You Season 5 on Netflix: Does Joe Die or Go to Prison in Series Finale?

Except… she’s alive! “It’s over Joe,” she says in the woods, gun pointed at his head. He begs her to kill him, she refuses, and she finally reclaims her name, Louise. He lunges for the gun, she shoots him on instinct with a bullet straight to his d*ck, and everyone lives to see another day.

What happens to Joe Goldberg at the end of You? Does Joe die or go to prison?

“If I can wake up, so can the world,” Louise manifests in the final episode about Joe’s toxicity, and society’s implicit approval of men like him. She somewhat gets her wish: Joe is made to see all of himself in a trial and viral social media meme mocking his “blown off d*ck.”

He is convicted for the murders of Love Quinn and Guinevere Beck, as well as Benji and Peach, among others, and given life without parole. Dr. Nicky has his conviction overturned. But as the band of internet sleuths warn on a podcast about Joe’s demise, “There are other Joes out there.”

Meanwhile, the show ends with Joe’s perspective, as he sits in a cell reading The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer. (A relevant quote from the novel: “Maybe it’s not what we learn that’s crucial, but the questions we’re left with. Will we always be a manic-depressive nation of the greatest and most vile achievements? Will we always be a nation of both astronauts and mass-murderers?”)

His final monologue: “So in the end, my punishment is even worse than I imagined. The loneliness, oh my god. The loneliness. No hope of being held. Knowing this is forever. It’s unfair, putting all this on me. Aren’t we all just products of our environment? Hurt people hurt people? I never stood a chance … Why am in a cage when these crazies write me all the depraved things they want me to do to them? Maybe we have a problem as a society. Maybe we should fix whats broken in us. Maybe the problem isn’t me. Maybe it’s you.”

Badgley told Netflix he feels satisfied with how Joe’s story ends. “I’ve always thought somebody killing him wouldn’t quite be justice, it would be vengeance,” he said. “Anybody killing him would be brought down to his level, which is not justice for them … I think we get as close as we can. It’s not perfect, but put him in jail and take away his genitalia. It’s really important that we dethrone him as a romantic or sexual icon, and they did that.”

What happens to everyone else?

Nadia writes a book called Salvage the Bones, seemingly about her life and experiences, helping other people cope with trauma.

Harrison is freed from prison after he’d been wrongfully arrested for Reagan’s murder, while Maddie is tried for murder and arson but doesn’t go to jail. They’re seen in the park with their daughter Gretchen, a happy family. They give Reagan a viking funeral in the Long Island Sound, and Maddie is now pregnant and expecting twins.

Louise is seemingly able to move on with her life at some point, after she finishes redacting Beck’s book and gets it republished as a new edition.

“[Beck] still won’t get the chance to make what she wanted of her life,” Brontë ends her monologue. “Joe stole that from them. In their honor, we make the most of ours. Joe was wrong about me. My life doesn’t boil down to before and after him. Every day that passes, he shrinks. Eventually he’ll just be some asshole I dated.”

Does Kate die at the end of You?

“Kate Lockwood was reborn,” Brontë reveals. A somehow completely alive Kate reunites with Henry (“He’ll just have to decide what kind of man he wants to be,” Brontë notes) and repairs her relationship with Teddy, who has turned Lockwood Corp into a nonprofit. She returns to her love for art, acquiring pieces and supporting artists, including…