YOU (Season 1)

So, I just finished watching YOU and I have to tell you all about it!

(I started this morning and finished it just as I started writing this at 10:45pm; yes I'm a TV addict.  In my defence, I’m ill so I really haven’t done much all day)

About The Show/Initial Thoughts

I first heard about YOU on Shay Mitchell’s Instagram when she talked about how she had been cast in the show. I then came across the trailer during the summer of 2018 when I was discovering all my new shows for the year. I’m not usually into thriller/suspense kind of shows (especially if I’m watching it alone) but this one caught my attention for some reason. Probably because it had Penn Badgley (Um Gossip Girl fans HELLOOOO??) or the fact that this would be be Shay’s first television show since Pretty Little Liars and I was pretty excited to see what she’d do next considering she’s done PLL for 6/7 years. I held off on watching YOU weekly because I felt like it was something that would capture my attention almost immediately and I definitely couldn’t wait a week to watch each episode.

YOU was originally a book before being turned into a television show and interestingly enough, the show had been in the works since 2015 but they were still trying to find a network to buy it and that’s when Lifetime stepped in about bought the show. I was definitely surprised to see the show was going to be on Lifetime; they don’t have the best track record when it comes to TV shows-especially when it comes to marketing them & I find that if a show isn’t on the “Big 5” (NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS or the CW) it’s very easily forgotten (I could be wrong but this is just my personal observation). Anyway Lifetime passed on a second season but was picked up by Netflix and because of this they made the first season readily available. The good thing about the second season being on Netflix is that we’ll most likely get all the episodes at once; which I think is the perfect way to watch this type of show.

Review Of The Show

Okay, so let’s get into why you’re really here. The premise of the show is quite simple. A book store manager, Joe, meets a girl, Beck, in his bookstore and instantly falls in love with her. In his mind, they have an instant connection and wants to see her again but leaving it up to fate wasn’t an option. He had learnt her name from the little interaction they had had at the store and that was all he needed to find it everything he needed to know about her through her social media and the obsession begins. By stalking her, he was able to find out her likes/dislikes and come across as the “perfect” man, always conveniently there just when she needed someone; so how could she not fall in love with him? He was so blinded by his love for her that anything that posed as a threat to their relationship or to her wellbeing had to be eliminated, and by eliminated I mean killed. In reality, he was a psychopath who became infatuated with this girl and would stop at nothing to get her.

The show was pretty interesting, if you ask me. I was hooked from beginning to end. When I first started the show, I thought (and still think) that Beck was a little oblivious. How can someone stalk you for so long and you don’t notice? He would stand on the other side of the street in front of her apartment everyday and she didn’t notice?! Also how do you NOT have curtains?! He would always show up to places or say something about her past and would always conveniently manage to get out of it; maybe it’s the cynic in me or *more likely* because I knew what was happening but I definitely would’ve been a little more suspicious. She was far too trusting from the beginning but we find out later on that it’s because of self esteem issues and her desire to be loved and accepted so I guess she overlooked a lot of things because she felt he was “right” for her.

For someone who claims to not be a murderer, Joe sure does kill a lot of people. I really wasn’t expecting him to kill Benji but as episode went on I realised that he had no other choice because there was NO WAY Benji was going to get out of that cage and be silent. When he did eventually kill Benji and dispose of the body himself I did start to think “ok, so he a little crazier than I thought”. I liked Peaches, as obnoxious as she was, I liked her (to an extent). She was just trying to look out for her friend, I mean for selfish reasons but she still wanted to protect her friend. I didn’t want Peaches to die because I wanted her to be the one to uncover this whole mystery but that would be unrealistic and she was getting in his way so she had to go. I would've loved to see a bit more character development from Peaches though but in hindsight it wouldn't have worked with the story.

I thought his relationship with Paco, his neighbors son, was extremely suspect in the beginning because I just felt like he couldn't be trusted. However as the show progressed you could tell that he genuinely cared for Paco and I assume this was the writers way of humanizing him.

I’m slightly disappointed that they killed off Beck because I was interested in seeing where they took the story in season 2. There was definitely so much that they could've done with her character and that story and I felt like it was a little lazy to just kill her off. I mean, to be fair, to keep up with the character that seemed like the most logical thing to do.

Plot twist!! I was not expecting to see Candace and I was VERY pleased to see that she was still alive. That should make for an interesting-ish season two. I'm pretty sure filming has already begun and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it!