Full disclosure: I have only seen the first two episodes of You season two because I found it rather cringey. I did seek out spoilers in the reviews at Pajiba so I vaguely know what happens, but I won’t post that here. I found the second season uncomfortable because it was clear Joe had met his match, even before this was fully revealed to the viewer. Love was too much and I thought she was as over the top as Joe was. I’ve heard so much buzz about this second season though. The first season was hard to stop watching, the second will probably be just as good when I get around to watching it, and so I’m not surprised to hear that a third is coming. What is surprising is that You was in the top five most watched series on Netflix in 2019. It just came out last month!
You, which was loosely based on Caroline Kepnes’ bestselling novel of the same name, premiered on Netflix in December 2018 after it aired one season on Lifetime.
The series’ first season delivered nearly 40 million viewers last January, Netflix said.
In season 2 of the psychological thriller, which is now owned by Netflix and based on Kepnes’ second novel, Hidden Bodies, Joe moves from New York to Los Angeles, where he meets a new subject of desire, Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). The two quickly bond over the fact that they are both grieving a recent loss, although of course, Love doesn’t know the whole story.
[From Deadline]
You is absolutely bonkers, so I think this means we will have more shows which shock the hell out of the viewer. Sometimes it feels manipulative, like with shows like The Perfection, but other times it’s just crazy and fun, and I think You reached that balance in the first season. We’ve talked before about the fact that Joe is an anti-hero a la Dexter, but unfortunately I think this show is going the way of Dexter in that it’s not keeping my attention. I do like that there are more villains this season and more twists. If you’ve binged it already, what kept you watching this season?
photos credit: Beth Dubber/Netflix
I haven’t seen it and I’m not planning on doing it, but I’ll say that I really like Penn Badgley and I wish he was in more things, different things. He was one of my favorite parts of Easy A. Super cute and nothing like Dan Humphrey.
If you like him why wouldn’t you watch it?
After seeing all of the posts on Twitter I watched both seasons two weeks ago and I loved it. It’s all the things twitter said it would be. The twists in season 2! I love Joe but I was so angry at him for the last 2 minutes. And Love, who I didn’t like at first, redeemed herself at the end. I’m glad it was renewed. But with all of the buzz around it I’m surprised it didn’t get more seasons. It was so talked about. Twitter blew it up when it came out. I had even heard about it/saw all the memes when the first season came out but I don’t know, I put it off, I wish I hadn’t. You could almost make it into different shows because of the location change. I even found out the spoiler about Love before I watched, which was disappointing but I was still shook when it actually watched it. Yes it’s a ridiculous show, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Season 2 got a bit more so but it will keep you in suspense.
I’m just feeling too lazy to start watching yet another show rn, that’s all!
Season 2 went full bonkers. And was kinda hilarious.
Right? The scene at the end of the second episode with the cooking vs. disposing. Should I keep watching it? Love bugs me!
I didn’t like Love at the beginning either, but she grew on me. By the end, I was completely rooting for her (kind of the opposite of Beck who got on my nerves more and more as the season went on).
She’s kind of bugs me too but I think she grew on me somewhat especially as her story came out
Yes you should all watch it all it’s excellent! Let’s support shows that examine toxic masculinity and rape culture! I think it did a very good job while also keeping it quite interesting/suspenseful.
Forty grew on me a lot
Love was annoying as hell. I didn’t think they could top Becks but the fact that her opening line to Joe was a discussion on a piece of fruit looking like a butt made me roll my eyes. The show gets better later in the season and I like how they ended it actually.
I loved Love lol.
My friend pointed out that it was a peach, so it might have been poking fun at Peach from the first season!
I’m still working on season one. My husband recently discovered it, so we’re trying to get through it together. It’s definitely unexpected.
When the first season premiered on Netflix I couldn’t get through the first episode because I immediately hated Beck. She was a moron. But when season 2 was about to premiere everyone kept talking about how great it was so I binged Season 1 – and LOVED it. And Season 2 was even better. Is it wrong that I am a Love apologist? 🤦🏽♀️
@VV
Right there with you. I loved Love and was rooting for her the entire time!
I actually LOVE this show and am psyched that there is a season 3. Cannot wait to binge it just like I did with seasons 1 & 2.
I love this crazy show and I think it works extremely well because Penn Badgley plays Joe perfectly. It’s not an easy role to pull off. Also, it makes me think about how we let men cross lines and make excuses for them because they are conveniently attractive white men who look harmless.
I love it too and Penn Badgley has talked about this and how Joe is a microcosm of white male privilege and how we look other way when attractive white men do horrible things.
Along these lines, if you can get past the gore, American Psycho is in a similar vein. Great performance by Christian Bale.
@Waitwhat I saw American Psycho many many years ago when it first came out. I remember when Leonardo DiCaprio was originally attached to play Patrick Bateman.
Yes, I’ve read his interviews discussing this and IIRC, he mentions it in character in Season 2.
@WhatWait – yes, American Psycho is excellent on this subject.
the first five episodes are a little long-wided and too much of hipster nonsense comes up, but as you are so far to watch episode 6-10 y wow girl – things are getting messy, dirty and oh my god. Just stay tuned until ep. 5 and after that ENJOY!
I enjoyed the second season more than the first. The first followed the book so closely I found it a little boring
I watched season one with the nice man I live with, but he did not LOVE it the way I did, and was not ready to watch at my pace- so I finished season 1 without him, and watched all of season 2.
And I loved it. It is twisted and horrifying, and I loved it.
Of course the most satisfying thing about shows like this, for me, is when the people who i find incredibly awful or irksome get killed.
I will watch season 3 as soon as it is out.
Also, i am generation x so not as dependent on social media as younger generation is, as a rule, but wow, it does make you think about geolocation on pictures, and how a random person you kinda know can all of a sudden be a fountain of personal information for someone who wants to know things about you- who they found through your own social media posts.
Yikes!!
I agree about the making you think about social media presence! I’m 35 so just between Gen X and Millenials and I have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram but my profiles are set to private and you can’t even use my real name to find my profiles. I won’t even let friends post public photos of me and immediately remove the tags or ask them to make it private. I recently scrubbed all of my personal information from the web as much as I could. I have an usual name that as far as I can tell only a few other people in the world have (and theirs are actually spelled just a little differently) so if you googled my name you pretty much knew the results were about me. It’s crazy what gets out there on the web that you don’t authorize! Google had my address, phone number, DOB, previous addresses, workplace, relatives, the way I vote, comments I made on blogs 10 years ago, etc. all out there for any stalker or identity thief to find and it took me months but I finally got the personal stuff removed. It really creeps me out and I think the online tracking and logging of information is becoming way too invasive, and people don’t even realize it – or they just don’t care.
I’ve actually enjoyed Season 2 more than 1. Is it bonkers? Yes. But Penn is so good in the role it’s spooky and hard to look away. I’m only 6 episodes in on 2, but I do think it gets better as it goes. So far I appreciate Joe’s ‘growth’ which not doubt will only regress.
I just got around to watching Season 2. I was a bit unsure about it first, and like you said and many others, the first two episodes was a bit hard to get into. But then, it started hooking me in, and got so crazy (in a good way) at the end! Overall, well-written and well-executed – quite the flip on Season 1! My only dislike was Candace – it almost seemed like they were throwing as many obstacles as they could at Joe/Will to create as much suspense and drama as possible.
I loved it, Love was more bearable than Beck in the sense that she wasn’t so obviously stupid, and the LSD episode was my favorite.
I’m sad season 3 only comes in 2021 but I’ll wait and will be there for it when it comes. 😉
Love is a psychopath, of course she looks less stupid. Psychopaths usually look smart, especially in movies, until they get caught, if they ever are.
Add: The role of forty was so over the top but i liked his acting
I wanted to kill Forty myself.
I love the book series this is based on. I really liked the show too, although it is really nothing like the books. Season 2 was better than 1 IMO.
Penn Badgley plays the best Joe. He is spot on with the book character. Forty was great as well.
Does the book have you rooting for him or is it clear that he is a psychopath? The 2nd season was so confusing in tone. Like most of the time it seemed very Dexter like he’s trying to be a good person and he’s only hurting bad guys and he just happens to make some bad decisions sometimes and maybe love/Love will turn him around on the right path. But then the last episode gave me whiplash suddenly having all those good intentions and promise of change go out the window.
I was never rooting for him, just dying to see what would happen next. Even when he is “trying” to be a “good” person, he’s super-pathological in that whatever he is doing is to serve his own goals of achieving “goodness” than to actually BE good. For me the hilarious tension of the show is that his awful behavior at least temporarily improves his girlfriends’ lives… until it doesn’t.
I loved s2 even more than s1, and creators of the show said that Joe will not be redeemed, so I obviously wait for the next season/seasons (because I started to think that he may get redemption because they showed Joe’s backstory with family abuse, so I thought it may turn “he’s evil but it because of childhood trauma” stuff).
Love kept me watching. I wanted to know if my “feelings” about her were right.
I also loved Ellie as a character.
Love this show so much! Season two was even better than the first which I was scared they wouldn’t be able to do. It’s definitely crazier! Penn is such a good Joe and Love is a much better character than Beck, who was just dumb. I’m excited for the next season.
It’s a great show. This is a role that this man clearly, perhaps too much so, understands.
Speaking of which, bunch of us relieved it’s not another Royal post. So much other interesting stuff out there. I get being burnt out, but hire someone who doesn’t constantly write about the same thing because they feel too annoyed with the world lol.
Two was ok but not nearly as good as one. I’ll watch three, just hope it is better than two
I love this show. Perhaps I am in the minority, however, in that I didn’t find Season 2 to be quite as good as Season 1. I didn’t think anyone in the supporting cast was anywhere near as interesting as Peach Salinger and the other supporting players.
Peach was pleasant, pretty, and so witty and sharp. The new side characters a bit less so. But I thought they were a little more realistic. Not sure about the 15 year old character but the others I found more plausible than peach. Without spoilers, peaches whole deal/secret didn’t really make sense considering her confident personality.
My favorite moment of s2 was when Forty gets meta and defends the humanity of the character of Beck (in his screenplay) by arguing that “she humps a pillow multiple times” ahahaha
Also— I really enjoy the social commentary in the show. Just one example, I feel like it’s rare that a movie or tv show would mention the weirdness of someone who doesn’t follow you on social media watching your story. This is a huge element to modern communication, but film and tv are still catching up to how to communicate it.
I also enjoy that it gets into the weeds with some modern cultural shifts, like Love’s well-meaning but privileged all-queer, holistic friend group. I live in Brooklyn, and I honestly felt so represented by that characterization lol. The diversity of the show is pretty great. Even in season one, Joe’s coworker dates a woman who just so happens to be trans.
I think the show is crazy and over the top…but works because the show writers don’t take it too seriously and are very aware the show could easily become a joke. It’s not that great, but it’s binge-worthy. Does that make sense?
I was obsessed and thought it was fantastic. I’m not sure if the last 2 minutes Of season 2 are psychologically on track or not. I liked season 1 and most of season 2 because it was true for the character. Season 1 more so.
But I loved it and I was really never a huge Dexter fan. When they started writing for the viewer and not the character, I’m gone.
Unlike some of you, I had no issue with Beck and identified a bit with her pleaser personality/weaknesses. I found Candace completely annoying and abrasive and I just don’t like her face/voice and was sure she was the main character for S2 so I was pleasantly surprised. forty was an amazing side character and I’m going to check out what else he’s been in.
I love this show! Binge watched it with my husband. Both seasons. I’m still exhausted over the lack of sleep lol.
There are so many thinkpieces about how problematic the show is and how reductive the female characters are, and while that’s true, I feel that’s the entire point: Joe doesn’t see women beyond his limited POV, and since the show is in his POV, the female characters will never be fully developed. They will only ever be good or bad because that’s how Joe sees the world. I also don’t think it glorifies guys like Joe.
Oh and I figured out the twist of s2 the first episode, but still chose to watch because I wanted to see if I was right. At one point during the season I thought ok I’m wrong and them BAM there you go lol.
I hated Love. HATED. My God she annoyed me more than Joe. More than Dr. Nicky (who I thought was so eye-roll worthy).
My only real complaint is that the POC characters in the show weren’t developed much and were simply conduits for the white people storylines, and that the most gruesome death we got to see was that of a POC. It’s like once again black and brown bodies devalued.
Overall, great show. The biggest lesson I took away from S1 for example is that a lot of people fall into toxic relationships because they don’t have good non-romantic relationships. Beck’s friends were so wack. Peach was TERRIBLE. I had a Peach in my life and it was the absolute worse. Made me think I should just have a relationship to get rid of that friend. Beck didn’t even like Joe all that much but seeing how he was with her compared with her friends seemed to push her towards him at the end.
I love it, im here for it. Season 1 was better and more realistic than season 2.
I´ve seen the whole season two in one day. Briliant. The second I even like the more than the first one.
I have boy/girl twins myself, so their relationship and codependency was interesting to watch.