User:Marisalobo96/sandbox

Link to You article: You (TV series)

Synopsis
Season 1:

You is a satire of the popular romantic comedies who show a man willing to do whatever it takes to get the girl of his dreams, even if that means taking invasive and extreme measures to get there.

The first season follows bookstore manager Joe Goldberg (who is also the narrator) as he tries to woo MFA student Guinevere Beck (Beck) by manipulating everything and everyone around her. They first meet at the Mooney's, the book store where Joe works. Right after their encounter, Joe starts to obsessively find all the information on Beck that he can on her social media. If he is going to pursue Beck and fall in love with her, he wants to make sure that she is worth it and won't break his heart, which he continuously eludes to the fact that that is what happened with his previous girlfriend, Candace.

Meanwhile, Joe is good friends with his kid next-door neighbor, Paco, who has an abusive home life and is always trying to escape by reading tons of books. Joe has a soft spot for Paco because he sees a lot of his childhood in Paco's. As Paco's situation at home with Ron, his stepfather, gets worse and worse, Joe finds himself getting more and more involved. Ron cannot stand Joe and has a bad feeling about him, sensing that he's a little off and doesn't want him near Paco.

After a day of following Beck around in the shadows, he follows her to the Subway where she falls on the train tracks and he just barely saves her before the train comes. This is where he steals her phone and starts to read every interaction she has with others.

He finds out about Benji, Beck's on and off socialite hook-up buddy. Joe starts plotting how to get rid of Benji from Beck's life because he believes Benji is the only thing in his way to having a relationship with Beck. He tricks Benji into having a business meeting with him, and hits him over the head with a brick, keeping him captive in his book basement. To not raise any suspicions about Benji's whereabouts, Joe starts using his social media to keep up the rouse that Benji's on some international bender. This more or less works for Beck who tries to put Benji behind her. Joe doesn't fancy himself a killer, but finds no way out of this situation, so he poisons Benji with peanuts (he's severely allergic to them) then burns his body in the middle of the woods.

After Benji's out of the picture, Joe and Beck start dating and he is introduced to her world and friends that he doesn't really fit in with. Beck's best friend, Peach Salinger, has been suspicious of Joe from the start. Joe is suspicious of Peach as well, and starts following her for information. He soon finds that Peach is just as obsessed with Beck as he is. Joe sees Peach as another obstacle in his relationship with Beck, so he decides to he needs to get rid of her. While Beck and Peach are on a weekend getaway, Joe follows them and realizes Peach has a gun. After Beck has left, Peach finds that Joe is there and they have a stand-off. She realizes how crazy and stalker-ish Joe is, but he tells her he knows all her secrets, too and threatens to expose. After fighting over the gun, Joe shoots Peach and frames it as a suicide.

Beck starts dealing with Peach's death by going to therapy, which threatens Joe because he wants to be the person she can talk to. He starts getting suspicious of her relationship with her therapist, Dr. Nicky, and begins to think she is cheating on him with Nicky. We see flashbacks of Joe with his ex, Candace, and find that she cheated on him throughout their relationship. With plans to kill Dr. Nicky, he realizes he's wrong about the situation and concludes Beck needs time and space to figure out what she wants.

He begins dating Karen Minty, the babysitter of Paco. Joe likes that Karen knows who she is and that the relationship is easy. Meanwhile, Paco's mom breaks up with Ron, with the help of Joe's encouragement, but soon falls worse into her drug habit. Ron won't disappear, so Joe kills him, with Paco covering up for him because of how grateful he is to Joe.

During their time apart, Beck realizes she misses Joe and starts to pursue him again. They begin a short-lived affair, but soon things turn sour when Joe locks Beck in his basement, eventually killing her and fleeing the city.

The season ends with Candace actually being alive, showing up at the bookstore, leaving Joe stunned.

Season 2:

It was announced in January 2019 that season 2 will take place in LA, after Joe flees New York after the many murders he committed. There he meets Love Quinn, who is described as someone vastly different from Beck, because of her lack of social media presence and complete lack of care to creating another life online. Quinn is an "aspiring chef who’s working as a produce manager in a high-end grocery store" and is "tending to a deep grief — and when she meets Joe, she senses a shared knowledge of profound, life-changing loss."

Filming started in February 2019.

Marketing[edit]
On April 10, 2018, the official trailer was released.

Teasing the original premiere on the Lifetime Network on September 9, 2018, the main cast, Penn Badgley, Elizabeth Lail and Shay Mitchell, as well as the show creator, Sera Gamble, and author of the original book, Caroline Kepnes, sat down with BUILD Series, a YouTube talk show meant to promote new buzzworthy shows and movies.

To gain the attention of fans, many comparisons were made to Badgley's Gossip Girl character, Dan Humphrey, who famously turned out to be the person behind the Gossip Girl site at the end of the series, following everyone around and revealing their deepest darkest scandals and secrets. Comparisons were also made to Shay Mitchell's Pretty Little Liars character Emily Fields. The themes of digital privacy and stalking can be found on all of these shows and Badgley plays into these comparisons by agreeing that Joe is a "surreal progression of Dan Humphrey."

The marketing for you used the buzz around the #MeToo Movement to gain attention to the start of the show. You has been said to have been "tailor-made for the #MeToo Era." One of the show creators, Sera Gamble, commented on this era by saying we, as a culture, only pay attention to the perspective of the male and in his story, of course he is the hero. She states "We're focused on their story, their triumph, their downfall, their redemption arc...So I doubt the show will singlehandedly change the way we think about dudes and our culture, but I'm happy to be part of the conversation."

Themes[edit]
'You'' explores the blurred lines between love and obsession, and hero and villain. In the process, it looks at the potential lengths to which the idea of "love conquers all", is really applicable. As You is situated in modern day New York City, it explores the dangers of social media culture with an emphasis on a lack of digital privacy.''' The author of the book, Caroline Kepnes stated that her inspiration for the book grew out of her moving back to LA. She stated that when she moved she noticed that "suddenly everyone was following each other and being followed, and I always thought of that as a such a negative thing," soon creating Joe in her mind as a very real possibility of what can happen with that type of access into people's lives.