Could "YOU" be the next Joe Goldberg?

What I found most disconcerting about YOU was not the cyber stalking or Joe’s internal dialogue picking apart Beck’s life but, rather, how not disconcerting it all was. In fact, I’d wager to say that most - if not all - of Joe’s dating rituals are norms within today’s social scripts. Now, before you withdraw from your screen thinking “Jesus, Kate… he was a stalker,” yes, he absolutely was. But in a lot of ways, he wasn’t. He was just like you, or me, or the friendly Starbucks barista that always spells your name wrong on your grande nonfat latte. We’ve all browsed a little too long on a crush’s Instagram page or dug ourselves into a hole when we accidentally liked a photo from 2 years ago that was only exhumed after hours of meticulous social media deep-diving.

To be brutally honest, the only time I truly felt a visceral disgust towards Joe was when Beck found his box of mementos with some rather… well, let’s just say “personal” items inside. Sure, it was pretty creepy when he stood outside her apartment watching her self-pleasure but that could be chalked up to voyeurism, which falls more in line with paraphilia problems than you’re-a-serial-stalker problems. I really don’t want to give the wrong impression though. I do not condone (or participate) in any of Joe’s deviant activities, except for maybe the slight cyber curiosity which, as I’ve said, is not really a novel quality in today’s dating world. Perhaps I’ve seen one too many slasher films that make Joe’s actions seem like child’s play in comparison. Whatever the case, I can’t help but wonder if the relatability of Joe’s character was meant to show just how far down the rabbit hole we’ve gone as a society that we can actually say “Hmm, I do that too…” when watching a series about a murderous stalker/serial killer.

Joe Goldberg (left) and Dexter Morgan (right)

It seems the new antagonist is not the bad guy you love to hate, but the one you can’t help but love (and secretly root for). Take, for instance, Dexter Morgan. There’s a reason Dexter was so popular, and it wasn’t (just) because of the vibrant Miami scenery. You have a deeply disturbed man that actively kills people for a cause he believes to be morally defensible. Now read that sentence once more in the context of Joe Goldberg. They’re one and the same. In fact, I saw so many continuations of Dexter’s character in YOU that I often had to pause the show mid-episode to write down notes on how similar the two were. Inner dialogue? Check. Professions that offer unique insights for kidnapping and murdering people? Check. Box of keepsakes? Check, check, check.

Dexter and Joe are hallmarks of a new era of villainy. They’re so wrong, and you know it, but you’re addicted. There’s a part of you - perhaps a large part - that sees where they’re coming from. Just as you could make the argument that Joe is a disgusting creep who finagled his way into an innocent girl’s life, you could argue that he convinced Beck of her own self-worth and potential as a writer. There are myriad ways we could take this, but they all lead to one simple truth: the bad guys maybe aren’t bad guys anymore. We certainly live in interesting times, but no matter the zeitgeist, I think we can all agree that keeping a used tampon in your possession is just… gross.