Some guys have all the luck. Especially if they are a no-good, very-bad person, like Joe Goldberg.
After becoming a full-blown serial killer in the Netflix drama You, it seemed like the season four finale was primed to serve up the Internet's problematic fave's demise, with Joe (Penn Badgley) jumping off a bridge in order to finally stop his murderous ways.
Spoiler alert: He survives and finds absolution in his rich girlfriend Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), who promises that they will help keep each other good. Which lasts for about five minutes before Joe frames his student Nadia after she discovers he's actually the "Eat the Rich" killer. (Get a full breakdown of the seasons' shocking twists here.)
And the episode's final scene served as arguably the series' most chilling yet: Joe sitting side-by-side with Kate as they are being positioned as the next great power couple. "I have so many tools now—sure, killing's one of them, but it's certainly not a one-size-fits-all solution," Joe says in a voiceover, giving the camera a charming smile. "Though the killing part is also much easier, now that I'm honest about it."
While Netflix has yet to announce that You has been renewed for a fifth season, showrunner Sera Gamble told E! News that viewers should expect to see "a more dangerous" Joe should the show come back.
"We have spent four seasons constructing these characters who are violently wealthy, but not all of them are that smart or that ruthless," Gamble explained. "If Joe is all of the things that he is and now has unlimited resources and access, he's become the thing that he envied and judged from afar. It gives us a lot of new opportunities."
After sending an on-the-run Joe to England, where he changed his name to Jonathan Moore, Gamble said it was important for the character to have "a homecoming" by season's end.
"We wanted him to make a triumphant return to New York so he would be positioned side-by-side with exactly where we started," she shared. "We shaved the beard, gave him back the name and sent him home, just way up in the sky from where he was before."
But with great power comes great publicity, as we see in the season's final moments, Joe and Kate being touted as the couple that will change the world after enduring all of their trauma in London.
While his new position will "threaten his anonymity," Gamble said it might not necessarily make it "harder" for Joe to continue his murderous ways.
"I am thinking of all of the terrible, terrible stuff that very privileged wealthy people get away with, so maybe it won't," she theorized. "If we get to go into the writer's room and figure out another season, these are exactly the conversations we'll be having."
Another ongoing talking point throughout You's four-year run for the writers and star Badgley has been what "justice" would mean when it comes to someone who looks like Joe, ie. a very attractive white man who seems to get away with all of his misdeeds.
"It's fun to write him as very appealing and like a romantic hero," Gamble explained, "but when we are looking at the facts of the case in a conversation with Penn or with the writers, we're just like, 'This person is horrible. They need to be punished.' But the world is full of horrible men like Joe, who will never, ever, ever be punished. So there's a certain discipline that we have to have."
Which is why the writers ultimately chose not to have Joe die in the season four finale.
"After seasons of holding ourselves to a certain standard of honesty about this, we can't just turn around and throw him in maximum security prison or throw him off a bridge for good," Gamble said. "We have to think a little bit more deeply about what we're really saying about someone like him."
It's safe to say that he's no average Joe.
You season four is streaming on Netflix.