‘You’ Showrunners teases wild alternative series that showed Dead Joe Goldberg as ‘A Ghost’

Warning: This post contains spoilers for You Season 5.

During the last season of YouThe Joe Goldberg Finally gets what he deserves – but series finale Could have had a completely different end.

Hit Netflix series ended with Joe (Penn Badgley) locked in a cage, caught alone in the prison cell after his last love interest, Brontte (Madeline Brewer), finally brought him to justice for the murder of Guineve Beck (Elizabeth Lail) and love quinn (Victoria Pedretti).

The final scene shows that Joe regrets his loneliness when he finishes a copy of Norman Mailers The singer’s song. He then gets a letter from a “fan” that expresses his desire to become his next victim, which results in Joe concluding: “Maybe the problem is not me. Maybe … that’s you.”

Although many fans were satisfied with how Joe finally got their operation, You showrunner and executive producer, Michael Foley, told New York Post that the team did not land at the end of the show “until very late in the season.”

“Throughout the series, there was a shared belief among the authors and creators that Joe would not get away with their crimes,” he explained. “We came into the season knowing that we did not want to redeem him, that he would get his operation, that he would meet some of them whose life he destroyed. And most importantly we knew he would be able to meet himself.”

Death was “too easy” an end, and the idea of ​​putting Joe in a permanent cage was more than appealing. “We liked that he didn’t know a lover,” Foley added.

Co-showrunner and executive producer Justin W. Lo also told Post That there were several alternative finishes that the team played with.

“We went through many different alternatives, one of which was that he dies in the hands of Bronte. I even remembered a version where he was shot. And (the audience) did not realize that he shot until the last episode, and then he realizes that he is a ghost,” LO revealed and added that the last end was “a very early iteration.”

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You is available to stream in full on Netflix.