(The review may contain spoilers)
Joe Goldberg - last year, this name raised storm on the internet and creeped the daylights out of several viewers who binge-watched season 1 of You on Netflix. The first season recounted the saga of a stalker Joe (Penn Badgley) pursuing and ultimately killing the object of his twisted affection, Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail).
Season 2 (now streaming on Netflix) opens in Los Angeles. Dressed in a monochrome shirt and trousers, there isn’t a wrinkle on Joe’s appearance. But he has a new identity - Will Bettleheim. “Love has taken me to the darkest places and Los Angeles is as dark as it gets” - as Joe’s calm voice assures us that it is a “fresh start” for him, a chill runs down my spine. Will rents an apartment, meets the smart building manager Delilah but promises himself that he will steer clear of any romantic associations. Till he lands himself a job at a cafe-cum-bookstore called Anavrin (Nirvana spelled backwards) - couldn’t have been a more direct reference to what lies in store for this ‘weirdo’.
In his quest to run away from consequences of his broken heart, Will meets his new obsession - Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), owner of Anavrin and a more complex character than Beck.
Hailing from an obscenely rich family, Love’s own name is an irony - her brother Forty (James Scully) revels in self-destruction, parents are too busy in their social lives to even worry about their children, and her husband James, the only source of solace, is no more. With a bag full of insecurities to be exploited, Will moves over from digital stalking. Having gotten away with multiple murders, he is much bolder now, so he keeps Love at an arm’s length to make her pine for his affection.
In setting up the stage to justify his toxic ideas of ‘protection’, the problem that the show wants to address intensifies. Not only has Will’s obsession increased, he has become delusional too. The moment he comes close to Love, Beck’s ‘ghost’ surfaces to remind him that “he’ll hurt her”. Then there are flashbacks about his own painful childhood and his own uncontrollable fantasies about Love. Added to that is Candace, who has ‘risen’ from the grave to make Joe pay for what he has done to her.
Amidst all this, Will seeks validation that he is a “good man”, just like Joe did in season 1. And who better than children or teenagers? A child stuck between two constantly fighting parents gained Joe’s sympathy. He would supply him with books so that the urge to dream for a better life and to survive never dies. In this case it is Ellie, a “precocious” LA teen who lives with her sister Delilah and is too cool for school. Joe becomes the parent Ellie never had. He shields her from a pervert, Henderson, makes sure she always keeps the right company and always tries to keep her “safe”.
The template for season 2 is pretty much the same, only this time the game is creepier and bloodier. Innocent blood is spilled in the most gruesome manner and Will meets a fellow sociopath who shows him the mirror.
The story keeps you hooked in the beginning, then becomes predictable only to pick up pace towards the end.
Joe’s character evolves and becomes more dangerous with time. In season 1, his voice-overs and day-to-day activities make his seem like a nice, charming and well-read person. His real, inner persona exhibited in flashes of rage. Joe fit well among the self-styled literary types of New York, while Will loathes the Moon Juice-consuming Angelenos. While the nice Joe bowled us over with his explanations, we recoiled confronting the monster residing in him. However, both made sense and the dual personalities were completely separate. Placing the character in a new milieu and almost blurring his two faces in an attempt to increase our sympathy makes the season go haywire. The attempt to shock us into realisation about how ‘sick’ the character is for whom our hearts melt can only work once. Season 1 did it convincingly, questioning the times where digital footprints are enough to paint the whole life of a person. Long monologues by our serial stalker get tiresome.
Penn Badgley, as both Joe and Will, ensures that we are with him as he struggles with his difficult childhood and constantly comes up with excuses for eliminating ‘obstacles’. Just like Joe, Will too is observant - he judges Love by her friends, and keeps an eagle vision on her likes and dislikes.
He enters our heads to warn us that he has the power to hypnotise. No other actor could probably have been as convincing as this not-so-handsome yet charming stalker who quotes Raymond Chandler and devours Crime and Punishment. However, certain scenes do look laboured as Penn tries too hard to show his not-so-pleasant side.
The women in this series are excellent. Victoria Pedretti aka Love is chatty, ‘volatile’ yet restrained. Struggling to fight her inner demons, she calculates every move and doesn’t let the other person read her thoughts. Love is fiercely protective of her brother, yet feels tied by responsibilities. Love loves cooking, and food for her is akin to desire. She whips the perfect chicken roast for Will, in the process helping him meet his true self. Victoria plays Love with self-assuredness, and her ‘habit’ of ignoring red flags makes us wonder whether that’s part of her bigger plan. Carmela Zumbado as Delilah and Jenna Ortega as Ellie are fantastic too. They complement each other in their craziness, look out for the other one in times of trouble and have built an impenetrable wall for themselves in the big, bad world.
All said and done, by the time You season 2 ends with the pursuit of another ‘victim’ to seduce and destroy, we hope that it’s time the curtains finally draw.
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