Warning: The following article contains spoilers for seasons one and four of You.
With the Netflix hit series You returning for season four, fans are wondering what fate has in store for Joe Goldberg aka Professor Jonathan Moore (Penn Badgley). In the first part of season four, we saw the obsessive stalker caught in a hot mess after he discovered himself on the receiving end of the stalking game.
The new season, which to a large extent resembles an Agatha Christie murder mystery, leaves a trail of mutilated bodies behind and it is not until the end of the series that the murderer is revealed, who is none other than the British mayoral candidate with a humble background, Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers), who also turns out to be the one stalking and tormenting Joe throughout the season.
Needless to say, the season makes the viewers sympathetic to Joe, who is portrayed as the victim in this instance. However, a retrospective reflection on the character will bring back the terrifying fate that he subjected his victims to, most of whom were his ‘love interests’ (or at least what he perceived them to be).
While the audience is eager to know what would happen to him in the second part of season four, let’s revert to the very first season and reflect on Joe’s outrageously scary actions, including the death of his girlfriend, Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail).
Beck was Joe’s object of obsession who meets a bone-chilling doom towards the series’ end. She dies in the season and her killer is none other than her chivalrous boyfriend who, according to him, wanted to save her from the cruelties of the world. Let’s shed some light on how and why it happened.
Why did Joe kill Beck?
It all began with what seemed like a meet-cute at an old bookstore. An aspiring writer, Beck, meets a bookstore manager, Joe Goldberg. There is some flirtatious exchange of words only for Joe to get fixated on her.
Thereafter, he starts to search for her on the internet, stalk her on social media, literally stands outside her house to check to keep an eye on her schedules, steals her phone to keep a tab on her conversations, follows her to places where she meets her friends and saves her from getting brutally killed by a speeding train on the subway track.
This is the time when the viewers start doubting Joe’s intentions and what looked like a budding love story seems like a creepy obsession of a stalker. The doubts prove to be right when he kills Beck’s ex-boyfriend Benji and her best friend Peach who, in his opinion, posed a threat to their relationship.
Throughout, Beck is oblivious to Joe’s actions until the season’s penultimate episode when she encounters the shocking truth. In the episode, “Candace,” Joe’s troubled neighbor kid, Paco, confesses to Beck that he taught Joe to hide objects in the bathroom ceiling.
It was nothing but a passing comment. In the very next scene, we see Beck in Joe’s bathroom curiously looking at the ceiling wondering if Joe hid anything there. She opened the ceiling and discovered a box containing her stolen phone, a box full of Benji’s teeth, her pictures, a pair of panties and Peach’s phone.
When Beck tries to escape after realizing the truth, Joe stops her and, after knocking her unconscious in a quintessential Joe fashion, locks her inside the bookstore basement glass dungeon. While she remains imprisoned, Joe confesses to the murders and used ‘loving and protecting her’ as reasons for justifying his actions.
Beck pretends to win him over, convincing him that she still loves him, and once Joe restores his faith in her, she uses the opportunity to escape. However, luck isn’t in favor of Beck who is once again caught by Joe. Only this time, he murders her off-screen.
We see Beck again in season two as a figment of Joe’s imagination, reminding him of what he did to her. “You hurt me,” she says as she takes off her scarf exposing wounds around her neck thus confirming that Joe strangled her to death.
As of now, Beck hasn’t made any appearance in the show, implying that Joe is finally rid of any guilt he harbored about killing her. There’s no discussion about her return to the show anytime soon.
You is currently streaming on Netflix.