You - Season 2
YOU - SEASON 2 - NETFLIX
Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) is on the run, finding himself in sunny Los Angeles — a city he hates. He is trying to stay hidden, hoping to avoid being tied to the string of murders he committed in New York. Joe takes on a new identity, Will Bettelheim, and falls for a new girl, Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). He longs for a genuine relationship and to put his delusional obsession with women behind him. His ex-girlfriend Candace (Ambyr Childers), however, will not let that happen.
Season 2 of You is loosely based on Caroline Kepnes’s novel Hidden Bodies, with significant plot points changed in order to keep the audience from guessing the season’s ending. Each episode ends with a giant cliffhanger or new twist, making You one of the most manageable and easily accessible NETFLIX original series to binge. It is difficult to walk away from the chaos of Joe Goldberg’s Angeleno life. Most of the season is centred on the main character pursuing a relationship with Love, an aspiring chef that works at her affluent family’s health food grocery store called Anavrin — yes, that is nirvana spelt backwards. Joe meets Love at Anavrin after he takes a job in Anavrin’s bookstore, and their relationship progresses quickly.
Other subplots, though still following Joe, keep the season chaotic and in the realm of being a psychological thriller. Joe keeps the man whose identity he stole locked in a cage in a storage locker, much like the one he used in Season 1 to hold Elizabeth Lail’s Guinevere Beck hostage. Beck’s murdered spirit appears to Joe several times as he is courting Love; his ex-girlfriend Candace also finds Joe in Los Angeles. Both women force Joe to struggle with his past actions. Despite his psychopathic behaviours, these plotlines make Joe out to be endearing with Penn Badgley’s dazzling narration painting the picture of a man in tragic crisis. Ambyr Childers plays Candace to be conniving as she pursues a relationship with Love’s twin brother Forty (James Scully) to keep an eye on Joe, instead of simply going to the police and putting a stop to Joe’s behaviour for good.
Another plot point that makes the viewer struggle with Joe’s character is that of his neighbours Delilah (Carmela Zumbado) and Ellie Alves (Jenna Ortega), sisters working in Hollywood. Ellie is interested in film and takes an internship with Henderson played by Chris D’Elia, a stand-up comedian that allegedly has a thing for underage girls. Delilah had an incident with Henderson but never spoke about it, so Ellie ignores her sister. Joe takes over the role of the protective parents in order to keep an eye on Ellie.
You Season 2 pushes the audience to question whether or not Joe Goldberg is really that bad of a guy, to decipher their limitation of acceptance or condemnation. Is he truly evil or purely unstable? As we see a better picture of his internal struggle, Joe becomes more sincere and a better person through his relationship with Love but the past is never far behind him. Sure, he has murdered several people but he did it for love, both literally and metaphorically. It is Joe’s pursuit of being better that makes You’s second season even more captivating than the first. You asks the viewer to question how far their empathy goes, to the victims or to the love-obsessed killer, crafting quite the profound character study throughout for a compelling impact.
You - Season 2 is streaming exclusively on NETFLIX December 26th 2019