Penn Badgley reveals alternative series ending You writers nearly used

Penn Badgley has revealed the alternate ending that almost concluded the hit Netflix series, You.

The fifth season of the much-loved psychological thriller dropped last week with Badgley returning as stalker Joe Goldberg, who develops an obsessive fascination with a woman.

*Spoilers follow – you have been warned*

Joe is ultimately convicted of his many murders, including those of Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), Benji Ashby (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Peach Salinger (Shay Mitchell).

As the series draws to a close, the killer receives a sexually explicit piece of fan mail in prison. “Maybe the problem isn’t me. Maybe it’s you,” he says as he breaks the fourth wall and looks into the camera.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Badgley explained that the show’s writers couldn’t kill off his character as whoever “he’d been trying to seduce, manipulate or kill” would be left “with trauma that feels unjust” after murdering him to save themselves.

“So, I think we found the one just ending,” he said.

However, the series’ co-creator Greg Berlanti did have another idea for the protagonist’s comeuppance: “It was to let [Joe] get away with it – to let him have everything he thought he wanted and just be absolutely miserable,” Badgley said.

“Where that starts to fall apart is that it doesn’t take ‘her’ into account, whoever the ‘her’ is.”

Meanwhile, You showrunners Michael Foley and Justin Lo revealed in an interview with the New York Post that a “very early iteration” of the series finale saw Joe find out he was a ghost after being shot by Bronte (Madeline Brewer).

Ultimately, the writers decided to lock Joe up. “We liked putting him in a veritable cage,” Foley said. “We liked him not knowing the touch of a lover.”

Fans were left divided over the show’s final episode with some declaring the ending “so satisfying” while others dubbed the entire season “a waste of time” as Joe’s fate was revealed.

The Independent’s Annabel Nugent argued that You was doomed to become boringly repetitive from the moment writers killed off Love Quinn at the end of season three.

“When Love died, the audacious potential of You died with her, leaving us with a walking corpse of a show stuck on autopilot,” she wrote. “RIP You. But mainly, RIP Love Quinn.”

‘You’ season five is available on Netflix now