Plot Summary - You is based on Caroline Kepnes’s novels You, Hidden bodies and You Love Me.
The series features the story of Joe Goldberg, a New York-based book manager who becomes infatuated with an aspiring writer Guinevere Beck upon meeting with her. He stalks her through social media and other technology and later removes all the obstacles to their romance including her friends and her ex-boyfriend by killing them. Joe also befriends his neighbour’s kid Paco as he sees Paco as a reflection of himself.
In the second season to escape his ex-girlfriend Candace who seeks revenge from him for everything he has done to her, Joe moves from New York to Los Angeles where he changes his identity to Will Bettelheim to avoid his past. Later in LA Joe meets Love Quinn an avid chef and a member of the famous and powerful Quinn family and repeats his old patterns of obsession and violence this time he’s determined to make it work with Love at all costs but he isn’t aware that Love has been harbouring secrets of her own.
By the third season, Joe and Love are married and parents to a baby boy, Henry. To start afresh they move to the suburb of Madre Linda. Again, Joe becomes obsessed with his neighbour Natalie Engler and later with a local librarian Marienne Bellamy. However, Love makes sure that she won’t let Joe’s compulsive actions destroy their family and marriage and she would do anything to protect that.
Review - As a huge psychological thriller fan I must say that the script of the show was well written and executed it was very interestingly written and the thing which I loved about the show is that it’s so unpredictable that you cannot predict what’s gonna happen next and the plot is written in a way that it feels like you are living inside Joe’s mind.
I love the focus on details it gives you the answers to all the questions you’re asking yourself about Joe.
I think Joe is a type of person who upon meeting you makes an image of you in his head after analyzing you and the show’s plot justifies the name of the show as he doesn’t call his target by his name but they are “you” until how he thought they were.
Now if we talk about acting I must say it is one of the few shows where almost everyone did a spectacular job on their characters. However, to me, Penn Badgely and Victoria Pedretti stood out the most as they bought Joe Goldberg and Love Quinn’s characters to life and after watching them I just cannot imagine anyone playing these characters they truly personified their characters.
I would like to conclude by saying that You is a must-watch if you’re into psychological thrillers trust me the show won’t disappoint you and I just can’t wait for season 4.