The final season of Netflix’s You brought Joe Goldberg’s twisted story to a close, but not in the way fans initially expected. While the show ended with Joe alive and very much imprisoned, it turns out the creators briefly considered a much more surreal conclusion: Joe discovering that he had died and was actually a ghost. In a recent conversation the showmakers and Penn Badgley revealed a lot of details about the ending,
Is Joe Goldberg A Ghost In You?
with The New York Post, showrunners Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo revealed that multiple endings were on the table before the final cut was locked. Among them was a bizarre and haunting concept, one where Joe, played by Penn Badgley, would realize in the final moments that he was no longer alive. “One of the early drafts had Joe being shot, and the story would continue as if nothing had happened,” Lo shared. “Only in the end would both he and the audience learn that he’d been a ghost the whole time.” It would’ve been a shocking twist, fitting for a character who spent years manipulating reality to suit his own narrative.
But the team ultimately felt that letting Joe die would let him off the hook too easily. “Death felt like an escape,” Foley said. “We didn’t want redemption, and we didn’t want release. We wanted him to live, with his choices, his guilt, and his isolation.” That decision shaped the bleak and fitting ending fans saw in season 5. Joe is finally caught by Bronte (played by Madeline Brewer) and locked away. In the final scene, he’s caged, reading The Executioner’s Song, and receiving a letter from a fan who already seems ready to fall for his manipulative charm.
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“He needed to be punished in a way that mirrored what he’d done to others,” Foley said. “We liked the idea of him never again knowing what it feels like to be loved or even touched.” Penn Badgley, who’s embodied Joe across five seasons, hinted in earlier interviews that the end would be both surprising and deserved. While the ghost twist never made it to screen, it’s a haunting reminder of how far the writers were willing to go to close Joe’s chapter.
In the end, they didn’t kill the monster, they caged him with himself.
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