Contains spoilers for YOU season five.
In YOU, Joe (Penn Badgley) is an outwardly charming book-lover who also happens to be a deadly sociopath and misogynistic serial killer. After four seasons of wooing — then murdering — his girlfriends (and others), Joe has supposedly found his ‘happily ever after’ with Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) in season five.
The former art dealer inherited her late father’s business empire, throwing Kate into the spotlight as one of the wealthiest and influential women in New York. Joe, by association, also becomes a minor celebrity. Dubbed ‘Prince Charming’ by the press, Joe’s ego is bolstered by his new status as the internet’s boyfriend, as he believes he is finally being seen for who he truly is: a loving, protective husband. This is a man who isn’t emasculated by his wife’s success as a CEO, instead he’s there to hold her handbag.
Yet, this is Joe Goldberg: deluded abuser and self-proclaimed ‘white knight’ ready to save his beloved from every threat — by killing them off — and eventually save them from themselves, too, by, you guessed it, killing them off. When Kate’s reputation is on the line, Joe is determined to rescue his wife’s image by abducting his power-hungry sister-in-law, Reagan (Anna Camp)... but instead he mistakenly captures her twin, Maddie (also Camp).
She might be the less astute of the two, who even flirts with Joe and affectionately calls him her “boo, boo”, but as he tries to intimidate her, Maddie sees through his façade. Struck by his duality, she says: “You’re a sort of softboy misogynist, right? A control-hungry goblin under a nice guy smile, the prince of polite projecting so dang supportive while covered in your wife’s power.”
Maddie recognises that people are often caught off guard by Joe’s violent nature as he parades as — and at first glance seems to be — a ‘softboy’ or a sweet, kind man who is nothing but loving, polite, and respectful towards women. This ‘nice guy’ persona acts as an effective mask for Joe’s true identity as a jealous, vengeful misogynist, so that no woman ever suspects him of violence. He’s chivalrous, he reads to his son, he has friends and is married, he writes lyrical erotic passages — how could he also be violent towards women?
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Season five of YOU is a reminder that just because someone has a ‘nice guy’ persona, that doesn’t eliminate the possibility of violence towards women. In fact, it can make abuse more insidious, as the persona can be weaponised as a cover for ‘nice guy’ actions that actually degrade, belittle, or hurt women.
When Joe’s new hyperfixation, fellow literary nerd Bronte (Madeline Brewer), experiences grotesque online misogyny, in which male users encourage each other to ‘hunt’ her down, even Joe is disgusted by the manosphere and demonstrations of toxic masculinity. He doesn’t recognise himself in these women-hating ‘monsters’, as in his mind, he is the ‘hero’ in this story; there to protect the woman he loves — that is, until they don’t love him back anymore.
Not every story ends in physical violence, nor is verbal, physical, or sexual abuse limited to heterosexual relationships. These so-called ‘nice guys’ can also spend years gaslighting you, belittling you, censoring your body, actions, or speech under the guise of looking after you. Think of those alleged Jonah Hill texts, shared by his ex-girlfriend Sarah Bray, who said he set “boundaries” for their “romantic partnership”, such as not surfing with men or being friends with “women who are in unstable places”.
In some cases, there can be an expectation that being ‘nice’ comes at a cost, with certain men thinking that they’re entitled to womens’ attention, bodies, time, and focus, just for being a decent human being. Those who feel this way might make women feel guilty for not giving them what they think they ‘deserve’, or may even coerce them into particular actions or commitments.
Lily*, 27, spent seven years with a man who was “the kind of guy people like instantly”, but behind closed doors, he sexually assaulted her. They met the summer after her GCSEs and she initially felt like the “luckiest girl in the world”, but it later became clear that he was “two completely different people”.
During one weekend away, everything changed. “He tried to have sex with me, but I wasn’t in the mood,” recalls Lily. “I explained why and he sighed, before he told me, ‘it’ll be okay’, and then he tried to have sex with me again. I said no and began to cry, which aggravated him. That day, I learnt that it was easier to have sex whenever he wanted than deal with what would happen if I said no.”
She “came not only to expect [this pattern of behaviour] but dread it” in the years that followed, as he gaslit and coerced her into sexual activities that she didn’t want to consent to. Meanwhile, she tried to excuse his behaviour, as “he was so nice to everyone else”. “It took finding out that he was cheating on me for at least two years for my rational brain to kick in,” Lily tells Cosmopolitan UK. “He sobbed after I confronted him, still spouting lie after lie. I realised then that I loved him, but I didn’t like him and I hadn’t done so for a long time.”
Marian O’Connor, a relationship psychologist at Tavistock Relationships, explains that these men often live in a very “black and white” world. “In a way, it’s quite infantile: they’re either very good or very horrid,” she says. “Their charm is often extreme. They can often put women on a pedestal, then the rage comes in, as this goddess is not who they thought she was.”
“Instead of thinking, this is a process of getting to know you, they’re as furious as a toddler when you don’t live up to their idealisation, as they haven’t learned ordinary ways to deal with their frustration or disappointment like the rest of us.”
The initial signs can be subtle, too. O’Connor says to be wary of love bombing, situations where everything feels too good to be true (as it isn’t real), or when someone doesn’t express normal boundaries or tries to isolate you from your family or friends. Do they have a life outside of you? Do they find it interesting that you have your own friends and interests, or does that threaten them?
A red flag in my personal experience is also if they tell you, ‘I’m a nice guy’. The real good eggs don’t have to make it explicit. Sure, he might cook you dinner, buy you an unexpected gift to brighten your day, but if it ends, as one of my relationships did, with him shouting at you, calling you a bitch, and gaslighting your every emotion, how nice is he really?
Frighteningly, after speaking with O’Connor, it dawned on me that I’d experienced this coercive behaviour in lots of different ways before. Not only with this ex, but in other relationships, too. One man would snap at me repeatedly, throw things at walls in bursts of anger, then cry and tell me I was ‘the only good thing to ever happen to him’ so I would soothe him. Another guy said on our second date: “If you’re with me, you’re mine.” Shortly after, he started dropping ‘I love yous’ at the end of phone calls as a ‘mistake’, calling several times a day, and asking to see me just as much.
In some ways, it doesn’t help that we’re in an age where we love to label our romantic partners. They’re a ‘golden retriever boyfriend’, a ‘softboy’, a ‘black cat girlfriend’ — but YOU is a reminder that these labels can often be reductive and may even serve to hide the more sinister side of someone’s personality, which is reserved only for their private, intimate relationships.
O’Connor believes the most horrifying part of this duality is that these kinds of men are in denial that they are anything other than a ‘nice guy’, as seen with Joe’s own ideology in the series. “I don’t think they deliberately put on a mask; I think they can’t help it,” she suggests. “They think they’re right. I rarely see these people in couples therapy, as they don’t think they have a problem.”
With the dating landscape purportedly filled with toxic men and fake ‘nice guys’, it can feel daunting as a woman even trying to pursue a relationship with a man. O’Connor recommends focusing on bolstering your own self-worth so that when a doe-eyed boy like Joe comes along and makes you feel as though ‘you’re someone special’, you don’t need to hear it, as you knew it all along.
Jess is a freelance writer and editor with a passion for over-analysing everyone’s favourite movies and TV shows. As an English graduate from the University of York with an MA in Creative Writing, Jess worked as a magazine editor before turning freelance. Since then, Jess has written for outlets such as GQ, The Guardian, Inverse, Huff Post, Stylist, and Insider. She specialises in the representation of mental health, grief, and women in film. She’s also a major Marvel nerd and is writing a YA fantasy novel. LinkedIn
