Penn Badgley breaks down You Season 5 ending

**Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the You Season 5 finale. Reader discretion is advised.**

After years of getting away with murder, Penn Badgley's Joe Goldberg finally faces his end in the You Season 5 finale, at the hands of Madeline Brewer's Bronte/Louise.

Badgley has been very vocal in censuring his fans for idolizing Joe because he is a compulsive stalker and perpetrator of gendered violence. Talking about the befitting and necessary end Joe receives at the end of You Season 5, Badgley notes to Deadline:

“It becomes a meta exercise on: Why are we so obsessed with this man?”

He adds:

“Apart from the superficial reasons, what is it about a protagonist like this that works? And I think we deliver; it’s a true deconstruction of Joe.”

In the Season 5 finale, while Joe seemed to have found a loving family with Kate Lockwood and their son Henry, he again falls for the charming Bronte. And as old habits die hard, the two begin a secret love affair. But only this time, Bronte is the one deceiving him, as she is actually Louise, Beck's student, who wants to expose Joe.

More on the Season 5 finale in our story.

Penn Badgley opens up about Joe's satisfactory end in the You Season 5 finale

While many fans predicted that Joe would die in the You Season 5 finale, he is actually sent to prison by Bronte, who manages to escape and call the cops on him.

Talking about their decision not to kill off Joe at Bronte's hands (as he has done to countless women before), Badgley notes to Deadline:

“It is a carceral question [of killing Joe], a question of justice, of transformative justice as it’s referred to sometimes, vengeance, retribution.''

He adds:

''What is best, not just for Joe, but the person who then has to do it? If somebody was to kill him — and it would be a woman, right — well then actually now what you’ve burdened her with is having committed murder, like that’s not just, I don’t think. Torture?''

While Bronte finally managed to put Joe in prison and avenge the death of countless women who went down with him, she did fall in love with him in reality. You has always made its protagonist Joe Goldberg charming to a fault, and he narrowly manages to charm Bronte.

Badgley discussed how Bronte falling for Joe mimics audiences, who can't help themselves but love You's protagonist despite all his flaws:

“‘Oh, so she’s me.’ She knows who he is, she knows his name, she knows what he’s done, she even watched him do it in front of her face. And yet, ‘I/she still love him.’''

You Season 5 is now streaming on Netflix.

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Also Read: You Season 5 cast and character guide

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