You Season 5 Ending, Explained: Does Joe Get Caught — or Does He Get Away with Murder Again?

Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg in episode 501 of You. Photo:

Joe Goldberg has finally gotten his comeuppance.

After seven years, 21 murders and five unfortunate objects of Goldberg’s (Penn Badgley) affection, You came to a harrowing conclusion on April 24.

The show’s fifth season kicked off with Joe back in New York City, where the show began. Only this time, he has his London wife Kate Lockwood (Charlotte Ritchie) by his side and a new persona as America’s Prince Charming.

True to Joe’s typical M.O., however, it isn’t long before his fairytale starts to fall apart and he begins to seek solace in a new face — that of scrappy young literary enthusiast Bronte (Madeline Brewer), who’s been sneaking into his bookshop at night.

With a new “you” to obsess over, history seems poised to repeat itself as Joe commits infidelity and tests Bronte’s loyalties against his darker nature.

“We need to bring this man to his rightful end. And I think we did so,” Badgley told Extra in April 2025 of knowing it was time to end Joe’s story. “The way that we try to catch him and deconstruct him finally this season is … very nuanced and really, really well-played by the writers.”

He added, “I think we ended it very well.”

Here’s everything to know about what happens to Joe at the end of You, plus the fates of Bronte, Kate, Henry and more.

Warning: You season 5 spoilers ahead!

You ends in a murderous standoff between Joe and Bronte, who has finally come to terms with the fact that her new love killed her favorite T.A., Beck, and will also kill her if necessary.

After luring Joe into bed and holding him at gunpoint, Bronte forces him to redact all of the changes he made to Beck’s book with a Sharpie. It’s a symbolic move that’s meant to give her friend back her voice.

Joe has a moment of humanity when Henry calls, revealing that he knows the truth about his dad (“You’re the monster,” he tells him), and wonders if he deserves his fate, but ultimately, he becomes enraged by Bronte’s betrayal and tackles her.

A struggle between Joe and Bronte ensues, and Bronte’s gun goes off, but it’s her who has been shot.

Joe chases her down to the water, where he attempts to strangle and drown her.

Bronte, who survives Joe’s attempted drowning, corners Joe in the woods as the police begin to close in on him.

Though he begs her to kill him, ending their story and preventing his capture, she refuses, holding him steady at gunpoint.

Joe charges her, at which point she fires her gun. We see Joe fall to the ground momentarily as police swarm the pair. Both Bronte and Joe are dragged away in handcuffs, with Bronte’s bullet seemingly having missed its aim.

In the end, only Joe is left to face the law, with Bronte finally bringing him to justice.

You ends with Joe locked in a cage, trapped alone in the prison cell where he is to spend the rest of his days.

Having been found guilty of the murders of Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), there’s no hope of freedom. “The trial was messy, the evidence horrific and the truth undeniable,” Bronte says in a voiceover, noting that other convictions soon followed.

It is also revealed that the shot Bronte fired did hit Joe, albeit in a particularly sensitive area: “I accidentally turned him into a walking d— joke,” she explains.

The final scene of You shows Joe lamenting his loneliness as he finishes a copy of Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song.

He then receives a letter from a “fan” named Belinda who expresses her desire to become Joe’s next victim.

“Maybe we have a problem as a society,” Joe muses. “Maybe we should fix what’s broken in us. Maybe the problem isn’t me. Maybe … it’s you.”

The ending touches on fans’ real-life lustful response to the show’s antagonist, upon which Badgley had previously commented, writing “No thx” on one woman’s request for him to kidnap her via X and “He is a murderer,” on one user’s question of “What is it about him?”

Joe fails to show remorse for his many victims, even in the show’s finale.

When confronted by the women of his past, Joe says that it’s “sad” what happened to Nadia Farran (Amy-Leigh Hickman), but maintains that it was “a different man” who framed her for murder, as he has since moved on.

Rather than expressing sorrow for his attempted murder of Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle), Joe credits himself with helping her to become a better person. “I made sure you got custody of your daughter, even after your arrests,” he says, reminding her of her previous mistakes. “Because of me, you put all of that in the past. I made you better because I loved you.”

Joe briefly wonders if death by fire is what he deserves before he is saved from the flames by Bronte, and he also comes close to expressing remorse after an ill-fated phone call with Henry, shedding a tear and conceding that maybe his son deserves better.

When Bronte reminds him that he’s not the victim, however, his moment of self-reflection passes and his killer side emerges.

Even after he has been convicted and left alone to reflect on his crimes, Joe finds a way to pass the blame, pointing the finger at his environment and the society around him for his dark actions.

“It’s unfair. Putting all of this on me,” he says in a voiceover as he reads in his jail cell. “Aren’t we all just products of our environment? Hurt people hurt people. I never stood a chance.”

After sending Joe to prison, Bronte has Beck’s book republished without Joe’s additions.

She relishes in its success, vowing to live her life for Joe’s victims who didn’t get the chance to do so.

“Joe was wrong about me,” she says. “My life doesn’t boil down to before and after him. Every day that passes, he shrinks.”

While Bronte admits that she still has “no idea” who she wants to be, she says she can’t wait to find out.

Henry is finally given a stable home with Kate, who turns out to have survived both Joe’s shot to her abdomen and the blazing fire that burned Mooney’s to the ground.

She cedes her title as CEO to her brother Teddy, who transforms the company into a nonprofit, and leaves the corporate world behind, returning to her first love of art.

Henry, meanwhile, is left to decide the kind of man he wants to be without Joe’s interference.

The final scenes of You end with an update on the lives of all of the major season 5 players, including Marienne, who has become an artist, and Nadia, who has returned to writing and become a teacher to women in a penitentiary.

Kate’s sister Maddie (Anna Camp), meanwhile, has been tried for both arson and the murder of her twin sister Reagan (also Camp). She is not given prison time, however, as Joe forced her to kill in exchange for her freedom. After a stint in rehab for a pill addiction, Maddie gets her happy ending with Harrison, who is released from jail after 48 hours, and his daughter Gretchen, as well as the twin babies they are expecting.

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You Season 5 Ending, Explained: Does Joe Get Caught — or Does He Get Away with Murder Again?

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