Joe Will Never Get A Happy Ending On You, According To Penn Badgley

You is officially back for a second season — and this time, it hit Netflix in one fell swoop. We won't judge in the event you determine to binge all 10 hours of the pulpy thriller in a task to get to the bottom of Joe Goldberg's misadventures in Los Angeles, nevertheless you have to be warned: There's no fairytale happily-ever-after waiting for you at the end. How could there be? Joe is a notorious serial killer, right after all.


It's that last part that actor Penn Badgley wants you to remember most of all. "Joe is never going to be happy — because he’s a murderer," he mentioned in a new interview with Vogue. (Warning: The Vogue interview rehashes a pretty big spoiler about halfway via Q&A.) That indicates nothing — not a picturesque romance, not a dream girl come to life, not even life in a sunny city where people knock back green juice like it's their job — will lead him to contentment.


"That’s where I feel like we all get a little bit lost, yet actually it’s right there in front of you," the actor added. "He’s never going to be happy or accept anyone, end of story. And although somehow it’s not the end of the story, and people keep watching."


In season two, Joe — who right now goes by the name Will, an identity he assumed under their own nefarious circumstances — becomes infatuated with a woman named Love Quinn, who works at the same granola-and-posi-vibes supermarket as he does. (It's called Anavrin: Spell that backwards and you'll get it.) Yet as his obsession grows, it also becomes complex by a few factors... Including Love's co-dependent twin brother, Forty, who serves as Joe's boss and eventual creative collaborator. Every episode is rife with Los Angeles stereotypes and digs at plenty of people's expense, yet maybe the person most out of the loop on You's differences is Joe himself, whose narration is just as biting and erratic as ever.


"All I attempt to do is believe everything [Joe] says," Badgley mentioned of getting in the killer's headspace. "In a way it’s simpler yet not necessarily easier than you’d think." What the actor thinks differentiates Joe from other notorious killers is the fact that "he’s not a process-based serial killer," which is to mention, Joe's kills tend to arise from a matter of circumstance rather than methodical targeting. "He might appreciate controlling people, even once that insinuates putting them in a box and torturing them, yet actually I think death and loss really trouble him and he’s not to be able to see that about himself," Badgley added. "So I attempt to prepare him as sensitive and conscious as he can be while he’s talking about the things that he’s saying, even any time whenever they fully oppose what he might’ve mentioned a moment ago."


Does all that sensitivity result in a gentleman whose understanding of affection and the in general human condition make you feel gaslighted as he narrates his several fixations? Well, naturally — it wouldn't be You unless Joe got into your head more than a little bit. Whether Joe believes he'll ever reach a Nirvana of his own making, although, remains to be seen. Perhaps next season, he'll take Miami by storm.