Why You is the Good Thriller Sequence for Netflix

Netflix would not damage for thriller collection to look at, however with the streaming platform’s monumental catalog, it may be exhausting to decide on the best one, making You an important decide. Initially airing on Lifetime, the channel canceled the Penn Badgely-starring thriller collection after its first season, just for the streaming website to choose it up, and consequently, you possibly can only watch You on Netflix.

You ended with season 5 earlier this yr, that means the collection is one among few thrillers that obtained to inform a whole, satisfying story. Although Netflix could have saved You, they’ve a behavior of prematurely canceling exhibits, which is very unlucky for thriller collection, as so many seasons finish on cliffhangers. However You is an ideal present from begin to end.

You Was A Good Thriller For All 5 Seasons

On the coronary heart of each entertaining thriller present is a good concept that instantly grabs audiences’ consideration. However that is not at all times sufficient to maintain folks , and long-running thriller collection can typically flame out, having to rely upon outlandish twists or rewriting canon in an try to remain recent.

However You lasted for five incredible seasons, sustaining constantly very good high quality. The important thing to this was its suave mix of maintaining a formulation that labored whereas additionally freshening it up every season so none ever felt the identical.

Each season of You sees the loathsome Joe Goldberg turn into romantically obsessive about a lady, stalk her, and kill anybody who will get in the best way of his deranged model of fortunately ever after. Ultimately, one thing on this romance shatters for him, and he units his murderous sights on the previous object of his affection.

In fact, because the our bodies of Joe’s You victims pile up, it turns into essential for him to relocate, and no season sees him in the identical place because the final. Every setting, whether or not New York, Los Angeles, the fictional California suburb of Madre Linda, or London, seems like a personality of its personal.

Whereas Joe’s first paramour-turned-prey, Guinevere Beck, was a straight-up sufferer, the You protagonist’s romantic entanglements obtained increasingly more difficult. Love Quinn was simply as unhinged as Joe, Marienne Bellamy noticed him for what he actually was and fled, Kate Lockwood liked him despite his (abridged) previous, and Louise “Brontë” Flannery suspected him from minute one.

You is sort of the twisty present, however all the twists really feel pure to the story and earned, versus low cost shock worth. As Joe will get in deeper and deeper into yet one more mess of his personal making, you may get deeper and deeper into the present — which does not have a single dangerous episode.

How You Succeeds The place Different Thriller Exhibits Fail

You is an ideal thriller present as a result of it retains you invested in its central query, which is, “Will Joe Goldberg maintain getting away together with his crimes?” Since we’re in Joe’s head for the overwhelming majority of the collection, we really feel nearly complicit in his villainous acts, watching in sickened awe as he will get away with literal homicide time and again.

However that is not the extent of You‘s brilliance. Although we could also be fascinated by him, we’re constantly rooting for Joe Goldberg’s comeuppance, not simply questioning if he’ll get caught, however tuning in episode after episode within the hopes that it will lastly occur.

Different collection within the style merely ask, “Who killed X?” A homicide is definitely compelling, nevertheless it’s not at all times sufficient to maintain many episodes, and consequently, many thriller miniseries are higher than long-running exhibits. However not You. You places us in a poisonous relationship with its evil protagonist, and its complexity makes it one among tv’s greatest thrillers, arms down.