Netflix’s You: If You’ve Got Mail Was Honest About What It Is
Penn Badgley uses Instagram like Tom Hanks used emails: to stalk, manipulate, and build relationships based on lies. The difference is Netflix shows it as horror and you still want Joe Goldberg to be innocent. In 2018, when You debuted, millions confessed online they were “in love” with a femicide perpetrator. Penn Badgley had to remind them on Twitter: “He’s a MURDERER. Please stop romanticizing him.” But they couldn’t. Penn Badgley revealed on Armchair Expert podcast that he receives daily DMs from fans saying “Joe Goldberg can stalk me anytime.” In 2019, Netflix had to launch an official social media campaign: “Joe is a MURDERER. Not boyfriend material.” It worked for two weeks. Then Google searches for “Joe Goldberg boyfriend material” went up 340%. The series proved something terrifying: you can SHOW the horror explicitly and people will still romanticize it if the actor is attractive.
Joe Goldberg (Badgley) works in a bookstore. Meets Beck (Elizabeth Lail), literature student who dreams of being a writer. She buys a book. He googles her name before she leaves the store. In 30 minutes he has her address, social media, ex’s name, and a plan to “casually” run into her again. It’s exactly what Joe Fox did with Kathleen in You’ve Got Mail: used her anonymous email to learn her vulnerabilities, fears, what made her happy. The only technical difference is Fox needed access to a shared computer in 1998; Goldberg just needs Wi-Fi in 2018. The method evolved. The manipulation didn’t. What changed is You SHOWS you the explicit violence: Joe kills Beck’s abusive ex. Kills her when she discovers the truth. Nora Ephron would never have filmed those scenes, but Fox’s economic and emotional violence was always there, just without blood.
The scariest scene in You has no blood: Joe enters Beck’s apartment while she sleeps. Stands next to her bed. Watches her. In voice-over he says: “You sleep on the left side. Means you’re creative, emotional. Vulnerable.” Then opens her laptop, reads her emails, her novel drafts. All without permission. Leaves before she wakes up. She never knows. It’s exactly what Joe Fox did: read Kathleen’s private emails, learned her intimate fears, and used that information to manipulate her. The difference is Netflix shows you Joe Goldberg physically entering private space. Nora Ephron only shows you the computer screen, clean, no traces of invasion. But the invasion is the same. Only you see one and not the other.
The series uses the same narrative trick that made You’ve Got Mail work: protagonist’s voice-over justifying everything. “You,” Joe says looking at camera while following Beck. “You made me do this.” It’s intimate, direct, seductive. Convinces you his reasons make sense until you objectively see what he’s doing: entering her apartment without permission, reading her diary, eliminating people from her life. Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble (creators) based You on Caroline Kepnes’ novels, who said in interview with Vulture: “I wanted readers to fall in love with Joe in the first chapters. Not because he’s a good person, but because we all have a Joe inside: that part that believes it knows better than others what they need.” It’s exactly why Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail works: because his Joe Fox GENUINELY believes he’s helping Kathleen by forcing her to let go of her store. “Small bookstores are a thing of the past,” he tells her. As if destroying her dream was doing her a favor.
The big question haunting You is: can you tell a femicide perpetrator’s story without romanticizing it? The answer, after five seasons (2018-2024), with over 500 million hours watched, seems to be: not entirely. The series constantly tries reminding you Joe is the villain. Makes him kill horrible people (abusers, narcissists, manipulators) so you ALMOST justify his actions. Then shows him killing innocent people so you react. But the voice-over format, Badgley’s face, the fact that every woman he stalked had SOME flaw he “corrects”… everything conspires for part of you to think: “Maybe he just needs the right person.” It’s the same trap as You’ve Got Mail: if Kathleen only knew him REALLY, she’d understand destroying her business was inevitable, that he suffered too. You tries to exploit that trap to criticize it. But audience numbers suggest many fell for it anyway.
Beck has a monologue at season 1’s end, before dying, where she writes: “You wrapped yourself in fairy tales like a blanket, but it was the cold you loved. Prince Charming and Bluebeard are the same man.” It’s almost word for word what Kathleen should have written in You’ve Got Mail but never did because Nora Ephron needed a happy ending. You gives you the REAL ending: Beck discovers who Joe is. Confronts him. And he kills her because he can’t accept she doesn’t love him. That’s what would have happened if Kathleen had rejected Joe Fox after discovering the truth. No romantic park scene. Economic revenge, harassment, systematic destruction. But in 1998, that wasn’t entertainment. In 2018, Netflix understood it is, as long as you call “thriller” what you used to call “romance.”
It’s a series you should watch if You’ve Got Mail seemed romantic to you, because You is the antidote: shows you the same actions without soft lighting, without piano music, without Tom Hanks’ smile. Forces you to see that stalking is stalking, manipulation is manipulation, and “I love you” doesn’t justify destroying someone’s life. Available on Netflix, five seasons. The brutal final question the series leaves: if Joe Goldberg were less explicitly violent, if he only ruined businesses instead of killing people, would you see him as villain or rom-com protagonist? Probably the latter. And that should scare you more than any death scene. Because it means we’ve been applauding Joe Fox for 26 years.
