Twitter is a great place for recommendations. My Twitter peeps were talking 2 years ago about all things YOU. I didn’t know anything about the show prior to heading to Netflix and turning it on. But when I saw that Penn Bagdley was involved… I was thinking… “Okay… I will give this a try.” (Easy A anyone?) This had to be the first show that I was pushed to watch that I didn’t research first. I usually try to research a bit beforehand to see if I think it will be something that will hold my interests. Sadly, it is because of that misstep that I went into it thinking that it was a rom com because it was airing on the lifetime network originally. Boy was I sadly mistaken. As is usually the case with my posts…. Spoilers lie ahead.

There was a bunch of talk on twitter on how good-look Penn Badgley is and how much they love and empathize with his character Joe. Obviously, this also led me down the wrong path. The great thing is that Penn was out there talking about how not great of a character Joe is. (Now that intrigued me.) Interestingly enough, there were no spoilers online.

So imagine my surprise that this was NOT a love story. You is an American psychological thriller television series. The first season is based on the 2014 novel by Caroline Kepnes.  Joe Goldberg is a New York bookstore manager and serial killer who falls in love with a customer named Guinevere Beck (an aspiring writer) and quickly develops an extreme, toxic, and delusional obsession about her. To feed his obsession, he soon turns to social media and technology to track her presence and eliminate any possible obstacles that stand in the way of their romance.The second season follows Joe as he moves to Los Angeles and falls in love with local heiress Love Quinn and the delusional obsession starts all over. There has been a lot of comparison between he and Dexter…. (shoutout to all the people who have seen both shows.) Later, we will get into why there is no comparison between the two characters.

 Netflix packs a bunch into 10 episodes. Season three should be starting soon. I think in this post… I just going to talk about some things that either super surprised or seriously alarmed me. Because if I went by episode, I would just be telling you all about all 20. Here we go in now particular order. So let’s get to it:

SEASON 1

There is actually a BUNCH that takes place in the very first episode that is disturbing. And it sets the scene for all of the characters… For the life of me… I couldn’t get what was likable about Mr. Goldberg from episode 1.

The first thing that stood out to me was the fact that in the bookstore, prior to Joe speaking to Beck, you see her from his point of view. And right off the bat, there is something not right with his inner monologue. (His inner thoughts can be funny at times… and there will be a bit about that later.) He seems to want to take possession of her right off the back. Something about it makes me extremely uncomfortable. His labeling her a “good girl…” that stays in my mind. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyNYkd2kLHs) There is also a bit where she comes to pay for the book and does so with a debit card. Joe takes that to mean she wants him to know her name. Even writing that sends chills down my spine. I didn’t even want to think about when I had been doing the most benign thing and someone took it to mean something more. (*Shudder*)

Joe has a load of characteristics that would win people over. He’s handsome, witty, well-read and charming. Maybe this is why a this story needs to be told. Everyone that may do you harm, doesn’t always “look” like a monster. I never understood what that meant anyway… His inner monologue tends to throw you off because he is so intelligent… but then it cuts to a scene where he is doing something dubious… and creepy. Then I remember he is not the knight in shining armor here. Thanks to this show though…. I have take several internet security precautions… (probably still not enough though).

The next thing that probably should have creeped me out… but then didn’t was the fact that he went home afterwards and looked up all of Beck’s social media. Social Media changed my life and the life of everyone I knew when I got Facebook in college. (Back when it was only for college students.) With the advent of social media, I think I have become accustomed to a certain level of stalking. It has changed social interaction (for the better remains to be seen.. but it is here.) You know more about people you have never met than you ever used to. It has gotten to the point where I’ve met people who think it is strange if a person has no social media. Don’t get me wrong the scene gets creepier but not because he looked at her Facebook, or Instagram. The information Joe finds there about Beck leads him to looking up where she lives… getting her address and ending up outside her apartment. (This was where I had to investigate my social media and be careful about what I post. Also had to make sure my security settings were strong.)

So what does our main character psychopath do? He decides to show up to her house. For a woman that lives in NYC… why didn’t she have window coverings? (That is a thing that my friends point out in every horror movie…. WHY DO YOU LIVE IN A GLASS HOUSE????? WHY ARE THERE NEVER ANY SHADES???) But our creepy man character ends up outside of her apartment watching her have sex with her significant other, Benji. We watch through Joe’s eyes, the sad sexual encounter that leaves Beck wanting more… and taking it in her own after Benji leaves… We watch Joe pleasure himself while standing across the street peering into her window. It is all gross and voyeuristic. Joe’s obsession takes a turn when Benji arrives… Benji (who is admittedly not great…but there is not a character that is exceptional in the bunch…. maybe Paco.) ends up with a target on his back. He is who Joe sees as standing in his way of getting to Beck. The issue is Benji isn’t all that interested in Beck which anyone with eyes should have been able to see. They would have fizzled out on their own. But the flame is ignited…. and Benji doesn’t stand a chance.

Joe also ends up following her around her college campus. (Those aren’t necessarily know for being super secure, which I didn’t realize until I watched him traipse around her all day.) People made jokes about how Joe’s character does very little to disguise himself and that a person should notice him following her. However, I am not entirely sure that I agree with that assessment. Joe’s ability to blend into plain sight was also unsettling. I think the thing that put me over the edge was him coming to her apartment (to break in, I am assured.) But meeting the handyman who allows him access to her apartment just by saying he was her boyfriend. SMH. So she is blocks away at work and on campus and has no clue there was an issue with her apartment or that someone is in it. He is in no hurry because he knows her schedule; he followed her around campus the other day. He stumbles onto her MacBook (and while I have Apple products… I am typing this post on my MacBook) I snapped to attention. He basically finds her MacBook. Apple people know that you can see texts with on most of your devices (from other apple people… I am too boring for someone to do this.) …. So here is Joe… in Beck’s apartment, reading all of her texts to her friends. Texts about him. Everything about the scene gave me the creeps…

Of course… Beck returns to her apartment… and feels that someone has been there looking through her stuff. I just want to scream at the tv. “HE’S STILL IN THE HOUSE!!!!!!” Joe hides in her shower… Luckily (Read: this is television so she’s not going to discover him….) she doesn’t see/find him. She is actually standing in the bathroom with Joe behind the curtain. She also reaches in and turns the water on him…. I felt great when she makes it out of there alive. I found it odd that her building manager… with today’s technology… didn’t inform her in some way that there had been an issue and people in place.

It was weird when he bumped into her on a drunk night out with her friends. What we know as the viewers is that it is no accident. He watches her interaction between them… the other odd thing is that while we know he is delusional…. there are periods when his thoughts on a subject… are correct. Beck’s friends aren’t great. Joe presents himself as being nearby offering to make sure she gets home safe. Beck falls onto the subway tracks, and he saves her. They decide to take a cab home and that is when Joe strikes by stealing her phone. (Here is where the creepy settles in again. Joe can anticipate her next move… she will buy a new phone and automatically assume that her old phone will be shut off. Joe, in his inner monologue disputes this. We find out…. and forgive if you already knew this because I did not, but her old phone is not disconnected from the cloud. (SHE NEEDS PASSWORDS!!!! I am not sure how much that would have helped. It is really the last resort in my mind.) Essentially, Joe keeping her old phone gives him full access to everything she does with her new phone due to it automatically synchronizing with her old one.

Let’s go back to the target on Benji’s back. He is the first “obstacle” in Joe’s way. So to speak. But Benji doesn’t view him and Beck as being in a relationship. (I had serious questions about this… like… Is he being unfaithful? Or was Beck just knowingly along for a ride that she knew was going nowhere.) Big mistake. You would think that would help him but it seems to just upset Joe more. Joe wanting to know why Benji doesn’t appreciate the gem that is Beck… (Since this is the first episode… Joe has only bumped into her twice. So he knows absolutely nothing about her.) We all know the feeling of digging someone from far away and then getting to know them is a total letdown. Joe lures Beck’s philandering boyfriend Benji to the basement of his shop, hits him in the head with a mallet, and locks him in a plexiglass book vault. Joe is not sure what to do with Benji, who is a drug-addicted trust fund baby and desperate to be freed. After obtaining a video of Benji hazing a fraternity pledge to death, Joe gives him a coffee laced with peanut oil, and Benji dies from an allergic reaction. I really thought he was going to let Benji go.

Joe’s plan to win Beck over doesn’t go according to plan right away. Joe doubles down on his efforts to convince Beck that he is “the one” for her after finding out that she is still having sex with other men in order to get over Benji. Joe overhears Beck telling her friends that she is not completely sure about Joe, calling him a “maybe”. Enter Peach, a friend of Beck’s… the next obstacle for Joe. So to speak.  Beck’s wealthy friend Peach is suspicious of Joe. The dynamic of the power struggle between Joe and Peach took me by surprise. It was wild to realize that Beck (unknowingly) is the object of affection between two psychopaths. When you listen to the inner monologue of Joe…. his thoughts about Peach are SPOT ON…. but you also get that he is familiar with dangerous and crazy because he lives at that intersection. Joe sees that Beck has made weekend plans with an older man she calls “The Captain” and lies to her friends about it. A jealous Joe follows her to a Charles Dickens festival in Nyack and soon learns that the man is her father, Edward, who she had previously said was dead. It is Peach who learns that Joe is in Nyack, which forces him to reveal himself to Beck. BECK, THIS IS THE SECOND TIME THIS MAN HAS SHOWED UP AT A PLACE HE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU’D BE. Peach continues to be suspicious of Joe and manages to get in between Joe and Peach.

Joe seeks a way to neutralize her. Peach makes a show of introducing Beck to a famous literary agent, but when he hits on Beck and tells her the negative things Peach said about her, Beck blows up at Peach. Peach fakes a suicide attempt and while Joe can see right through it but can’t get Beck to see the same. (If she could, she would be more suspicious of Joe.) In accessing Peach’s laptop Joe comes to realize she is infatuated with Beck. Knowing that Peach will always win Beck’s attention, Joe follows Peach on her morning run in Central Park and hits her over the head with a rock. (Prior to this… we see Joe don his signature stalker cap…. and try to follow Peach on a run… He is out of shape and can’t keep up. You wonder if he gives up on the idea but no.) Later, Joe learns that Peach is alive.

A recovering Peach is staying with Beck and she banishes Joe. Joe explains to Beck that Peach is in love with her and trying to keep Beck dependent on her. Joe secretly follows when Peach whisks Beck off to the Salinger family estate in Greenwich. Peach invites her and Beck’s old friend Raj over. They all ingest MDMA and Peach attempts to initiate a threesome with Beck and Raj. Beck turns down her advances and leaves the room to text Joe. Joe, however, is on his way there. Beck confronts Peach about the kiss and leaves, after which Peach discovers Joe in the house and pulls a gun on him. She accuses him of stalking her, and Joe reveals all that he knows about her. They wrestle for the gun, and Peach is killed. Joe types a suicide note on Peach’s computer, leading detectives to believe that Peach shot herself. He gets away again!!!!

The shocking thing is… Joe’s relationship with his neighbor’s son, Paco. Paco is a character that doesn’t exist in the books. But that doesn’t stop his story from being hella interesting. Paco lives with his mom, Claudia, and her boyfriend Ron. Just like Peach, there is not a lot that is likable about Ron. He verbally and physically abusive to both Claudia and Paco. Joe is great with Paco which is jarring. Paco spends a lot of time with Joe either at the bookstore or on the steps outside his apartment. Claudia and Ron are usually heard arguing in the background. But he also sees through Joe’s facade.  Ron knows that something’s wrong with Joe. He often calls Joe “sick” and “a freak.” Paco is at the end of his rope… when he decides he is going to drug Ron. Joe revives him, but the unhinged Ron beats him up pretty badly… Ron doesn’t want Paco to have anything to do with Joe. (I was annoyed with Claudia… because this man is in your house belittling your child about liking to read. I wanted her to do something before he killed her… and left Paco to deal with this maniac.) Claudia in the hospital, and Joe kills him to protect Paco. And while Ron was pretty detestable (I didn’t shed a tear over his death…) that doesn’t make Joe a great character….

Beck and Joe’s relationship is on again off again mostly because of his jealous nature. Since I am older, I understand that Joe places people on a pedestal. (Aside from being a delusional, killer.) I remember finally getting a guy that I had adored from far away… when I got in the relationship…the rose colored glasses come off. I had to view him as a person that had flaws. And I needed to remember that I had to deal with them realistically. In Beck’s case… it becomes dangerous when Joe realizes that she’s not perfect. (I mean… he met her at the bookstore… and deemed her perfect because of an author she is looking for.) Beck starts asking questions about Joe’s past relationship… and I knew he didn’t wake up and start offing people…. he had done it before. Joe doesn’t want to reveal anything about his past relationships or his ex girlfriend Candace. We are told through a flashback… Candace cheating on him with Elijah, whom Joe subsequently impulsively pushes to his death from a building after confronting him. Beck does her own recon though but it turns up nothing… She disappeared off the face of the earth and there is no one that heard from her again. Joe discovers that Beck did have an affair with Dr. Nicky (her therapist after Peach’s death), which she finally admits before telling Joe she loves him.

Clued in by something Paco says, Beck discovers Joe’s hiding place in the bathroom ceiling. She is horrified as she finds her old cellphone as well as Benji’s and Peach’s, in addition to other disturbing mementos which he has kept. When Joe realizes what Beck has found, he locks her in the book vault.

Joe explains to Beck his reasoning for murdering Benji and Peach, and relates it to his childhood mental abuse at Mooney’s hands. She appears to empathize with Joe and seems grateful for his actions. Beck lures Joe into the vault and manages to lock him in, revealing that it was all just an act to get him to open the door. Still trapped in the basement, she calls out to Paco, who thinks she knows about Ron and leaves. (I wonder… what effect his time with Joe has had on Paco? Or Ron for that matter. I am not sure. ) Joe escapes the vault and kills Beck. Four months later, Joe has used Beck’s writing to frame Dr. Nicky for all of Joe’s murders. Claudia and Paco move to California. Joe is stunned when Candace comes into the bookstore, telling him they have unfinished business. (Blew my damn mind… and his too since he thought she was dead.)

Season 2

In the second season, Joe moves from New York to Los Angeles to escape his past, and starts over with a new identity. But old habits die hard. I know that there were a lot of people that were pulling for him to suddenly turn over a knew leaf…. He meets a series of people, including his neighbors Delilah and Ellie Alves, and Forty Quinn. (Forty having been my least favorite person in this season….) When he meets avid chef Love Quinn, sister of Forty, Joe begins falling into his old patterns of obsession and violence. As Joe attempts to forge a new love, he strives to make his relationship with Love succeed at all costs, to avoid the fate of his past romantic endeavors. Using the name Will, he secures an apartment and gets a job in the book café of a trendy family-owned grocery store, Anavrin. There he meets Love Quinn, a bubbly local who works in the kitchen. A nervous Joe resists her advances while befriending Ellie Alves, his 15-year-old neighbor. After Ellie coaches Joe to create an authentic social media presence, Love takes him on a food tour of the city to get to know him, and he finds himself very attracted. In the first episode, everything seems fine mostly. (which for me…. was a red flag in itself.) But things don’t go that well with Love at first…

Joe struggles to resist his attraction to Love, he befriends her self-absorbed twin Forty, an aspiring writer/director/producer who plays at managing Anavrin. Joe’s attempt to reconnect with an icy Love backfires, and she argues with Forty about his career aspirations. (Forty was fucking shiftless…. I couldn’t stand him.) There is a mysterious visitor that comes to his apartment and prompts Joe to visit the real Will, whom he has locked inside a plexiglass vault in a rented storage unit. Joe recalls how seeing and then stalking Love led him to find an apartment near hers and get a job where she works. So right off the bat… he is back up to his old tricks. Joe recalls his arrival in LA, and meeting with Will, a man who sells clean identities. Joe knocks out Will, locks him in the vault and assumes his identity. Will’s visitor, Jasper, cuts off the last joint of Joe’s pinky finger when he does not have the $50,000 Will owes him.

Joe spies on a lunch between Love and her three friends: Lucy, a Hollywood agent; Sunrise, Lucy’s girlfriend; and Gabe, Love’s pansexual best friend. Love catches Joe in a lie and is upset, but they later mend fences and agree to be friends, as Joe is genuinely afraid he will hurt her. Joe lures Jasper to the storage unit and kills him, and a guilty Joe apologizes to his vision of Beck. After having his finger joint reattached, Joe dismembers Jasper’s body in the Anavrin kitchen and puts him through the meat grinder. (I almost couldn’t take it. SO GROSS.)

Joe’s blossoming relationship with Love is challenged by Forty’s neediness, but Joe at least manages to win over Love’s friends. I understand that Love and Forty are twins but goodness…. he seems to have no boundaries and not care that she has a significant other… even if it is Joe. (And I have hung out with plenty of twins that don’t do this.) Joe accompanies Love to a wellness retreat organized by her parents for their anniversary. Forty arrives with Candace, who is hellbent on exposing Joe for the psycho he is. We actually get to see what it was Joe did to Candace. Candace recalls attempting to leave Joe, but then finding herself his prisoner. Thinking he accidentally killed her, he buries her in a shallow grave, but she later awakens and crawls out. Candace’s presence puts Joe on edge, which is not helped by Love’s dysfunctional family dynamic. 

Candace puts Joe on notice, and he soon learns that Candace has convinced Forty to adapt Beck’s book into a screenplay. (OMG). I am sure it won’t be long before people figure out what really happened to Beck and her friends. After catching Candace in a small lie, Love hires a private investigator to follow her. Candace appears at Joe’s apartment while he is out, so he goes to her place at night to eliminate her. Meanwhile, Candace breaks into Joe’s apartment, but Love is waiting for her. Love has learned Candace’s identity and troubled history, and Candace counters with the truth about Joe’s past. Love confronts Joe, who convinces her that he fled New York to get away from obsessive Candace, and that her darker accusations are lies. Love breaks up with him anyway, but Forty insists Joe keep his job. After breaking up with Joe, Love rebounds with Milo, her late husband’s best friend. Joe tries to get into the dating game by downloading an app for book lovers, only to get disappointed with flawed dates. (Lucky for those girls.)

Joe is in another situation where he is taking care of a neighbor and a younger child, Delilah and her sister Ellie. Ellie’s older sister Delilah, a reporter, tells Joe that she was drugged and raped at age 17 by the well-known comedian Henderson. Joe catches Ellie hanging around with Henderson, and vows to protect her from the predator, having already surreptitiously installed spyware on her phone. Looking for dirt on Henderson, Joe bluffs his way into the comedian’s house party. Forty tags along to pitch a project to Henderson, but has a drug-fueled meltdown. Joe sees kindness in Henderson before he takes Forty home with him and summons Love.  Forty tells Joe about a kinky secret room Henderson has in his house. From the vault, Will helps Joe break into Henderson’s house. In the secret room, he finds Polaroid photos of unconscious women, including Delilah. He takes them with him and then leaves them at Delilah’s doorstep for her to find so she can expose Henderson. Joe learns that Ellie has discovered and disabled his spyware, and is going over to Henderson’s place. From the other room, Joe watches Henderson drug Ellie’s drink, so he doses Henderson as well. Joe tries to elicit a confession, but accidentally knocks Henderson down the stairs and kills him. (Again… as with Ron… I am not sure I felt any type of way about Henderson’s death… but I mean…. this still doesn’t make Joe/Will great. The group attends Henderson’s funeral and later Joe comforts Delilah, who is upset that Henderson’s transgressions will never be made public, and they have sex. Though initially determined to be a suicide, the police now believe that Henderson’s death was a murder.

Delilah thanks Joe for suggesting she write an article about her experience with Henderson, and they end up drinking, having sex on the street and being arrested for it. Fincher, Delilah’s cop “friend”, refuses to help them, so Forty uses his connections to bail them out. e. Fincher’s suspicions about Joe’s involvement in Henderson’s death prompts Delilah to search his apartment. She finds the storage unit keys, and is taking pictures of the vault when Joe arrives, tipped off by his nanny cam. He locks her inside, but says he will let her go the next day after he has safely left town. Forty arranges a self-kidnapping (my goodness do I hate him…. and like I get that he is a victim but he is just unbearable), and he and Joe are locked in a hotel room to polish Forty’s script, assisted by Ellie. Joe is uneasy but realizes that he will only leave on time to escape before Delilah’s release if he helps them. They go over the script, and Ellie suggests they rewrite it from scratch. Forty gets frustrated and escapes from the room. Joe follows him into a bar, and Forty drugs him with LSD to help the creative process. (I was like…. WHAT??????????? You drugged someone… WTF.) Love finds Joe’s farewell letter. Joe tries to stay sane while Forty works on the script, but hallucinates and loses time. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5MwLJjMJ7M&t=2s)

Joe reconciles with Love, who convinces him to stay in LA, and Forty finally finishes the script, deducing correctly that Beck’s ex-boyfriend killed her in a crime of passion. Forty confesses to Joe that as a teen he blacked out and murdered his au pair lover. The next morning when he wakes up, Joe races to Delilah before the handcuff timer can go off, only to find her dead inside the vault. Joe tries to retrace his steps while under the influence because he does not believe he murdered Delilah. Suspecting Will, Joe calls him in, but he is in Manila as promised. Joe learns from Calvin that he came to Anavrin with Forty to get some groceries. Joe learns from Forty that he dropped Joe off to “visit Delilah” and then Forty called Candace. Candace and Forty argue, but in examining her video call from Forty, Candace sees Joe and the location where he was dropped off. She arrives at the storage unit to find Joe standing over Delilah’s body in the vault, and locks Joe in. She calls Love to prove to her that Joe is a very dangerous man. Love arrives and Joe, believing he is a murderer, confesses everything to Love, and apologizes to Candace. Love then murders Candace and professes her love for Joe. Love reveals to Joe that she made him fall in love with her by meticulously studying his past. She also admits to murdering both Forty’s au-pair and Delilah. Joe’s image of Love is shattered as he understands that he is “her Beck”.

Love then explains that she has a plan to give them and Forty a way to build a real family: she will implicate Ellie in Henderson’s murder but then have the Quinn family lawyers get the case closed, and also stage Delilah’s death as a suicide caused by the backlash from her article. Joe is tempted to kill Love but stops after she reveals she is pregnant with his baby. Joe finds Ellie, reveals Delilah’s fate, and sends her away with money before Child Protective Services can come for her.  Convinced that Joe was Beck’s real murderer, Forty tries to save Love from him. Forty confronts Joe with a gun at Anavrin but is shot and killed by Fincher. Love uses her family’s connections to clear the way and gets Forty blamed for Henderson and Candace’s deaths. Joe and Love move into a new house, and Joe’s obsessive patterns resurface when he reveals his interest in their new female neighbor.

So…. Earlier I mentioned there is no real comparison between Joe and Dexter… Both shows are about serial killers… yes… but that is really where the comparison ends. Both based on novels … but I mean what isn’t based on a novel at this point? The one thing I find funny is everyone was clowning on You for using voice overs (Joe’s inner monologue.) Saying the show is not as dynamic without them. Funny enough, it is not the first show to do this…. and I don’t remember anyone saying it about Dexter. Dexter’s inner monologues… were really about the same… kinda creepy… and sometimes humorous.

Dexter is also coming back for another season after an 8 year run. Fun times. But lets compare the apples and oranges. From the outset of the show… Dexter lets us know about his dark passenger… and that he’s a serial killer. He leans into it. (He is a serial killer of other bad people….) but he is who he is and his inner monologue doesn’t shy away from it. There is no sugar coating about what he does or what he is. His job as a blood splatter analyst for the Miami PD allows him to scope out his next victims. And then he hunts them down. (I remember seeing an interview with Michael C. Hall… where he talked about the audience of Dexter is made to feel like accomplices in his actions… so they are constantly hoping he….. and by extension them… don’t get caught. I found this notion interesting.) Dexter’s killings come out of planning and calculation. There is nothing random about his attacks which is why he is able to stay under the radar for so long. At a young age, Dexter felt homicidal urges directed by an inner voice he calls “the Dark Passenger”; when that voice cannot be ignored, he “lets the Dark Passenger do the driving”.

Dexter considers himself emotionally divorced from the rest of humanity; in his narration, he refers to “humans” as if he is not one himself. He makes frequent references to an internal feeling of emptiness and says he kills to feel alive. He claims to have no feelings or conscience, and that all of his emotional responses are part of a well-rehearsed act to conceal his true nature. He has no interest in romance or sex; he considers his relationship with his girlfriend (and eventual wife) Rita Bennett to be part of his “disguise”.

“Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like for everything inside me that’s denied and unknown to be revealed. But I’ll never know. I live my life in hiding. My survival depends on it.” -Dexter Morgan

Joe, on the other hand, doesn’t see himself as a serial killer… despite having a number of victims. Joe does know how to interact with others and unlike Dexter, his relationships are not all for show. He can navigate social situations and cues pretty well.  Joe can be selfless when it comes to his friends such as taking care of Paco and Ellie. But in the end, Joe is also extremely selfish and is more than prepared to hurt others to get what he wants. He commits many horrific crimes and takes and ruins others lives throughout the course of the series. There is no one in the series that he meets that is better off for knowing him. In the first season, whenever Joe would do something reprehensible, he would always think of a justification for his actions and excuse them with it. (I think this is why it is the most creepy. How many men have I met like Joe already….? SHUDDER.) This usually took the form of Joe telling himself that what he was doing was in Beck’s best interests for example murdering Beck’s boyfriend Benji and claiming it was because he was a very neglectful spouse. Joe also has extreme anger issues (usually his murders are emotional outbursts) as seen when he murders Elijah Thornton as revenge for Candace cheating on him. When Forty Quinn repeats what Beck said when breaking up with Joe he attempts to strangle him, just as he did Beck.

Sometimes we do bad things for the people we love. It doesn’t mean its right it means love is more important.

I can see why people would want to compare these two characters. However, I see Joe as a bit more dangerous… The way he wiped out everyone around Beck and then eventually Beck herself… all while telling himself it was what was best for her… becoming the judge, jury and executioner still weighs heavy on me.

Anyways… if you have seen the show… let me know your thoughts. I would love to hear them. If you haven’t seen You… (Or Dexter…) hop on that. Until next time folks.

Well I am back to talk about seasons 3 and 4… because there is a lot to cover… I had time to watch uninterrupted so I managed to watch two seasons in 3 days. So let jump back into it.

Season 3 starts off where season 2 ended… with Joe and Love expecting their first child together… and living in the fictitious Californian suburb of Madre Linda. Now that Joe has seen Love’s true colors, he is no longer interested in love romantically. He really tries to distance himself and she is doing what she can to hold onto him.She is not his savior, Queen or end all be all like he originally believed.

Love and Joe find themselves overwhelmed with their newborn son Henry, which strains their relationship. Meanwhile, Joe struggles to bond with Henry and becomes infatuated with their next-door neighbor Natalie, a real estate agent and the wife of wealthy tech mogul Matthew. This already seems like trouble. He will delude himself into thinking that there is a new woman who can cure him and his miserable life, miserable existence. But Love will not allow anything or anyone to crush her picture perfect family life. Even if it is an illusion. Love wasn’t going to lose. She was onto Joe and knows all about his proclivities. Following a brief conversation with Natalie, Love accuses Joe of being obsessed with her, which he denies. But she found his box with the trophies that he stole. Later, Natalie shows Love a vacant store to open a bakery; Love murders her in the basement and calls Joe to help her dispose of the body.

Now the only thing I thought here was that Joe was an idiot who thinks everyone else is an idiot. There is no way that while Joe knew what Love was capable of that she wasn’t also familiar with his habits. Joe and Love attend couple’s therapy to address their struggling marriage. Oddly, the therapist makes an off handed remark that they are not killers. It was a bit too on the nose for me. Meanwhile, they develop a strategy to dispose of Natalie’s body at a nearby forest and create a convincing alibi for her disappearance.

Does that stop Joe from moving onto his next obsession? Not at all. But we all knew that. Joe befriends Marienne, Madre Linda’s librarian, who allows him to restore rare books to sell for money toward Ellie. He knew what he was doing bringing his son Henry along. It helps him get on people’s good side… The suburban shots are almost mundane until you remember they killed and buried a body in the first 1.5 episodes. When at the kid’s birthday party for the neighbors, they learn that each of the residents of Madre Linda wear a biosensor developed by Matthew on their rings. This means that Joe and Love have to exhume Natalie’s body, remove her wedding ring, and bury her beneath the foundation of a construction site. The two then reconcile and make a vow to no longer commit murder. This is somewhat of a recurring theme around the show… This will be the last one… This is it… It never is. Love opens her bakery called “A Fresh Tart” – beneath which she and Joe build a new plexiglass cage. (Now what is the reason to store this damn cage if you will not be killing people anymore?) I was shocked but also not really. Question: How are you not killing people anymore but you have this kidnap cage set up? Also who does one move this thing and set this up with no one knowing?

As Natalie’s disappearance attracts media attention, Joe and Love decide to frame Matthew for her murder by planting Natalie’s bloodstained scarf in his home. This is the second part that would get me about bumping people off…. you now have to cover this up. Someone who is morally grey but is not a killer, has to be blamed. Henry contracts measles and is rushed to the hospital. (Measles…. isn’t this eradicated?) While breaking into the Engler home, Joe discovers he too has measles and collapses; Matthew nurses him to health, and Joe suggests he make a statement to the press to clear his name, which Matthew does during a vigil for Natalie. Now this man is helping you and you are there to blackmail him after killing his wife… Joe goes through a hallucination that shows his childhood as he reels with the idea that he may have given Henry the measles putting his life in danger. As Henry recovers, Joe and Love decide not to frame Matthew and burn the scarf. The next day, Gil tells Love at her bakery that his daughters, whom he refused to vaccinate, gave Henry measles. An enraged Love bludgeons him unconscious as he leaves. Now the only thing I am going to say is… you knew your kids were sick and then brought them to a birthday party with other kids. Total disregard for other people. I get that he came in to apologize once Henry was rushed to the hospital but it was more of him trying to justify being an anti vaxxer… and then deciding to expose them and you know they are sick is a bit much. Although… He had no clue that Love was unhinged.

Joe and Love lock Gil in the plexiglass vault in the bakery’s basement. They agree they can’t let him out because he will tell others of the assault. (I thought that was weird though. They could have just said he got their kid sick… and dealt with the police over assault. Probably small fine and jail time. And with Love’s family connections… probably not even that.) Joe and Love search for incriminating information they can use as leverage for Gil’s silence. Love discovers through her family’s private investigator that Gil’s son is a sexual predator whom they link to a recent assault case on a college campus. And while Gil may have made a bad decision and got your kid sick… Henry is on the mend and nothing Gil’s son does in college can he control. Gil is disgusted to learn that his son has continued his abusive behavior and hangs himself inside the cage. (Love is not broken up about it at all.)

Joe and Love decide to frame Gil for Natalie’s death: Love plants the murder weapon with Gil’s fingerprints in the forest where Sherry has organized a community search for Natalie, while Joe moves Gil’s body to his residence and fabricates a suicide note from Gil declaring that he killed himself out of guilt over murdering Natalie. The ruse works and six months pass by in relative peace. You would think they would relax but Love ends up kissing Theo (who we have learned is Matthew’s stepson and Natalie’s son.) Love has been trying to resist him but he wouldn’t take no for an answer… and Joe doesn’t see it since he is now obsessed with the librarian Marienne.

Joe discovers that Love has been paying for Theo’s Uber trips and confronts her. Love says that Theo has nobody to look after him and confesses that Theo kissed her at the bakery. I wonder if Joe even cares…? Love is seeking attention elsewhere…Theo calls Love from the police station after getting detained for driving an electric scooter while inebriated. The two ride the scooter together and later have sex. Dottie realizes what Love has done after she gets home, and Love decides to cut ties with Theo. Where is Joe while this is going on? Joe sets off the bakery’s alarm to give himself an alibi to leave the house and stalk Marienne. He breaks into her home to investigate her more. She comes home unexpectedly leading Joe to hide under her bed and watch/listen as she prepares for what he assumes is a date which irritates him. (It is reminiscent of the time that he was in Becks apartment and had to hop into her shower.) Again… I saw it coming but I was still shocked that he was in her apartment… under her bed. I felt bamboozled. Up to this point… you could believe that Joe was TRYING to turn over a new leaf… but no.

Joe delves deeper into his budding obsession with Marienne. When she leaves work early, he searches her office for evidence of what she is doing and finds information that she is a recovering drug addict and has been charged with child neglect and endangerment. She is in the middle of a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband Ryan Goodwin, a local news reporter. When her ex shows up at the library and things get heated, Joe who has been in the basement, intervenes but contrary to his expectations she lashes out at him. in the middle of a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband Ryan Goodwin, a local news reporter.

Joe rushes back to the library after a call from Marienne because the sprinkler system malfunctioned and ruined some of the books. Joe spends his time trying to help salvage books. She apologizes to him for her reaction earlier with her ex. She reveals to Joe that she and her ex had been addicts and she drove with her daughter while she was high and got into an accident, seriously injuring another driver and endangering her daughter leading to her ex gaining custody and having her arrested. She tells him she is now trying to fight for custody and if she could she would run away with her daughter to France, where she was born. (But while I may think that her ex is an ass… he was given custody because of her child endangerment.) Joe is endeared by her talking about her daughter, and when the sprinklers malfunction again soaking the two of them, they make out passionately under the water.

The following day, Joe gives Marienne a letter of resignation to distance himself her, because he is worried that Love would kill her if she discovered their involvement. But she refuses and insists he stay, the two of them share another kiss and Marienne insists they can’t continue- before they immediately kiss again. (Poor Marienne has fallen for the trap of the sly fox.)

Back at home, Theo tells Love his dad has been using neighborhood surveillance to obsessively search for clues about Natalie’s death, including looking at her and Joe, she discusses with Joe the idea of leading Theo on to get any information they can. He agrees because it will keep Love distracted and allow him to pursue Marienne- who continues to insist they can’t maintain their relationship but they spend more time together, going on a stroll around town with Henry and her daughter Juliette. When her ex calls, she panics and tells Joe she can’t afford for him to find out about them and they have to back off of each other. This leads Joe to stalk Ryan, her ex, to find a way to bring him down.

Dottie, Loves mother, and Joe’s mother in Law, kidnaps Henry while drunk and takes him with her to burn down her vineyard she has lost to her husband in the divorce, Love vows never to see her again and has Joe drive her to a rehab facility. Dottie tells Joe she believes Love killed her first husband. I did NOT think that Joe would be surrounded with people that are crazier than him… but he managed to get intwined with the Quinns. Goodness Gracious.

Love unsuccessfully initiates foreplay with Joe – who is now solely interested in Marienne – and later has sex with Theo again. Sherry enlists Love to help cater for the library’s fundraiser event and suggests swinging to Love. Joe plots to take down Ryan by engineering his relapse, but the plan fails, as Joe learns that Ryan is a regular drug taker, and what Joe snuck into his power shake didn’t make a difference. Ryan confronts Joe at the fundraiser and tells him he is aware that Joe has been following him… so is everyone else not aware…? Because I mean it is just him in a baseball cap following people around. And if Ryan can notice it while being high as a kite… why can’t others? Joe doesn’t even try to hide his face. At the library, Marienne tells Joe that Ryan knows they’ve been spending time together and threatened to use it against her, adding that she doesn’t want to be a homewrecker and they need to end things.

Love discusses Sherry’s proposition of swinging with Joe, thinking it could possibly rekindle some passion in their relationship, feeling Joe has lost interest in her although she has reservations that they are not solid enough and that it isn’t really her. ( Now swinging with the hope that it will fix you and your partner is never a good idea. But I can’t say that Love was ever good at thinking things through.) Joe entertains the idea, seeing it as a sure fire way to destroy their relationship, in a way that would not be his fault, allowing him to move on with Marienne. (Joe always has an endgame.) He manipulates the situation to make it seem that it is completely Loves choice and decision, including rejecting her attempts to connect with him and making her feel insecure and boring then pretending to be jealous and possessive over her flirtation with Theo, even though he did not care. They eventually decide to contact Sherry and Cary to initiate their encounter.

While engaging in swinging with them, Sherry begins having sex with Joe and he fantasizes about Marienne. Love, watching, realizes he is doing so (just not knowing who he is thinking of) and uses the safe word. She breaks down telling Joe she could tell he was thinking of someone else and they argue downstairs. An emotional Love blurts out that she killed Natalie for Joe and is overheard by Sherry and Cary upstairs. A fight ensues but Love and Joe are able to overpower them and put them in the cage.

The following morning, Joe appears in court for Marienne as a character witness but quickly realizes that Ryan is friends with the judge. Joe tracks Marienne down to a liquor store where she is struggling after receiving news the judge ruled against her and Ryan planned to move away with their daughter. Joe comforts her, including sharing with her that he killed someone as a child because they were hurting his mom. He says he plans to end his marriage and the two go to her house and have sex. When she tells him she is going to leave Madre Linda and follow her daughter, he is resolved to get rid of Ryan. He stalks him and attempts to inject him with drugs he found in Cary’s suitcase but Ryan catches him and attacks him instead, leading to Joe stabbing him repeatedly in the chest, narrowly missing being witnessed. He takes his bloody clothes and hides them in Henry’s diaper genie so Love doesn’t see them.

Love discovers the bloody shirt in Henry’s diaper genie and soon puts together that Joe killed Ryan and was having an affair with Marienne. That puts a target on Marienne’s back. Joe goes home to find Love has prepared them his favorite meal and she confronts him about Marienne. In turn he confronts her about her ex-husband James and tells her they don’t need to repeat the past. He says he wants a divorce and for them to co-parent Henry. (I am not sure this is the way for you to broach this subject.) When the baby wakes up crying, she leaves the room to check on him and Joe grabs a large knife from the table, hiding it. She comes back and admits that she did kill James accidentally with aconite she had intended to temporarily paralyze him with but had given him too much. As Joe loses function, she reveals that she had coated the knife with it as well and that when he grabbed it as a weapon, it had absorbed through his skin.

She texts Marienne from his phone to meet him. Marienne is shocked when she arrives to find Love inviting her in and is apprehensive but Love insists. She tells Love Joe told her they were separating which Love tells her was a lie and that Joe is the one who killed Ryan. As Love slowly advances on Marienne, her daughter Juliette comes in the door asking to use the bathroom. Love abandons her intentions to kill her and tells her to take her daughter and run. Marienne… I needed her to do better and be better. After they leave, she decides to kill Joe, but he stabs her in the leg with a needle injecting her with a lethal dose of aconite. As she slowly dies, he tells her he had known she’d been growing it in the garden and had been preparing himself. He had also taken an adrenaline pill from Cary’s stash as a precaution earlier which had counteracted the paralytic.

Joe decides to leave Henry with Dante, the blind assistant from the library who has been unsuccessfully trying to adopt with his partner. He drops him off on their doorstep and writes a letter as Love taking responsibility for Natalie and Ryan’s deaths. He then he cuts off his toes to stage his own death before burning the house down. In the final scene, we see Joe in Paris under the name Nick Jones, vowing to find Marienne.

I did not see him killing Love and handing the baby over to Dante. I think that Joe has a weird moral compass that makes him feel better than others. Smarter than others. Love was a person who deserved her end in his mind. She couldn’t be reasoned with and she was too impulsive and threatened to get them arrested. Even though… He is the same killer as her. Her asking for another baby threw me… because it really was a desperate attempt at clinging to something that wasn’t working. I wonder what Love’s mom was thinking. If she thought Love killed her ex… Why didn’t she say something sooner? It never felt like she was scared of Love.

Season 4

Joe is now Jonathan Moore. He is an English professor at university. It never occurred to me as an English major myself that he could use teaching as a cover and be so good at it. In a flashback, Joe tracks down Marienne in London, but chooses to let her go after she calls him a murderer. (He seems devastated but can’t deny that he has killed several people.) Joe is later met by Elliot Tannenberg, a fixer working for Love’s father, who sets him up with a cover identity in exchange for killing Marienne to tie up loose ends. Joe instead pickpockets Marienne’s necklace and sends its picture to Elliot to make it appear he killed her. I was so worried about Marienne but glad that he let her go. Maybe he is on the right track. Maybe he has given up and turned his back on killing.

He develops an interest in Kate Galvin, the girlfriend of his obnoxious fellow professor Malcolm Harding, who lives in the flat across from him. He starts the episode trying not to get involved in other people’s lives. Joe saves Kate from two muggers; (He doesn’t want her to mention him to the police.) to repay him, Malcolm invites him to a party at the elite Sundry House, where Joe befriends author and mayoral hopeful Rhys Montrose. He was given Rhys’ book in class by a student, and realizes that he and Rhys share a lot of things in their past life. Joe gets heavily intoxicated at the party and awakens in his flat to find Malcolm stabbed to death and missing a finger. Assuming he killed Malcolm before blacking out, Joe disposes of his body. (I remember thinking… when would he have the time to have killed this man…and then being as intoxicated as he was how could he have overpowered someone?) Also the disposing of the body is super gross… it is worse than the meat grinder from season 2. The piercing was an interesting touch… (IYKYK) The next day, Kate invites Joe to dinner. As Joe arrives, he receives a series of anonymous texts from Malcolm’s real killer, thanking him for disposing of the evidence.

Joe suspects that the killer is one of Kate and Malcolm’s friends and infiltrates their social circle in order to investigate them. Kate is so mean to Joe from the very getgo… and while I want people to be mean to him AND uncover his secret life… She really had no reason… He saves her from a mugging… Which when you find out who her father is and what he does… seems odd. More on that later. She doesn’t say thank you or anything. And then her friend has a weird fixation with Joe and keeps bringing him around… but you are mad at Joe…? And not the hobo/leech calling himself her man. Lady Phoebe, Kate’s aristocrat best friend, invites Joe to an art exhibition curated by Kate and featuring the work of Simon Soo, a billionaire’s son in their friend circle. Joe breaks into Malcolm’s office and finds a ledger of gambling debts and various codenamed contacts. Joe follows Phoebe’s boyfriend Adam Pratt, an American expat who owns Sundry House, and discovers he has a fetish for being urinated on by men, before Adam’s bodyguard Vic thwarts him. Adam is severely in debt and barely has any money to pay his workers… but he plans on marrying Lady Phoebe for her money to fix that problem.

At the exhibition, Simon’s art is vandalized by a woman that Joe and Kate later learn is the real artist behind the paintings, whom Simon got addicted to drugs to discredit her. Joe recalls a reference to the artwork in Malcolm’s ledger and believes Simon killed Malcolm to avoid being extorted; however, Simon is murdered that night, with the killer cutting off one of his ears.  Joe returns home to find his wall covered in newspaper clippings from his past, (the house blowing up with Love in it, his old marriage, his child etc etc)the killer having deduced his real identity.

The killer sends Malcolm’s finger to the press, and is dubbed the “Eat-the-Rich Killer”. Joe discovers his student Nadia was in a sexual relationship with Malcolm. At Simon’s funeral, the killer orders Joe to kill Kate. Joe follows Kate around to protect her; though initially cold to Joe, Kate eventually opens up to him and the two have sex, unaware that Vic is watching them. The next day, Joe follows Kate to a crypt where she pays respects to Malcolm; after she leaves, Vic, who was following Joe, searches him at gunpoint and finds Malcolm’s ring, which Joe realizes was planted on him. A struggle ensues, forcing Joe to kill Vic. I was wondering when the killer had the time to plant the ring on Joe. This person just keeps walking in and out of Joe’s flat. The killer suggests Joe is aroused by murder; Joe plays along and tells the killer to let him finish Kate, and the killer arranges a meeting with him.

Joe is invited to Phoebe’s family’s country manor for a weekend getaway. He observes her friends, particularly a socialite named Gemma, behaving callously to the servants. Joe shuts down Phoebe’s attempt to seduce him, and she instead confides her concern that Adam does not love her. Adam, meanwhile, tells Joe he plans to propose to Phoebe, in part because her family fortune will rescue him from mounting debts. Joe comes at odds with Roald Walker-Burton, Kate’s childhood friend who, as Joe discovers, is obsessed with her. It is giving Peach from season 1. All over again. I really thought this man was going to be the next one done in. But alas… I never know where this story is going.

At dinner, Roald chastises Kate for not accepting herself as “one of them”, while Gemma accuses Joe of being the killer. Kate later reveals to Joe that her father is a powerful investor with whom she cut ties due to the harm his business dealings have done to the world. Joe realizes he may be in love with Kate. Roald confronts Joe about being the killer, and pushes him out of a second-story window. Joe recovers and hears a scream; he runs to find Kate, only to discover her kneeling over Gemma’s corpse with a knife in hand. Now did Joe go off and fall in love with another Killer? I am not ready for that. I can’t take anymore.

Kate insists she did not kill Gemma. Joe comes to believe her and helps her dispose of the body in a barn while the others are partying. Kate confronts Joe about his past after noticing his apparent experience with covering up murders; Joe admits that he disposed of Malcolm’s body, and that whoever framed him is now trying to frame Kate. Kate goes to tell Phoebe to dismiss the servant staff; while she is away, Roald discovers Joe in the barn and brings him to the others, accusing him of being the killer. Who is the real killer? Is Joe going to be killed? Would it be bad if Joe died in this fashion as he has killed many people? Roald seems like the same obsessive narcissist that Joe and Peach are/were….

Despite Joe’s protests, Roald gives him a headstart to flee before pursuing him with a shotgun. Joe subdues Roald in the woods, only to be captured and placed in a dungeon by the real killer: Rhys, who, having come from poverty, committed the murders out of hatred towards the rich. Rhys tells Joe to kill Roald so they can frame him for the murders. When Joe refuses, Rhys sets the dungeon on fire and leaves; Joe escapes and frees Roald, and the two are rescued by Kate. Joe does not tell the others about Rhys, and vows to bring him down himself. Rhys announces his candidacy for Mayor of London.

Rhys forces Joe to find someone to frame for the murders, and places Simon’s severed ear in his freezer. Joe initially plans to frame Connie, a member of the Oxford group who confides his struggles with addiction, but later relents when Connie decides to get clean. At Kate’s latest gallery fundraiser, Phoebe is held captive in a hotel room by Dawn, a woman posing as a waitress, who has a parasocial obsession with her. Joe negotiates his way into the room and plants Simon’s ear in Dawn’s bag before the police arrive, thus getting Dawn arrested for the “Eat the Rich” murders. Everyone but Nadia seems to accept this answer. Thank Goodness for that in one area, and damn it in another. Nadia, who witnesses the arrest, becomes suspicious of Joe. Adam proposes to Phoebe, but Phoebe, who learned of his financial problems from Dawn, rejects him. I was so glad to see that. Phoebe seems to be the only one who has sense. Joe and Kate admit their feelings for one another after Kate promises not to inquire into Joe’s past. Rhys gives Joe a final task: kill his rival political donor Tom Lockwood, Kate’s father. Now how the hell is Tom Lockwood his political rival???

Joe accompanies Kate to dinner with her father, who is visiting London; Lockwood reveals he knows Joe’s real identity. Lockwood soon gets an article published revealing that Rhys fabricated much of his memoir. Rhys reveals he has kidnapped Marienne, and forces Joe to kill Lockwood to save her. That can’t be right? Marienne is back with her kid… That was what I was told…. RHYS CAN’T HAVE KIDNAPPED HER!!! He has to be bluffing. Joe prepares to kill Lockwood, but Lockwood instead enlists him to kill Rhys, giving him the location of a countryside cottage where Rhys has gone into hiding since the publication of the exposé. Joe finds Rhys, who claims he doesn’t know who Joe is. Joe tortures Rhys for Marienne’s location; Rhys pleads his innocence, but Joe ends up killing him, only to then discover that the “Rhys” he has been interacting with has been a figment of his imagination. Nadia, meanwhile, finds a key in Joe’s apartment that leads to a room where Marienne has been trapped in a glass cage.

Joe is revealed to have drugged and kidnapped Marienne before she could leave London, and locked her in a glass cage in the basement of an abandoned building across from Rhys’ favorite restaurant. Joe had been exhaustively researching Rhys’ life, finding commonalities between Rhys’ story of rising out of a life of crime and poverty and his own desire for moral redemption. (Is there a commonality?? I don’t think so… and it is so hard hitting that his new obsession was with a man.) Upon imprisoning Marienne, Joe suffered a psychotic break that caused him to dissociate, resulting in gaps in his memory where he kidnapped Marienne and later committed the murders. All I have to say is… I figured he would have had a breakdown sooner than this.

Having forgotten he kidnapped Marienne, Joe left her to starve in the cage. When I tell you all I had to run and get my clown make up because I really believed that we were chasing and trying to stop another killer… All this time IT WAS JOE… Roald and Gemma were right. SMH. Not only that… but this man (Joe) forgot all about this woman… . Joe was running around town obsessed with a man… and killing off the people around him pretending to be him. I just canNOT. The “Rhys” in Joe’s visions proclaims himself to be a figment of his darker impulses, and helps him remember where he kept the key to Marienne’s location. Joe arrives at the building at the same time Nadia explains to Marienne her plan to help her escape.

Nadia manages to hide while a horrified Joe finds Marienne and promises to set her free. (Where have we heard this before?)Nadia later procures ketamine from her boyfriend Edward to use on Joe. This seems like a labored plan.

Joe and Kate attend Adam and Phoebe’s wedding party and attempt to convince Phoebe, whose mental state has declined, not to marry Adam. Phoebe is later committed to psychiatric care after suffering a breakdown at the party. Adam is killed by hitmen posing as prostitutes, who, as Kate learns, were sent by her father; she refuses his request to take over his business. Her father points out that she told him about the problem hoping that he would take care of it and really I am inclined to agree. I would not have opened up to him knowing what he was capable of but to do so and be surprised that he had Adam killed is interesting.

Joe takes Phoebe’s diazepam to expunge his visions of Rhys, but experiences a nightmare in which he sees Gemma, Beck and Love, which convinces him the only way to end his obsessive cycle is to kill himself. He awakens to go free Marienne, only to find she overdosed on medication he left for her earlier. Or so we think. This is a great plan and well thought out. Believing Marienne to have died, Joe disposes of her body at a park to make her look like she overdosed. Nadia, however, tells Edward that she and Marienne plotted to fake the latter’s death by replacing her medication with beta blockers that lowered her blood pressure, so that she could escape. 

Kate tells Joe that her father revealed himself to have bankrolled her every venture even after their estrangement, and confides her fear of never escaping his control. Joe only sees one way out of this for both him and Kate. “Rhys” tried to get him get to kill Kate’s father because he was a threat to Joe’s existence. Joe kills Lockwood, and the next morning, attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge. However, the police rescue him; he awakens in the hospital to find Kate, who tells him she has inherited all her father’s assets, and has already covered up Joe’s involvement in Rhys’ death. 

Joe decides to accept his darker half; he kills Edward and frames Nadia for the crime. Now Nadia only had to help Marienne escape and heed her warning about Joe. But for some reason, it seemed that Nadia was on some crusade… and I get it… She found out her teacher was a serial killer… but she was warned that he is stealthy and has had years of practice. She was warned that no one was going to believe her…. She kept breaking in and out of his apartment… like he wasn’t going to notice.He never lets up from the chase. She got the guy (Edward killed for no reason…) and set up for his murder. SMH. I felt really bad watching her go down. It was crazy.

Sophie and Princess Blessing buy Sundry House, which Roald and Connie continue to frequent with no signs of change… and as much as Roald was right about Joe… it is revealed that he shot someone and his family covered it up; after rehab, Lady Phoebe moves to Thailand to teach children and thank God she got away from from those leeches. While Marienne reads an article about Joe while safely home with Juliette back in Paris, Joe moves back to New York with Kate, who runs her father’s business after his death and helps Joe rehabilitate his public image as Love’s escaped victim.

I am blown away but I not shocked. I can’t wait for it all to come falling down for Joe in grand fashion.