager whose charming exterior hides a predatory mind capable of justifying increasingly violent acts as expressions of devotion. This dual nature creates the show’s central tension, as viewers find themselves both understanding Joe’s warped perspective and recoiling at the horrifying reality of his actions against Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) and others who threaten his carefully crafted romantic fantasy.
Adapted from Caroline Kepnes’ novel of the same name, You gained massive popularity after moving from Lifetime to Netflix, eventually running for five seasons before wrapping up in 2025. The series earned academic praise for its exploration of technology-enabled stalking, as Joe’s digital surveillance tactics, which ranged from stolen phones to social media monitoring, reflected real-world concerns about privacy in the digital age. Critics noted the show’s uncomfortable yet gripping approach to its protagonist, creating what The Guardian described as a contradictory character who viewers both root for and despise. Beyond its thrilling storyline, You serves as a chilling examination of how modern technology makes predatory behavior frighteningly easy and how trauma perpetuates cycles of violence.
Obsession Becomes Deadly Pursuit
Joe Goldberg presents as an average bookstore manager, but a much darker nature lurks beneath his quiet smile. He manages Mooney’s, a quaint New York City bookstore where the previous owner, Mr. Mooney (Mark Blum), raised him. Despite a calm exterior, Joe harbors sinister obsessions with women who capture his attention. When aspiring writer Guinevere Beck enters his store, she becomes his instant obsession. Beck, a financially struggling MFA student in creative writing at NYU and part-time yoga teacher, strives to keep pace with her affluent friends.
What begins as a seemingly harmless internet search by Joe quickly spirals into a far more sinister endeavor. He begins stalking Beck, meticulously tracking her movements, observing her interactions, and even surreptitiously entering her apartment. One night, Joe’s obsession seemingly aligns with fate. A drunk Beck falls onto the subway tracks; Joe, conveniently present, saves her life just before the train arrives. This act positions him as a hero in Beck’s eyes, masking his predatory reality. After taking her home, he steals her phone before leaving. With access to her social media and email through her unlocked phone, Joe sets up monitoring systems to track her communications even after she replaces her device. This grants him a direct window into her messages, secrets, and fears.
Grateful for his intervention, Beck visits the bookstore to thank Joe. He seizes this opportunity to cultivate closeness, eventually asking her out. However, Benjamin “Benji” Ashby (Lou Taylor Pucci), Beck’s arrogant and unfaithful boyfriend, becomes an obstacle. Viewing Benji as an obstacle, Joe decides to remove him. Luring Benji into the bookstore’s basement, Joe strikes him with a hammer and imprisons him in a temperature-controlled plexiglass cage used for sensitive materials, marking the first deadly step in his twisted pursuit of love. While holding Benji captive, Joe remains indecisive about killing him. However, discovering a disturbing video of Benji filming a fraternity hazing incident that led to a pledge’s drowning death solidifies Joe’s decision to eliminate him.
Joe ultimately kills Benji by giving him a latte laced with peanut oil, exploiting Benji’s severe peanut allergy. While developing her relationship with Joe, Beck confronts professional turmoil. Her professor, Dr. Paul Leahy (Reg Rogers), makes inappropriate advances during their academic mentorship, which she firmly rejects. He retaliates by threatening her teaching assistant position and housing stipend—financial support crucial to her limited income. During this period, her wealthy friend Peach Salinger (Shay Mitchell), descendant of the famous Salinger family, harbors her own obsession with Beck and grows increasingly suspicious of Joe’s intentions.
Relationships Intensify, Secrets Emerge
Eventually, Beck turns the tables on Dr. Paul by gathering evidence of his harassment against her and six other women, exposing his predatory behavior. Beck also grapples with academic pressures, including intimidation from Blythe (Hari Nef), a fiercely competitive rival graduate student in her NYU MFA program who often belittles Beck’s work during workshop sessions. Meanwhile, Joe faces his own challenges. After poisoning Benji, Joe must now dispose of the body, a task he approaches with disturbing methodicalness.
After Benji disappears, Joe and Beck’s relationship begins to develop, although cautiously. However, Joe’s obsession and insecurity do not diminish. He monitors Beck by tracking her stolen phone and watches her apartment from across the street. One day, he sees her being physically intimate with another man. This incident, along with information from her phone suggesting she might be casually seeing other people, convinces him he must be the only one in her life. His paranoia intensifies when he hears her refer to him as just a “maybe” while talking to her friends. This comment sharply contrasts with the romantic and exclusive relationship he is trying to create.
Later, their emotional connection appears to strengthen as Beck shares painful memories of her father, whom she claims is dead but is actually estranged and struggling with addiction. This intimate moment is interrupted when Peach feigns a health scare requiring a hospital visit. Peach’s obsession manifests in her manipulative behavior and covert stalking of Beck, including taking inappropriate photos without consent. She consistently undermines Beck’s relationships, seeing them as threats to their friendship and her control.
In a particularly tense sequence, Joe drives to a remote wooded area to burn Benji’s body. The gruesome process is nearly exposed when hikers unexpectedly pass nearby. Later that same day, while driving home, Joe maintains a seemingly normal phone conversation with Beck, demonstrating his disturbing ability to compartmentalize his crimes. After this ordeal, Beck invites Joe to her apartment. They finally consummate their relationship, but the encounter is underwhelming, with Joe finishing prematurely—a subtle indication that their connection is not as perfect as he desperately desires. Through Beck’s old phone, Joe reads her candid messages to friends, where she complains about his disappointing performance in bed.
His surveillance also reveals Beck’s weekend plans with an older man she calls “The Captain,” a trip she lied about to her friends. Consumed by jealousy, Joe tracks her to a Charles Dickens festival in Nyack, only to discover “The Captain” is her father, Edward (Michael Park), whom Beck had consistently lied about to her friends and initially to Joe, claiming he had died of an overdose. Now sober and remarried, Beck still keeps Edward at a distance due to his past abandonment. Following this revelation, Beck confides more in Joe about her father, leading to a night where their intimacy is significantly more fulfilling for her.
Peach’s Obsession Proves Fatal
From their first meeting, Peach views Joe with suspicion, sensing his unsettling nature. As time goes on, her doubts intensify, driven both by her deep-seated possessiveness toward Beck and by Joe’s increasingly obvious attempts to isolate Beck from her friends. While Peach grows more wary of Joe, he begins to devise a plan to remove her from Beck’s life entirely. To impress Beck, Peach introduces her to a well-known literary agent, hoping to gain favor and solidify her influence. However, the meeting quickly unravels when the agent makes an unwanted advance toward Beck and discloses that Peach has been making disparaging comments about her in private.
This revelation leads to a fierce confrontation between the two friends, straining their relationship even further. Sensing an opportunity, Joe sees through Peach’s staged suicide attempt. He hacks her laptop, uncovering the depth of her obsession with Beck, evidenced by a vast collection of photos and personal information. Concluding he can never truly win Beck with Peach’s influence, Joe follows Peach on a morning jog in Central Park and brutally attacks her with a brick. His presumed victory over Peach is short-lived, as he soon learns Peach survived his attack with a severe head injury.
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Around this time, pressures mount for Joe in his personal life as well. He has an ongoing protective relationship with his young neighbor Paco, who endures his mother Claudia’s (Victoria Cartagena) abusive relationship with her boyfriend Ron (Daniel Cosgrove), a parole officer. This situation takes a critical turn when Joe discovers Paco has drugged Ron to protect his mother. Joe subsequently intervenes directly with Ron, who severely beats him. This incident, amidst the Peach crisis, highlights his complex nature—capable of both (twisted) protection and extreme violence—and intensifies the strain as he navigates the escalating situation with Peach and Beck.
Recovering from her injuries, Peach moves in with Beck, claiming she needs care while healing. She promptly works to expel Joe from Beck’s life, creating constant interruptions and emergencies that demand Beck’s attention. Despite Joe warning Beck about Peach’s manipulative and possessive love, Beck feels obligated to help her injured friend. When Peach convinces a reluctant Beck to accompany her to the Salinger family’s luxurious Greenwich, Connecticut estate for “recovery”, Joe senses deceit and secretly follows them. During this pursuit, Joe sustains a head injury in a car accident, triggering hallucinations of his ex-girlfriend, Candace Stone (Ambyr Childers).
At the estate, Peach invites an old friend, Raj (Gerrard Lobo), and attempts to orchestrate a threesome involving Beck after they all take MDMA. Uncomfortable, Beck rebuffs Peach and secretly messages Joe. Later, Beck confronts Peach about their earlier awkward kiss and decides to leave. The situation escalates dramatically when Peach discovers Joe hiding in the house. Armed, she accuses him of stalking. Cornered, Joe exposes Peach’s manipulative games. A violent struggle ensues, culminating in Peach shooting Joe in the leg. Despite his injury, Joe overpowers and kills her. He then forges a suicide note on Peach’s laptop, convincing investigators she took her own life.
Several weeks after Peach’s death, Joe and Beck enjoy a period of blissful connection. However, over time, Beck becomes increasingly moody, distant, and secretive. Desperate to understand her changing behavior, Joe begins attending therapy under the alias Paul with Beck’s therapist, Dr. Nicky (John Stamos). In these sessions, presenting himself as “Paul”, he vents about his deteriorating relationship with “Ronaldo” (his codename for Beck). Consumed by jealousy and suspicion, Joe resumes his surveillance of Beck. She catches him following her, leading to a confrontation where Joe, acting on his paranoia, accuses her of having an affair with Dr. Nicky. This unsubstantiated accusation prompts a furious and heartbroken Beck to end their relationship.
After the breakup, Joe hacks into Dr. Nicky’s computer system using information from his own therapy sessions to listen to Beck’s private therapy recordings. Her raw honesty leads him to believe she might be better off without him, so he tells her what she seemingly wants to hear and lets her go. Three months after his breakup with Beck, Joe appears to have moved on. Through his connection with Paco and Claudia, he begins dating Karen Minty (Natalie Paul), Claudia’s sister and Paco’s aunt. Their relationship develops organically, free from the stalking or manipulation that characterized his previous romances. Karen, a confident and straightforward woman, brings a sense of normalcy to Joe’s life.
Reconciliation Masks Growing Suspicion
Meanwhile, Beck channels her trauma into success, securing a book deal for her story about Peach’s death. However, the past resurfaces when Beck, realizing she misses Joe, orchestrates a “chance” encounter at a food truck in his neighborhood and resumes texting him. Both Beck and Joe discuss their feelings with Dr. Nicky; Beck denies flirting but asserts Karen isn’t right for Joe, while Joe compares “Brad” (Karen) unfavorably to “Ronaldo” (Beck). Inevitably, Joe and Beck reconnect while helping Blythe move in with Ethan Russell (Zach Cherry). Their spark reignites, leading to intimacy. A tearful Beck admits her fear of needing Joe so intensely. Fueled by this renewed hope, Joe ends his relationship with Karen and rushes back to Beck, who welcomes him enthusiastically.
However, their reunion is soon clouded when Karen confronts Beck, planting seeds of doubt and prompting Beck to question how well she truly knows Joe. A significant part of Joe’s dark past involves Candace, who has primarily appeared as a figure in his disturbing hallucinations. The horrifying truth about their history eventually comes to light, especially as Beck becomes increasingly uneasy and suspicious about Candace’s fate. Before meeting Beck, Joe discovered that Candace was having an affair with music producer Elijah Thornton (Esteban Benito). Consumed by jealous rage, Joe confronted Elijah and pushed him off a balcony, killing him—Joe’s first known murder as an adult.
Afterward, Joe attempted to kill Candace by burying her alive. He mistakenly believed she had died, although he never found definitive proof. In the present, Beck’s suspicion grows as Joe remains evasive about Candace. Her independent investigation into Candace’s disappearance yields no answers. When she confronts Joe, he offers a calm and convincing, albeit fabricated, version of events that temporarily allays her fears. He even introduces Beck to Mr. Mooney, his stroke-stricken mentor. Mooney adopted Joe and subjected him to emotional abuse, frequently locking him in the bookstore’s glass cage as punishment—an experience that profoundly damaged Joe’s psyche and influenced his later behavior.
Following their reconciliation and Beck’s growing suspicions about Candace’s fate, Joe begins to suspect that Beck had an affair with Dr. Nicky during their breakup period. Though his initial accusation was paranoid, Beck indeed had a brief affair with Dr. Nicky while they were apart, which she admits to Joe, reassuring him of her current love. Beck explains that her actions stemmed from feelings of being overwhelmed and uncertain about their relationship, leading her to seek solace elsewhere. This confession adds further complexity to their relationship, highlighting the deep-seated issues and mistrust between them.
However, the charade unravels when Paco unknowingly tells Beck that Joe hides a spare key above his bathroom ceiling tile—the same hiding method Joe taught Paco for his books from Ron. This seemingly innocent comment becomes a crucial clue. While alone in Joe’s apartment, Beck investigates and discovers a hidden compartment above the bathroom ceiling containing her old phone, Benji’s and Peach’s phones, and other disturbing mementos. Before she can escape, Joe apprehends her, knocking her unconscious and imprisoning her in the bookstore’s cage.
Imprisonment, Murder, Unexpected Return
Joe learns from Beck’s friends, Annika (Kathryn Gallagher) and Lynn (Nicole Kang), that Peach Salinger’s family, unwilling to accept her death as suicide, has hired private investigator Ross (Ryan Andes) to investigate her death. Ross begins surveilling Beck and her circle, eventually confronting Joe with probing questions about his relationship with Peach and his whereabouts during critical times. This encounter unsettles Joe, as Ross hints at evidence being tested for DNA, referencing a jar Joe left behind at Peach’s residence. Meanwhile, Beck, confined in the bookstore’s basement cage, desperately works on a manuscript detailing Joe’s crimes and her own complicity, simultaneously trying to earn his trust by suggesting he could frame Dr. Nicky for all the murders.
Concurrent with Beck’s captivity and scheming, the volatile situation with Joe’s neighbors reaches a tragic climax. Ron’s escalating abuse results in Claudia’s hospitalization, an event that profoundly affects Paco and pushes Joe—who views himself as Paco’s protector—to a breaking point. Driven by a distorted sense of justice and his desire to shield Paco from further trauma, Joe confronts and murders Ron. Later, believing Beck has come to understand and potentially accept his twisted perspective, Joe finally opens up to her. Seeking validation for his warped worldview, he explains his motives for killing Benji and Peach, attributing his actions to the trauma and abuse he suffered under Mooney’s care.
Beck feigns understanding and even appreciation, but it’s a ruse. Seizing an opportune moment, she tricks Joe into opening the vault, then locks him inside, revealing her deception. Trapped in the bookstore’s basement cage, Joe calls out to Paco for help. However, Paco, conflicted by his loyalty to Joe and the moral implications of Joe’s actions, chooses to walk away without alerting the authorities. Joe had previously hidden a spare key in the cage, a habit formed during the time Mr. Mooney would lock him in as punishment. Using it, he manages to escape and confronts Beck as she frantically attempts to flee the building. Despite her desperate efforts to escape and plead for her life, Joe overpowers and strangles her to death.
Four months later, Joe has manipulated Beck’s manuscript to successfully frame Dr. Nicky for his murders. Claudia and Paco have relocated to California. Just as Joe believes he is finally in the clear, Candace—alive and seeking retribution—walks into the bookstore. In a shocking revelation defying Joe’s conviction of her death, Candace had survived his attempt to bury her alive. After unsuccessfully seeking help from police who lacked concrete evidence against Joe, she has returned to confront him herself, ready to settle their unfinished business.
