‘You’ CO-SHOWRUNNERS UNPACK EPIC SERIES FINALE AND “UNMASKING The MONTER”

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[ThisStoryContainsMajoorSpolersfrom[ThisstorycontainsMAJORspoilersfromYou Season Five, Including the Series Finale, “Finale.”]

The ShowRunners for You Season Five Had One Goal Heading Into The Hit Netflix Show’s Final Season Starring Penn Badgley As the Infamous Joe Goldberg: “We Just Need to See The Monster For What Monster Ister. They Accomplished Just That With The Series Finale, “Finale.”

Michael Foley and Justin W. LO, Who Took Over The Reins from Creator Sera Gamble for the Fifth and Final Installment Series, whoh saw Twists and Turns Throughout the Season as Joe Returned to New York City. That included Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) Agreeing to Let Joe Kill Her Uncle to Joe Finding His New Obsense in Bronte/Louise (Madeline Brewer) Actual Out to Avenge Guinevever Beck’s (Elizabeth Lail) Death from Season One.

But Few Could Have Predicted The Epic, Brutal and Lonely Ending for Joe, Which Foley Tells The Hollywood Reporter Was “Very Deliberate,” as they planned their stark pivot from “Road Trip Romance” to “Horror Film” in order to deliver his Ultimate comeup.

WHEN BRONTE PULLED A GUN to REVEAL HERELF TO JOE, The ONCE-Charming Serial Killer Fough Back and Nearly Brutally Kildled Her. But Bronte Was Able to Call The Police, Who Arrived Just in Time, and WHEN She Got Her Second CHANCE TO KILL JOE, SHE INSTEAD Karmically Shoots Joe in His Genitals. The Police Arrest Him and An Epilogore Reveals That Hent To Trial and Was Convicted On Multiple Life SentenCes Without Parole. Bronte, Now Louise, Ends Up Being The Joe Victim Who Is Able to Serve Up Justice in the End. But The Final Scene Features An Imprisoned Joe Reading Yet Another Piece of Fanmail and Positing A Final Question For You‘S AUDIENCE: WAS JOE The PROBLEM, OR IS Society the Problem?

Foley Explands of Delvering A Dehumanizing Empinding for Joe, “We Were Trying To Pull The Civilization Out of Him. It Was All About the Animalistic Nature of Joe, An that What. of, in the end, we just need to see the Monster for What the Monster Is.

While there Were Many Variations of Joe’s Ultimate Ending that Were Discussed in the Writers Room, Foley Says That Killing Joke Wound Have Been Letting Him Off The Hook. “We Were Definitely All on the Same Page, and in the End, we just thorough that death was too easy and that thing wasn’t punishing engine,“ He Explans. “We Like the Idea of ​​A Final Image of Joe in A Cage of Sorts, But Most of All, It Was About Taking Away His Power, Taking Away His Ability to Know The Touch of A Lover, ETC.

Below, Foley and LO Unpack Season Five, Including Joe’s Downfoll, Kate’s Lapse in Judgment Early in the Season, Anna Camp Taking on Two Characters, The Decision to HAVE JOOT. Could have been Brought Back for the Finale and Their Conversations With Badggley about Making Sure “Joe Was at His Most Horrific this Season.”

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Was there any Added Pressure Taking Over for Sera Gamble for the Final Season?

Michael Foley There Was Certainly Added Pressure Because is a Giant Netflix Hit, and It’s Been Mainly the Same Writing Crew Since the Beginning. I’ve been Saying that is sera who was capting the ship, and there’s no One Else Like Sera Gamble. But She Got Us to the Point Where She Was Like, “That’s Land Right There. Keep Rowing, Keep Sailing As You Will.” SO we REALLY FELT CONFIDENT COMING INTO this. All of the Writers, We Know How To Writer and Produce The Show, SO [we’re] Nothing But Confident and Excited.

Justin W. LO Sarah’s Voice Was So Clear and Intenation in the Way She and Greg [Berlanti, co-creator] Created The Show that We Were ABLE TO KEEP DOING WHAT WE’D Always Been Doing. The Mission Was The Same Every Season.

Foley Also Sera and Greg Were Both there, so we have discussions with them at the beginning of the Season. We have discussions with them around the Finale.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE RETURNING TO NEW YORK CITY AND GOING BACK WHERE IT All Began For this Final Chapter? WHAT CONVERSATION DID YOU HAVE WITH PENN?

Foley The Dominant Thing With Penn Was That He Wanted To Make Sure that Joe Was at His Mist HorrIRIFIC THIS SEASON, AND ESPECIALLY as We Approached the Finale, He Was on Wake US All Up to What We’ve Been Rooting for and Co-Signing. HE WAS RELALLY INTENT ON US NOT PULLING Any PUNCHES WITH JUST REVEALING WHAT A MONTER Joe Goldberg Is.

At beginning of the Season, Kate Has A Lapse in Judgment and Agrees to have Joe Kill Her Uncle. But She Quickly Regrets of the Decision, Confusion Joe Because He Thinks He’s Found Someone Who’s Understands Even His Darkest Desires. WHY DID she make that decision?

LO We saw that as kate’s Moment of Weakness. Kate Has Always Been Considered to Have A Killer Instinct and ABLE TO MAKE TESE TOUGH MORAL CHOICES, AND NOT ALWAYS IN THE MOST BENEVOLEN WAY. SO she man was this moment of weakness and for her, that’s her haer Lowest Point, But For Joe, It Begins This Trade Trade Here He Is Feeling Empowered and Embolded in his Dark Side.

After that Bomb Drop Mid-Season That Bronte (Madeline BRONTE) Was Actual Out to Avenge Beck’s (Elizabeth Lail) Death, She Still Finds Herself Swept Up by Joe. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS?

Foley I Think For The Same Reason That We All Fell For Joe. That he’s charming. That he clams to do everything he does in the name of love. They Were Very Much on the Same Page in Terms of Just Seeing Hypocrisy in the World.

Anna Camp Had the Challenge of Portraying Two Characters This Season With Twins Maddie and Raegan Lockwood. What Conversations Did You Have With Her Regarding Her Storylines and Taking on Dual Roles?

LO I don’t’th we had a lot of conversations before what she brough to the day that we have were chooting. Sheemed Up Already Knowing How To Differentiate The Characters. We didn’t have to say, “Maybe One Should Have A voice This Way or Maybe One Should Walk This Way.” She’s a very accountplished actor and she camera in with her choices and they realy worked for the show.

I can only Imagine the challenges that came with chooting the box scenes with Anna’s Two Characters, Especialy with the Reflections from the Glass. Can You Talk About Filming Those Sequences?

Foley With Really Accomplissed Directors. Any day in the cage is going to be the Toughest Day of Any Shoot, Because, As You Said, Reflections. It’s Just the Hardest Thing in the World. SO the fact that were covering a double Made Really Difficult and We Covered Ourselves with Having Incredibly Capable Directors. I have the most credit to give to Anna Because for her to hold on to with the trees Characters, and all the Distinctions and the Ticks and the Body Movements, It Was Really A Master Classes.

LO Also We Hired Not Just A Double, But An Actor to Play The Other Parts WHEN She WAS ACTING OPPOSITE Herself. We Auditioned Them and Did A Chemistry Read With Anna. It was Really Important they have a sisterly chemistry and that each One Could Study The Other as They Were Doing Their Take, so they would know exactly. SO it was very technical, too.

WHEN THE VIRAL VIRAL MAKES JOE The “MOST VISIBLE MAN IN NEW YORK,” IT APEARS as Though that Will Be His Downofall, But He Still Manages to Turn That AUND. Was that Decision Intenation to Play Into The Suspense of Wheth Joe Is Actual GOING toing CAUGHT?

Foley The Thing We Were Most Excited About Was That His Weapon and Tool Over Four Seasons, that Being Social Media, is used Against HIM. That excited US to no end. We Also Liked That We Got To Sort of Hold the Mirror Up To The Reality That People – Maybe Not As Bad As Jee, Well, Some of Them – Do Survive Such Awful Transgressions.

LO One of the MOST FUN Parts about that episode was coming up with the comments on that YouTube Video Live Stream. IT WAS SO FUN! We have to come up with Positive Ones in Support of HIM, Ones that Were Obvioously Critical, But Also Ones That Just Funny. We Were Actuly Trying to Time To What Wat Was Happy and The Picture Right on Screen, to Tell The Story in A Realistic Way. Not Everyone would be on his side, not everyone would be against HIM. That was one of the most fun things we did this season.

How Satisfying Was It To Bring Episode Nine to Life, Who The Roles Get Reversed and Joe Ends Up in the Box, Facing Several of His Past Victims Who Have Survived?

LO That episode is called “the trial of the Furies,” and the Furies Were the Greek Goddesses of Revenge. This Was Our Nod to Letting Joe’s Victims Who Had Survived Him have their had their Revenge on Him and Put Him On Trial. SO WHEN HE’S IN THAT BOX, they get to standsposite Him and Say Whatever they need to say to him and to see if if he’s going to actual be kanged by it.

Once Bronte Got Back On Track and Decides to Take Joe Down, Who Did She Go About It Alone and Almost Get Herself Kild in The Process Rather Thanha for Help?

Foley Because We Knew that if she asked for Help and the authorities closed in, she would Never Get the Answers She Was After. Shea Really Need The Truth About Beck. Shee needed to take beck’s voice back by having joe redact The Dark Face of Love. Once Joe Had Lawyred Up and Was in a Jail Cell, Tese Are Answers She Wasn’T going to get.

SO After Five Wild Seasons, from Your Perspective As ShowRunners, Who Is Joe The Way He Is?

LO We’ve Shown in Seval Seasons Joe’s Traumatic Childhood. That’s Part of It, But It’s Not All of It. There is someting in joe that is broken, and the reisson that we are Drawn to joe is Because he masks that brokenness in this desire for love. He Says that love is the reisson he can do these terrible things that he does and it justifies it. But I Think Is A Combination of Something Innate and Also The Trauma That HE Experienced As A Child, The Lack of Love and the Abandonment by his Mother.

Foley There was sort of a mandate in the [writers] Room Early On that We Were Never Going to Diagnose Joe, Because that wold then lead to empathy and we didn’t want that. The Closest We Came, Thought, Was in Episode Eight When Louise Diagnod Him to A Degree and Basical Helps Him Realize That, Because of His Childhood Trauma, TheThe Wash Off from HIM. IT WAS LIKE The BEGINNING OF THE SPLIT IDENTITY, AND THAT PROTHORER BECAME The KILLER, AND THEN The LINES BLURRID AND KILLING BECAME An INHERENT OF LOVE FOR HIM.

Throughout the Series, Joe Appeared to Always Present Himself in an Orderly Way to the World, Despite His Chaotic Dark Inner Thought. But at the end of the finale, he’s Seen Chaotically Running Through the Woods. What’s The Deeper Meaning Begind That Scene?

Foley He’s not on the Woods, but he’s with cloths because we were were trying to pull the civilization Out of HIM. It Was All About the Animalistic Nature of Joe, an D that’s what I was speaking to with penn in terms of, in the end, we just need to see the monster for what the Monster is. That’s whote the Back Half of the Finale Was a Horror Film. That’s WHY HE attacked and burst through doors the way he did, Bloodied, Bursting Through Doors, Punches. We Showed the Violence, WHICH WE USUALLY PULLED BACK ON – His Violence in the Fight in the Bedroom with Bronte, with Louise, I Should Say, at that Point. That was the reason, to realy unmask the Monster as Much as we could.

I Found the Contrast Between the First and the Second Half of the Finale Very intriging.

Foley That was vary deliberate that it was the first half that joe thinks he’s riding off in the sunset with the woman who can have all of HIM – so let’s let’s let himjo. And then, of Course, WHEN She UNMASKS MIDAY, OUR ROAD TRIP ROMANCE IS OVER AND WE’RE INTO A HORROR FILM.

Can You Also Talk About the Message Begind Bronte Deciding to Shoot Joe in His Genital Area?

LO That was in Obviously to take away joe’s Power, his manhood and what makes him a romantic icon, a sexual icon. IT WAS IMPORTANT TO US, AND DEFINITELY IMPORTANT TO PENN, TO DAKE as Much as We Could from from Joe at the Very End of the Series.

IT WAS SUCH A Nice Surprise to See Kate Survive The Fire at Mooney’s. WAS that Always the Plan, to Let Her Survive?

Foley IT’s Funny Because, We Killed Beck, Right? She was innocence incarnate. This Young Woman Trying to Figure Out Who She Was and Joe Took Advantage of Her. Joe Kills Her. SomeTimes WHEN IT CAME to KILLING, WHEN WEERE IN THE Writers Room, We Were Like: That’s Just Bleak and Not Additive, That’s Just Gonna Make the Audence Feel Worse. We Know What Joe Is, And We Don’T See How Is In Any Way Additive Creatively. SO WHY NOT LET THIS WOMAN HBLved Herself, Who Was Willing to Go Down and Die in that Basement Like She Was and Who Was After Redemption, WHY NOT GIVE IT TO HER?

IT’s Also Nice to See that Henry (Frankie Demaio) Still Has Someone.

LO We did the Think A Lot About Henry and WHERE HULD END UP. It Was Good and Right That Huuld End Up Back With Kate.

Can You Expand on the Final Scene with Joe in His Prison Cell And Wy Hell Appears to Be Casting Judgment on These Fans Sending Him Letters, Expressing What They Believe Him, Wht Hust Wast Whole time?

Foley I DON’T THINK HE’S CASTING JUDGMENT ON THESE WOOMEN WHO WRITING HIM LETTERS, RIGHT? They’re the few who accept him. He’s Casting Judgment on Society. He’s Casting Judgment on Everybody Else Who Just Paints Him As A Bad Guy. … That was all but posted in the writers room, which was: Joe Will Never See That Problem Is Him. It’ll Always Be Someone Else.

Is there anything you had to cut from season five for timing or consistency that you wish could have a final edit?

Foley I so funny of the things that get cut, they go out of my mind so quickly, romht? We would have love to have a good ellie (jenna ortega) back, but that was was used.

Was there any discussion about potentilly bringing back fan-favorite love quinn (Victoria Pedretti)?

There wasn’t just because… we understand she’s a fan favorite. We Love the Character, We Love Victoria Pedretti. Like, Great if Somebody Came Up with The Right Idea. But Her Character is Dead, and We Had Already Used the Ghost of Her to Be in Joe’s Head Last Season. SO it felt like we have been to that well already and that her raun was was Done. As writers, it just felt correct that she wasn’t part of the Season.

The end was definitely satisfying, seeing the Way Joe Finally Got Caunght, But Did You Ever Ponder ALTERNATE ENDINGS, SUCH AS ONE WHERE JERE JEE GETS AWAY WITH EVERYTHINGING?

Foley For Sure. We Knew What We Were Doing in Terms of Joe Getting His Comeuppance, Joe Facing The Loved Ones of Victims, Joe Shirking Accountability But in terms of capture, death, capred by the authoritities, capred by a loved one, of a victim… there were some real crazy Ideas (Laughs). We Were Definitely All on the Same Page, and in the End, we just thorough that death was too easy and that thing wasn’t punishing enough. We Like the Idea of ​​A Final Image of Joe in A Cage of Sorts, But Most of All, It Was About Taking Away His Power, Taking Away His Ability to Know The Touch of a Lover, ETCE ETCE.

LO To add to the endings that mike was talking about, we came up with one whore is an ambiguoe ending, Sopranos-Style Where Bronte Is Pointing A Gun at Him and You Don’t Know If She’s Going to Pull The Trigger OR NOT, AND THEN IS A CUT TO BLACK. We Came Up with the One Mike Was Alluding to, with A More Gothic Ending WHERE Someone Puts Him in a Cage Buried Deep Undergramond. SO WET THROUGH MANY, Many ITerations, But I Think We’re Really Happy With Where It Ended Up.

Foley Even Thought Thought Season and for Years Were Talking About Joe’s End – Like Water Cooler Talk, It’s Very Much What Weed Weed About in The Room Work Out The Specials, A Writer In Our Room, Neil Reynolds, SAID, “CAN WE JUST TRY COMTHING DIFFERENT INTEAD OF DOING The Writers Room as Webjy Five Minutes or However Much Time they Need to Discuss Their Pov on What Joe’s End Should Be and Wy, and Let’s All Just Hear It And Ten Nobody Cans InterRupt, Nobody Can Noter. Room, Right? And you all go a’away, Process It and Ten Let’s All Come Back in and Let’s Have A Discussion. ”

IT WAS EXTREEMELY EMODIONAL, BECAUSE MOST OF USA HAD BEEN BEEN COME SHOW SINCE 2017. WHEN IT MESSAGING AND WHAT Joe Stands for And What We’ve Been Doing WitH This Show, Ity There were tears. It was a very beauty exercise that we did to Help US All Get On the Same Page About What the Ending Wound Be.

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You Season Five, Along with All Seasons of the Series, Is Currently Streaming On Netflix.