YOU
By Sophia Fineza
Penn Badgley just loves playing stalkers, I guess. In YOU, he basically reprises his role as Dan Humphrey from Gossip Girl, except Joe Goldberg is 10 times the stalker Dan was. From the very first episode, YOU had me hooked. It was so weird to actually hope that the stalker/psycho would get the girl to fall into his traps, but intriguing nonetheless. Badgley also played said psycho in a very Ted Bundy-ish light; charming, funny, very charismatic. It was realistic and broke the trope that the bad guy is always some weird and yucky looking person. YOU was a super fun watch, and excited to see how the show will carry on in Season 3.
logline: when Guinevere Beck walks into a New York City bookstore, Joe Goldberg is immediately hooked. In order to become Beck’s boyfriend, he exploits all his tech and social media knowledge. When obstacles such as ex-boyfriends and crazy best friends pop up, he removes them - by any means necessary.
My favorite characters:
Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg - penn badgley somehow got into the mind of a stalker/psychopath and expressed it perfectly for this show. he seems like a nice guy, but he’s really not.
Elizabeth Lail as Guinevere Beck - she was a really fun character to yell at. she was kind of stupid, but realistic and i think that was lail’s and the director’s point with this character.
James Sully as Forty Quinn - I LOVE FORTY QUINN. he was so funny and perfectly encapsulated everything that people hate about LA. even though he could be annoying, he was also a really sweet guy and you could tell that he really cared for his sister. he stole season 2 imo.
This show is rated TV-MA. Here’s why:
Strong Sexuality
Some Bloody Violence
Drug Use
Language
Something I loved: the originality of the show. Joe’s narrative throughout the entire show somehow got me to root for the bad guy, which was an interesting turn of events for this kind of plotline.
Where to Watch: Netflix
Number of Seasons: 2, 3rd Season expected to premiere in spring/summer of 2021