Justice has finally caught up to Joe Goldberg, as revealed in the You season finale (and series finale) of the show. After five seasons of murder, plotting, new beginnings, and many cage abductions, now Joe is in one of his own. As Joe spends the rest of his days in a jail cell, ever the intellectual, he busies himself by reading. In the finale of the show, he’s seen reading the book The Executioner’s Song. Of course, nothing is ever accidental in You, so here’s why this book is so relevant to the finale.Â
The Executioner’s Song is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Norman Mailer. The book follows Gary Gilmore, a violent product of America’s prisons. Gary became notorious for robbing two men, killing them in cold blood, and insisting on dying for his crime after being tried and convicted. To do so, he fought a system that was intent on keeping him alive long after it had sentenced him to death.Â
This novel perfectly encapsulates the finale of the show — especially the moment when Bronte is holding a gun up to Joe and he begs for her to shoot him. She declines, telling Joe, “You are gonna live the rest of your life alone. I know it’s scary for you, isn’t it? A trial and a jury and the crime scene photos. The faces and the bodies of the sons and daughters that you murdered. They’re all gonna see you, Joe, and you are going to have to see yourself.” Similar to The Executioner’s Song, Joe begged to be put out of his misery and was instead given a lifetime to suffer for all that he’s done.
Just like Gary, Joe’s life becomes a reflection of his guilt. Joe can no longer control the narrative like he had throughout the years, hiding who he is by moving to new locations and changing his name. Now, he’s confined, left alone with his thoughts as his only form of company. Joe’s story, like Gary’s, doesn’t end in a brutal murder, but in a haunting silence, echoing the weight of every action that brought him there. The end of the show leaves the viewers with an unsettling question: Is eternal self-awareness, without escape, a worse punishment than death? Needless to say, for a guy who always believed himself to be the hero of the story, the greatest punishment may be realizing he was always the villain.