You, The Afterthought

Hello everyone and welcome to my afterthought on the Netflix original series; "You". Before I go any further I will be spoiling the show, this is sort of my opinions on the show and it's better you watch the show first and then read this after and see if you agree with some of my thoughts or whatever and leave a comment, have a chat or debate about it.
With that said, I'm also going to be assuming a lot so I won't be detailing plot synopsis or anything like that.

JOE GOLDBERG
Joe is a strange guy, that much really didn't need saying but it's the depth of his strange behaviour and compulsions that make him such an interesting character. He is a single, well trimmed, neat and charming man. He looks after his neighbour's son with fatherly tenderness, the complete opposite of what Mooney showed him. Joe does impart his love of books to Paco that he did learn from Mooney however. 
There is little history revealed about Mooney and Joe's relationship that would indicate the degree Mooney's method of raising him affected the boy and made him the man he is today. We are shown that Mooney clearly has a protective affection for Joe with his comfort after Joe's presumably first kill. (Candace's fling)

The entire show is almost from Joe's perspective and we're treated to all of his internal windings; on the surface Joe comes across as a calm and controlled guy. He has a handle on things and is an incredible quick thinker and expert manipulator but, we see this demeanour fall apart on several occasions and towards the end we actually see Joe lose his sense of control. The way he deals with Beck is clear evidence of the fragility of his outward persona and further, inability to understand why people do not see things as he sees them.

The funny thing is, Joe claims the things he does, he does for Beck. When he murders Benji it's because Benji is dangerous to Beck, at least that's Joe's rational. The truth is we saw Joe's jealously unfurl and the extent he is willing to go to manipulate a situation. When he does commit the murders it also shows another aspect of the character; who as stated is on the whole so calm and in control. When Joe does kill it's impulsive. He doesn't think about it and plot it out from all angles, even poisoning Benji was impulsive. It's clearly a whim because once he has killed him he doesn't know what to do with the body and spends so much time deliberating about it the corpse starts going off! Joe is in fact, not a cold, calculated killer. He's an impulsive and emotional one. 

Joe has a strange sense of self preservation, one that we're assuming has been nurtured by Mooney. Ultimately, everything Joe does for Beck is for himself. Killing Benji assures he is out of the picture, that Beck's crutch shag is gone for good. Killing Peaches means he has no further competition for Beck's time and attention, (even though she was tiring of Peaches antics, partly thanks to Joe anyway for revealing Peaches manipulations with the book agent).
In the end, Joe's self preservation is so much greater, that he kills Beck to save himself. And that in itself proves that everything Joe did for Beck was for himself, if he was as madly in love with her as he claimed to be. He would of let her go and submit himself to the authority's. If this woman was everything he lived for, then why kill her and then carry on as normal? Joe doesn't love Beck, he loves the idea of being madly in love, an obsession cultivated by his time spent with the old novels of romance, duty and sacrifice.

I like that the show has us always in the mind of Joe, there's a scene where Joe is talking to Paco about the book It, and that Stephen King would write chapters from the monsters' perspective, so that the reader would understand their motivations and perhaps impart sympathy to the monster.
You, does a great job of having us sympathise with Joe. In fact, if like me (and other people I've spoken to) for a large portion of the show you'll utter the words, "Joe, you could do so much better than Beck". In the final episode, any goodwill Joe garners from the audience is destroyed as his cool facade disintegrates in front of us and Beck and the real abhorrent lunatic is revealed. One of the TVs more interesting characters none the less.

GWENEVERE BECK
Oh Beck, you're a mess of a person and a fine case for a bad partner in a relationship. She is self absorbed, pretentious, self pitying and has terrible infidelity issues. Joe is immediately fascinated with Beck not only because of the way she looks but also, because like him, she has love of words, poetry and books. 
Beck spends a lot of the show making wrong decision after wrong decision, screwing over Joe in personal and emotional ways, whilst he spends all of his free time trying to make her happy. If Joe is the protagonist in this film then Beck is the antagonist. She throws all the walls up in their relationship and it's only when she loses Joe to Karen Minty does Beck finally realise what's gone. 
Her impact on Joe though is pronounced, she draws out the darkest and lightest parts of his personality, opposed to Karen who sedates Joe's crueller aspects. 
Even after the end of their relationship he still idolises her, regularly checking up on her via social media. When Beck decides she wants him back, all it takes is a glance and a smile and she has Joe back, wrapped around her finger, or so it would seem. 

Truth is, as we know from my analysis on Joe, he does everything for Beck for himself. Beck actually has little power in their relationship unbeknownst to her, but Joe seemingly behaves submissive to please her. 
This is noted at the fact that when she demands he leave her be after stalking her in the park, he does at least outwardly show that they've broken up. He does still stalk her online and off but he doesn't directly harass her and so to her, he doesn't appear to be that sort of pestering bothersome guy that can't be told no. Instead he looks like the understanding boyfriend.
In fact, their relationship only ends because of the recorded session Joe listens to on the therapist's laptop. Joe decides at that point that Beck has made a valid case for why their relationship must end and he agrees, on his terms! Which means if he hadn't agreed with her, that'd he go and plot some way to get back with her. Which he would of done successfully because Beck shows through numerous times in the show that Joe is a sort of emotional crutch for her, someone that loves and cares for unconditional unlike all the other men in her life.

The final episode is the table flip, Joe goes full on crazy and Beck goes from worshipped idol to caged bird. Poor Beck is dehumanised, trapped in that glass prison, fed food from a one way transfer box and the only company she has is the psycho who trapped her there.
In the end, Beck is a character you'll feel most sorry for in the whole show. (Probably more so than Paco, that kid appeared to have a happy ending). Her life is a mess until this chap comes into it and slowly it comes together, she breaks her writers block and finally gets that book deal and the respect of her peers. She finds this man that she can confess her love to and despite her infidelity, he accepts her and forgives her.
But in the end, there is no happiness for Beck or a charming prince to carry her off into the sunset. Her life untimely and savagely ends, she is the greatest victim of all in the show.
Her life ends at the hands of the man that less than 24 hours prior to her incarceration confessed he loved her... 

During that tense moment Joe chases her in the bookshop cellar and she clubs him round the head grazingly, I was practically shouting at the screen, "whack him again!". If I was her in that situation I would be swinging down on Joe's head a few more times to make sure the bastards dead. Multi-murderer who trapped me in a cage? Yeah, I'm going to make sure you never get back up. But those mean old writers had it in for you Beck.

NITPICKS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
Like most things, this show takes some liberties and characters do things that make no sense, like the aforementioned one swing Beck. But here are my nitpicks:

1) After Beck stabs Joe with the typewriter key and locks him in the class cage, she runs off leaving the set of keys still in the door's lock. When she comes down Joe has freed himself and taunts her, saying that after all the times Mooney locked him in he kept a spare key hidden inside. You cannot put a key into a lock that already has a set of keys in the opposite side of lock.

2) After Peaches shot Joe, she approaches and gives him and kick and circles him, she clearly can see the bullet graze on his leg but assumes he is dead and walks off. Besides, in reality I think Joe would be wailing in agony, that thigh shot did some damage.

3) How did Joe shoot Peaches after that struggle to make it look like suicide. He was atop her back, and she was on her front which meant he probably would have shot her in the back of the head, but wouldn't have the time in the moment to make it look like suicide.

4) How did no cop find the blood covered rock Joe whacked Peaches with feet away from her, covered in fingerprints.

5) After working with Joe for so many years, has Ethan never found it strange that Joe's ex's fling died, then Joe's ex disappears, then Joe's current girlfriend's friend dies and then Joe's girlfriend dies. That's a lot of fatalities surrounding one man. I'd be freaking suspicious. And all this I think is supposed to have happened within what, a year or so?

6) Candace is alive! She hints that Joe tried to kill her, so where did that social media account with all that Italy content come from? He seemed surprised to see her, so did he photoshop Candace into pictures and then upload them ever so often? That's a convoluted lie by huge proportions.

So You was a fun show to watch, I'm not sure it's for everyone because it does spend more time being a romantic drama/comedy than it does a thriller. But I like character development and thought all the actors involved did a great job, especially Penn Badgley who has slipped on the role of Joe Goldberg like a glove. He did a great job of making the character both sympathetic and abhorrent.

Looking forward to season 2.