There was only ever one way that Netflix's You could have ended.

Netflix's You is back for its final chapter, and the stakes (and body count) have never been higher.

You follows Penn Badgely's Joe Goldberg, a charming but psychopathic bookstore manager whose obsession with finding love often ends in him, well… murdering his chosen one.

Using social media and manipulation, Joe stalks and eliminates anyone he perceives as an obstacle to his relationships, starting with aspiring writer Beck in New York.

Each season saw Joe reinvent himself — moving to Los Angeles, then the suburbs, across to London, and finally back to New York — while leaving a trail of murdered people in his path.

This season, Badgely and Charlotte Ritchie as Joe's wealthy wife Kate return, along with plenty of new and old friends (or sworn enemies).

Watch the Season 5 trailer. Post continues after video.

The series has dodged significant controversies over its last four seasons, especially with claims that the show romanticises domestic violence and turns a serial killer into a sympathetic figure worth rooting for.

In the early seasons, there was a rather baffling response from some corners of Twitter and TikTok with fan edits and thirsty reactions to the character of Joe. The show is well aware of this in the final season — in fact, it's created an entire story arc in tribute to how women often fall for a 'nice guy' act despite the red flags.

After an extremely shaky (and to be honest, just bad) fourth season of You, I can confidently say that the final season is a return to fine form. It's camp, it's fun, it's full of cutting social commentary… and oddly poignant.

The new season introduces Bronte (aka Louise) as Joe's next obsession and The Handmaid's Tale actress Madeline Brewer is beyond brilliant in this role.

In many ways, Bronte represents the viewer. From the outset, she is aware of what Joe has done to the women in his life, the violence he has exhibited and the lives he has ruined, but also… he's so cute and charming and intelligent! How could this guy be that bad?

This internal struggle within Bronte is at the heart of season five; mirroring how the viewer has fluctuated between disgust and desire in how they view Joe throughout the show's tenure.

As his marriage to Kate loses its spark, Joe turns his attention to Bronte, the free-spirited playwright who moves to New York City to pursue her writing ambitions, an obvious callback to season one's Beck.

Kate and Joe's marriage is in strife in the final season. Image: Netflix.

In many ways, this season is a bookend to season one, with several cameos from Elizabeth Lail as Beck in memory montages.

The season quite masterfully sets out to remind the viewer how Joe was made: he stalked and manipulated Beck, isolated her from her loved ones, before brutally killing her.

As the series continued, this is a pattern that Joe replicated, but with increasing delusions that he was the upholder of what was morally right. But this season brings him back down to earth.

In a slow crescendo to the final episodes (a build that You does so well), Joe becomes TikTok infamous when he is filmed by some true crime sleuths killing Bronte's supposed ex-boyfriend and the video is uploaded for the masses to dissect.

From here, he goes on an apology tour, which is a hilarious-albeit-depressing parody of the current state of the media, effectively capturing the fickle nature of the internet.

Joe shares a carefully crafted apology with an internet personality who is "barely a journalist, more of a 'journ-influencer", notes Pitch Perfect's Anna Camp's character, starring as Kate's sister Maddie.

As he offers platitudes about falling in love with Bronte, the masses easily fall for his faux-apology. After all, as Maddie states, Joe is a "white guy with good hair." He is anointed "Joe Smoldenberg" online for his good looks, as a smiling Joe with the words "I did it for love!" covers the daily newspaper.

Anna Camp plays twins, Maddie and Raegan. Image: Netflix.

This show is not subtle and it isn't meant to be. Overnight, Joe becomes a hero for men's rights activists, one of whom Joe imprisons in his glass cage after he tries to abduct Bronte.

This man offers the perfect contrast to Joe as the archetype of a stereotypical misogynist: he calls Bronte a 'bitch' and 'whore' and he rants about his mummy issues. He viciously spits out that he doesn't hate women, he "just wishes they talked less."

But just because Joe doesn't wear his misogyny like a badge of honour, it doesn't mean his intentions are any less sinister — if anything, he's worse.

This is what episode nine grapples with, an episode that felt like the finale that most of us expected — as Joe had to confront the women he had victimised while being held in the same glass prison he kept them captive inside.

In this episode, Joe had to confront Kate, Nadia and a very-much-alive Marienne from the confines of his box, as he attempted to bargain with the women over his 'good intentions' and saviour complex. Their reaction? Blind rage and a group decision to murder him.

"You are too f**king delusional to own anything you've done," Nadia tells Joe.

"You are not a white knight, Joe. You are a f**king abuser," Marienne finishes him.

This would have been a satisfying enough conclusion for most fans, but You had a delicious twist in store for episode 10. And I must admit, even this was something I didn't see coming.

The final instalment is set up in the final minutes of the penultimate episode when there's a sudden shift: as Bronte saves Joe from his burning bookstore, the viewer is taken inside her inner thoughts, as Bronte takes the reins from Joe as narrator.

After speaking with Marienne, she finally realised that Joe isn't her saviour: he's the person she needs to save herself from.

Bronte is Beck 2.0. Image: Netflix.

The final instalment opens with Joe and Bronte on the run 'Bonnie & Clyde' style. But the castle this 'white knight' promised to give his princess (yep, he actually tried to buy her an Irish castle) turned out to be a creepy cabin in the woods.

The final episode reveals You for what it really is: this is a horror movie. But like the best subversive horror films, Bronte is no one's victim.

What follows is a thrilling episode that references every horror trope imaginable with clever nods to the classic horror The Shining and to modern masterpiece Fresh.

This is Joe like you've never seen him before, or is this Joe how you didn't want to see him? Joe's inner psychopath breaks out into his physical form… and he's terrifying.

After Joe thinks they're sharing a romantic moment on a starlit night, Bronte pulls a gun on him before revealing the truth: she was Beck's friend and she demands to know how Joe killed her.

At the same time, Joe received a phone call from his son Henry. "What did you do to Mummy?" the child asks, referring to the woman Joe had bashed over the head mere hours earlier before leaving her to die in a blaze.

From here, Joe has an emotional breakdown and Penn Badgley needs to be commended for one hell of a powerhouse performance. Joe has been activated and Bronte runs through the house and wilderness, as a shirtless Joe hunts her as his prey.

He spits abusive rhetoric at Bronte, ranting "you're ungrateful, you're spiteful, you didn't know how good you had it," and reveals to her that when he saved her from being abducted, it was Joe who broke her ankle so she would need his help.

And with that, Joe just showed his hand: he is the cure but he's also the disease.

'Is it me? Am I the drama?' Image: Netflix.

This is a sentiment Bronte repeats to him in their finale scene. "I see it clearly now. The fantasy of a man like you is how we cope with the reality of a man like you," she says.

Joe's story ends with him begging Bronte to kill him, as police surround the ill-fated twosome in the dark woods. Oh no, buddy. That would be a far more poetic ending than you deserve, Bronte decides.

"You are gonna live the rest of your life alone," she tells him. "They are all going to see you, Joe, and you are going to have to see yourself."

Then she shoots him in the dick and he goes to jail for life. An epilogue shows that all the women impacted by Joe had moved on to much happier lives — especially Bronte.

"Every day that passes, he shrinks. Eventually, he'll just be some asshole I dated," she muses.

From jail, the perpetual victim Joe is still monologuing that 'hurt people, hurt people' and he shouldn't wear all the blame. These sort of men don't change.

In the final seconds, we are reminded that the world is a sick place (duh!) as Joe palms through fan mail from lustful women from his prison cell.

"Maybe the problem isn't me, it's you," he grins as the screen fades to black.

And that's how you end a show, folks. That was a lot of fun. Between the layered performances and the thought-provoking themes explored, the final season of You more than delivered.

And a big shoutout to the soundtrack too, with some pitch-perfect anthems from the likes of Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan — You knows its audience, it's a TV show that was first and foremost for the girlies.

I got chills when Olivia Rodrigo's 'Vampire' was blaring the moment Bronte realised that Joe is, in fact, the problem all along. I had heart palpitations when Billie Eilish's revenge anthem 'Happier Than Ever' played just as Bronte was about to enact her plan. Tens across the board.

To be clear, the series wasn't completely perfect (but very close) as a lot of the endings felt a little too neat. For instance, Kate surviving and getting custody of Henry when, in fact, he had been raised by Dante and Lansing, who they legally adopted in season 3, was a little absurd. As was her evil corporation somehow being magically absolved of its sins by rebranding as a non-profit.

But that's just You, baby. Let's not forget the show was initially a Lifetime series before Netflix scooped it up.

Then there was one storyline that was never tied up: what happened to Ellie? It was rumoured that Jenna Ortega might reprise her role, which could have come in the form of a TikTok callout about Joe like Love's mother Dottie provided, but alas, she was a no-show.

The last we saw of Ellie, she was fleeing LA after her sister Delilah was imprisoned by Joe and murdered by Love. Oddly enough, Delilah is not mentioned at all, a rather tone-deaf choice to completely erase one of the few women of colour from Joe's past while focusing largely on the first white woman he killed years ago.

But these are just a few criticisms of a stellar final season of You, and a delightfully surprising end to a twisted stalker thriller that doesn't get the credit it deserves.

Feature image: Netflix.