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As season 5 of You rolls out and wraps up, the story of Joe Goldberg is a very tragic one. The audience has seen the final snapshot: Joe is in jail, reading a book quietly. At first glance, this may appear as a gentle ending. However, that book has a lot to say about the state of Joe's mind and where the story eventually takes us all.
What book are we talking about? The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer, the book at hand, is a true-crime masterpiece about yet another killer of immense notoriety. The parallels that exist between Mailer’s protagonist and Joe are more than obvious—they are disturbingly explicit on purpose.
What is The Executioner’s Song?
The Executioner’s Song, published in 1979, is a non-fiction novel by Norman Mailer based on real events. It chronicles the life of Gary Gilmore, a convicted criminal best known for insisting on the death penalty after his conviction.
His case was notable because his execution was the first one after the reinstatement of capital punishment in the USA in 1976.
The narrative of Mailer touches a lot on psychological aspects, and Gilmore is virtually the protagonist who transforms from the boy of problems to the dual murderer due to his free determination—and, finally, to the victim’s role: too proud to have it differ, he preferred to face the gun. He did not appeal or ask for a life in jail.
Why Joe Goldberg is reading this book
Joe Goldberg, an avid reader, has consistently turned to literature as both a refuge and a means of justification throughout the You series. Choosing The Executioner's Song as the final book in Season 5 is no coincidence—it serves as the ultimate reflection of his own journey.
Joe, like Gilmore, is a murderer. However, while Gilmore accepted capital punishment and embraced self-determination as a form of agency, Joe reached the opposite conclusion. Imprisoned with no hope of release, Joe no longer sees himself as a criminal by choice but as a victim of a society that 'created' him.
Joe's silence and then his following eerie monologue while he is finishing the book are what makes the audience feel that Joe has probably accepted that he's a monster now; it will take him much more time to be convinced that he's responsible for it.
Is Joe contemplating his own execution?
Joe may appear to be playing around with the concept of death as the main idea of the book. On the other hand, he is indeed never going to be killed, which is explicitly stated in the book. You mentions that Joe is in the New York State penitentiary, where there is no death penalty, so he is the one who will never die. But he is given several life sentences to serve as a punishment.
On the contrary, if one looks at Gilmore’s “chosen” death as the only alternative and if the latter is not available, this becomes the biggest fear of Joe, he becomes the one, who confessed to kill out of selfish love and protection before, and is now without the thing he wanted so much— control.
It is also more likely that Joe may find some solace in the narrative of the book that features a killer regaining authority through death, as it mirrors this intense feeling of dissatisfaction.
The victim complex continues
It’s a bit controversial—The Executioner’s Song has often faced criticism for portraying Gilmore more as a misunderstood figure or even a hero, rather than a cold-blooded murderer. In response, Professor Alice Kaminsky, the mother of one of Gilmore’s victims, wrote The Victim’s Song, a powerful rebuttal that dismantles Mailer’s glorification.
This kind of thing gives us one more aspect of Joe’s selection. At all stages of his narration, just like Mailer's Gilmore, Joe changes the narrative so that the listener will feel sorry for him. Even when he is finishing it, he still evades the regret. But he puts the blame on his parents, society, and the circumstances he encountered for allowing him to become this kind of person.
The real Joe is the one who is dangerous, deluded, and quite definitely in denial.
Literature as a mirror to Joe’s soul
Books have always been a means of finding logical order for Joe Goldberg in his chaotic and violent world. He saw himself in each plot, every time, one day it was Beck's poetry, the next—Love's journals, or classic literature.
Moreover, Joe in The Executioner’s Song is not in the process of looking for redemption—actually, he is in the course of looking for validation. The story of a murderer who becomes a symbol and an enigma gives Joe something to concentrate on. Not as a warning, but as one more reason to excuse his own darkness.
Final thoughts: The last page has been turned
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Joe Goldberg’s last scenes on You Season 5 never get to be comforting because they choose not to give a resolution. Yes, he is in jail. It could be said that justice has been done. But on an emotional and psychological level, Joe is still the same, constantly playing with stories, always considering himself the victim.
The decision to end the entire show with The Executioner’s Song is a way for the series to make the point that the concept of a monster is not always the same to a monster. Sometimes a person, even in complete silence, is at their most chilling when they are felt to be understood.
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