🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

“Pilot”

This beautiful nightmare all starts with a meet-cute. Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), who goes by Beck, walks into an Upper East Side bookstore and engages in witty literary banter with the cute bookseller, Joe, who looks exactly like Penn Badgley. Who wouldn’t be charmed? It’s all adorable — until afterwards, when Joe takes the garden-variety googling of a potential love interest way further than mere curiosity should lead. He tracks all of Beck’s social media and even finds her address, where he promptly goes, to watch her through her street-level window.

Joe reads Beck’s life like one of his dusty collectible novels. Beck is a broke poetry grad student who’s falling into serious debt trying to keep up with her socialite friends from college. (Her spectacular brownstone is “subsidized student housing.”) She’s dating a next-level douche named Benjamin J. Ashby III (Lou Taylor Pucci), who’s launching an artisanal soda brand. Joe decides Beck is too good for all these posers; to get her life on track, there’s just one thing she needs: him. 

Joe breaks into her apartment to snoop through her computer, texts and underwear drawer — all part of getting to know her better, right? He almost gets caught when Beck comes home, but hides in her shower and overhears her on the phone figuring out her plans for the rest of the night. Guess it’s a date!

Beck is reading her poetry at an open mic night in Greenpoint with her group of girlfriends, who all talk smack about her behind her back — which Joe hears, because he followed her to the club. Maybe he just loves poetry. Beck bombs — this is You, you’re going to have to embrace the cringe.

Waiting for the train back to Manhattan, a drunk and defeated Beck rage-texts Benji from the edge of the subway platform — texts so ragefully, in fact, that she falls onto the tracks, just as the train is speeding into the station. Would-be white knight Joe gets to be a real-life hero, diving onto the filthy tracks to pull her out of harm’s way. Beck lands right on top of him and recognizes him from the bookstore… we’re back to rom-com territory! But then she vomits directly into his mouth… and he steals her phone.

So not exactly a white knight after all. But we do get to see a bit of Joe’s genuinely good side. He’s super-sweet to his neighbor Paco (Luca Padovan), who’s neglected by his addict mom and violent stepfather, Ron (Daniel Cosgrove). Joe gives Paco books and meatball subs, and when Paco accidentally ruins one of Joe’s antique volumes, Joe doesn’t even get mad — he shows him how rare books are repaired and preserved, taking Paco to the basement under the bookstore, where he handles sensitive materials in a temperature-controlled plexiglass cage.

It does not take long for Chekhov’s temperature-controlled underground plexiglass cage to pay off. Joe lures Benji to the cage and bludgeons him in the face with a mallet. We’re not sure if Benji’s dead or grievously injured — or of what else is cooking in Joe’s deranged, brilliant mind.

“The Last Nice Guy in New York”

So Benji’s alive. Yay? But even with a massive, bloody wound on his head, he’s insufferable, requesting Bareburgers and sushi from inside the cage. Worst of all, he dares to insult Beck, telling Joe that she’s not worth being obsessed over, that she’s a social climber who’s flirting with her professor to get ahead. And, being a complete idiot, Benji lets on that he recognizes Joe from later in the same evening that Beck almost got hit by a subway train. Joe wasn’t planning on killing Benji — he’s that increasingly rare breed, a nice guy — but now he may have no choice.

In better news, Joe’s first date with Beck is “perfect” — even though he watched her get ready through her window. They have good banter, and Joe is falling hard, so he’s feeling more protective over Beck than ever. Being a nice, concerned guy, he follows Beck to her drinks meeting with her advisor, Professor Leahy (Reg Rogers), who fires Beck as his TA after she rejects his advances.

After Joe comforts Beck, and encourages her to “grow some teeth” and fight back at the bullies in her life, she invites him to her best friend Peach Salinger’s party. From his snooping, Joe knows all about Peach (Shay Mitchell), who’s one of those Salingers. The Salinger party is ironically full of total phonies, and Joe starts to wonder if Benji was right about Beck, who stole the dress she’s wearing just to fit in with this crowd. But even worse, Joe runs into Maddie Johnson, who was a friend of Joe’s ex Candace (Ambyr Childers), whom no one’s heard from for a while. Joe does not want to talk about her, so there’s probably no story there. Nope. 

Joe wakes up the next morning with a gnarly hangover and realizes he forgot to feed his prisoner. Down in the cage, Benji’s suffering through withdrawal; he’s ripped up all the books and begs Joe to just kill him already. He offers Joe a deal: As collateral, he’ll admit the worst thing he’s ever done — and it’s real bad, just as bad as bludgeoning a human and keeping him prisoner in a basement cage. Benji tells Joe where to find a thumb drive that contains videos of him in college hazing a kid, who died from the incident. Joe admits it’s bad enough and agrees to free him, until…

Beck drops by the bookstore. Upstairs, she tells Joe that “it worked” — she showed some teeth. She threatened to expose Professor Leahy for being a repeat sexual harasser, and she won; he agreed to assign her to a new advisor. She gives Joe a doughnut — an in-joke of hers — and all his doubts about her are erased. 

Joe goes back down to the basement, and everything’s changed. Now he needs to punish Benji for the way he’s treated Beck. He gives Benji a latte laced with peanut oil — and Benji’s allergic to peanuts. Deathly allergic. Joe watches as Benji writhes out on the floor.

It’s You’s first murder! Congratulations!

“Maybe”

Because Joe is such a sensitive guy, he doesn’t quite have the stomach to dismember and dispose of the human being he just murdered. He knows he has to get Benji’s body out of the cage eventually, but right now he’s more concerned that Beck described him to her friends as a “maybe.” (He just… happened to overhear this conversation. At a bar. Where he and Beck both just happened to be.) A maybe! After Joe literally killed for her! But hey, they never said they were exclusive. Joe finally hauls Benji’s body out to the woods to burn it. 

What’s more gruesome to watch than the disposal of a corpse? A graduate writing workshop. It’s Beck’s turn to be critiqued by the whole class, and Joe helps her dig deep for her most fertile topic: her dad, who died of an overdose. It’s a vulnerable moment, and they’re about to finally have sex, but they’re interrupted by Peach, who’s having a flare-up of a “rare bladder disease.” Because of all the distractions, Beck has nothing to submit to her workshop, which is completely humiliating, especially since she was supposed to present on the same day as Blythe (Hari Nef), the star of the writing program. If you’ve ever been in a writing workshop, you know what Beck is feeling. If you haven’t, please don’t ask.

In a big romantic gesture, Joe takes Beck down to his sacred book restoration cage (now that her ex’s body has been removed from it). They have a moment, and after, Beck tells Peach that she’s taking Joe seriously — which Peach is not happy about. She notices that her copy of Ozma of Oz is missing and implies that Joe stole it during her party. She’s right, of course, but Beck doesn’t think Joe would ever steal a book. Joe and Beck finally get the chance to have sex… but remember what a sensitive guy Joe is? Well, it’s all too much for him. Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe. Which is emphatically not what Beck is saying — she barely has time to say anything.

“The Captain”

Of course Beck immediately tells all her friends that Joe only lasted eight seconds in bed, but she has bigger problems on her mind: She gets a text from “The Captain,” who turns out to be her dad. You know, the one who allegedly died of an overdose? Not only is her father alive, but he also enjoys going to Charles Dickens costume festivals on the weekends with his new family, who hate Beck, and who Beck hates back. Apparently Joe isn’t the only one in this series who tells wild lies.

Since Joe is obviously reading all of Beck’s texts, he sees what the group chat is saying about him (why would you ever want to know!), and also gets suspicious about who this “Captain” is. He assumes it’s some other dude, so (naturally) he follows Beck up to the festival in Nyack to spy on her.

Meanwhile, Peach pays a visit to the bookstore to pick up a copy of Ozma of Oz. She finds out from Joe’s co-worker Ethan (Zach Cherry) that Joe might be up in Nyack and calls Beck to tip her off. Beck spots Joe amidst the literary cosplayers, and Joe decides his best option is to come (kinda) clean and admit he came to talk to her about their awkward moment in the bedroom. Beck comes clean as well and explains that though her father isn’t dead, he’s been more or less dead to her since she found him after an overdose, only for him to immediately abandon her.

Joe, normally no stranger to a double standard, is actually understanding about Beck’s lie, even enduring a lunch from hell with her dad’s awful family. Beck takes Joe’s advice and writes about her pain, and after half a season of avoiding her work, it turns out she actually has something to say. She’s so turned on by all that creative energy, she shows up unannounced at Joe’s for a second try at sex. Joe lasts much longer this time — partly because he’s so distracted looking around at all the stuff he’s stolen from Beck scattered around his apartment and hoping she doesn’t notice. But hey, it works. The next morning, Beck blows up the group chat with a rave review of Joe’s prowess.

“Living with the Enemy”

Don’t you hate when your best friend and the new person you’re dating hate each other? Well, at least they don’t hate each other as much as Joe and Peach.

Joe and Beck are deep in domestic bliss. Beck’s feeling inspired to write, and Joe, sensitive guy that he is, is supportive and doting. The only problem is Beck’s insufferable friends — insufferable according to Joe, who hates what he hears every time he crashes their girls’ nights. (So stop creeping on them!) A master manipulator, Joe spots a growing rift between Peach and body-positive Instagram influencer Annika (Kathryn Gallagher) and convinces Annika to post an old college photo of Peach “pre-nose job.” The fallout is, predictably, nuclear-level.

Beck’s recent work about her father’s fake death has impressed her professor Allison, who offers to introduce Beck to her literary agent. To celebrate, Joe plans a fantasy Bachelor-esque date, but it’s interrupted by a friend crisis: Annika is being dragged online after a video of her saying racist things surfaces. Joe instantly clocks that Peach is behind Annika’s takedown. He knows a fellow piece of work when he sees one.

Peach continues her queen-bee reign of terror. She plans a private party at the bookstore for Beck to meet uber-megastar lit agent Roger Stevens, who blows Allison’s agent out of the water even though he’s the kind of guy who literally says “m’lady.” While Beck schmoozes him — fully committing to her dead-dad lie — Joe goes down to the basement with Peach’s bag, which he stole. He also overhears Peach talking to Roger and finds out that Peach is actually trying to sabotage Beck’s literary career. Joe needs to find out why, but to do that he’ll need the password to Peach’s laptop, which he tries to finagle out of the weak link of the friend group: Annika.

Meanwhile, Peach is flipping out about her stolen laptop and immediately suspects Joe. He immediately shifts the suspicion on the alleged stalker that Peach has been talking about. (Peach is being stalked: by Joe, disguised under a baseball cap.) Joe and Beck get into their first big fight, over Peach and her intentions, which leads Beck to accuse him of being unsupportive of her career and jealous of Roger. With Annika’s help, Joe figures out Peach’s laptop password —“beckalicious,” cringe — and with that, he also figures out from her secret photos that Peach is obsessed with Beck. We said she was a fellow piece of work.

Sure enough, Roger lures m’lady Beck into the back of his black car to come onto her — and attempts to drug her. She gets the hell out of there and confronts Peach for setting up this useless meeting and for playing puppetmaster in her life. They have a huge fight, and just as Joe wanted, Beck comes running back into his arms. But Peach has another trick up her sleeve. She takes too many pills and calls Beck; Beck, a good friend, comes running. Joe knows this is manipulation, but he can’t prove it.

That’s the last straw for Joe. There’s only room for one obsessed stalker in Beck’s life. He trails Peach on her morning jog through Central Park, then hits her over the head with a huge rock. Murder No. 2? Joe is guilty and freaked out over his actions and wrestles with his conscience for several seconds. 

Karma judges Joe more harshly. When he arrives back at his apartment building, he finds Ron passed out in the hallway — Paco drugged him, trying to follow Joe’s terrible advice to fight back. When Joe manages to revive him, Ron beats him savagely in the face. While Joe’s still bleeding on the floor, he gets a call from Beck: Peach has been attacked in Central Park… and yet SHE LIVES! How will Joe lie his way out of this one?

“Amour Fou”

After their respective brutal attacks, Peach looks infuriatingly well rested, while Joe looks like death. Beck is at Peach’s… beck and call (that’s right), whereas Joe is banished because Peach can’t handle his “male energy” right now. Joe’s being edged out of Beck’s life — the war for her attention is well and truly on.

In a major power move, Peach invites Beck to the Salinger family estate in Greenwich, Connecticut. Joe tries to persuade Beck not to go, but what kind of friend would she be if she abandoned Peach after she was viciously attacked in Central Park? Joe’s solution, per precedent, is to don a disguise and follow her.

On the drive up, Joe gets into a car accident, cracking his already busted up face open on the steering wheel. This catches the attention of a local sheriff, but Joe puts on his best Connecticut prepster persona and gets let off with a warning… but not before the sheriff takes down his license plate number.

Joe breaks into the gorgeous Salinger estate while Peach and Beck are out on their jam-packed day of girl bonding. It’s all in a day’s work for Joe, until he passes out from his multiple head injuries and hallucinates about his mysterious missing ex, Candace. When he comes to, the girls come back home, and he hides and observes — at one point Joe is spying on Peach spying on Beck taking a bath. What a creep! (What do you mean, “Which one?”)

Peach has several surprises for Beck. First, she proposes moving to Paris together. Next, she invites Raj (Gerrard Lobo), a super-handsome dude from Beck’s past. And then, Peach wants them all to take MDMA together and have a threesome. Joe can’t handle any of this — he immediately goes searching for Peach’s gun.

Beck can’t handle it either. She runs out to text Joe (who’s hiding under the bed on which Peach and Raj are still hooking up) that she doesn’t want to go to Paris with Peach — a point for Joe. The next morning, Beck and Peach have a huge fight, and Beck goes home early. Before Joe can celebrate his win, Peach catches him holding her gun and snatches it away from him. She recognizes Benji’s watch on his wrist, and he spills all about stealing her laptop, threatening that “his associate” Paco will send out all its damning contents if anything happens to him. Joe runs for it, and Peach shoots him in the thigh. He pretends to be passed out and grabs the gun from her. He finishes the job he started in Central Park.

It’s murder No. 2 and an escalation in duplicity for Joe, especially when he forges a suicide note for Peach. Now there’s nothing stopping Joe from taking over Beck’s entire life.

“Everythingship”

The first month after Peach’s funeral, Joe and Beck grew closer than ever: making pancakes, playing not-a-word-but-should-be-a-word Scrabble, having nonstop sex. But, as Joe tells his therapist Dr. Nicky (the ageless John Stamos), the honeymoon period didn’t last.

Little cracks started showing in Joe’s idealized vision of Beck. Beck got fired from her yoga job, and Joe hired her to work with him at the bookstore. And he found out that Beck was seeing a therapist: Dr. Nicky himself. That’s why Joe started seeing the good doctor; of course, Joe lies throughout his sessions, calling himself “Paul” and telling Dr. Nicky about his past month with a made-up boyfriend named “Renaldo.”

Turns out “Renaldo” was terrible at her job at the bookstore. Further trouble arose when Joe threw a surprise literary-themed party for Beck’s birthday. It was a total disaster, since she wanted something mellow and small, and they had a blowout fight when Joe questioned whether she’d been cheating on him, having been burned by Candace in the past. (Well, that’s Joe’s story.) Beck stormed out of her own party, but they managed to fix things… for a little while.

Joe’s paranoia and jealousy grew with every text Beck got from a contact listed as “Fox.” It spiraled out of control when Beck caught Joe following her to a therapy session, at which point Beck definitively broke up with him.

Back in the present, Joe contemplates murdering his therapist. (We’ve heard of transference, but this is a new one.) But first, Joe needs absolute proof that, as he suspected, Beck was sleeping with Dr. Nicky. Using one of his go-to moves, Joe breaks into Dr. Nicky’s laptop and listens to a recording of one of Beck’s sessions. He concludes that he was wrong about the affair and realizes that he’s not what Beck needs right now. And because Joe believes in his twisted sense of true love, he decides to let Beck go for real. He even smashes the phone he stole from her, finally cutting off his access to her privacy. This is what’s known as a breakthrough; if it turns out Dr. Nicky really saved Beck from her stalker boyfriend in a single session, it would be the therapeutic coup of the year… If. We said “if.”

“You Got Me, Babe”

Three months after the breakup, Joe is in a seemingly healthy relationship with Karen (Natalie Paul), though she lacks the severe dysfunction to keep Joe interested long term. Using legal methods now, he still keeps tabs on Beck, who has a new book deal after writing a viral essay about Peach’s death.

Joe, posing as “Paul,” has kept up sessions with Dr. Nicky, telling him about the domestic bliss he’s experiencing with “Brad” (Karen), and how he’s surprised by how little he’s missing “Renaldo” (Beck). Sure. The moment Joe runs into Beck at a food truck (while out with Karen), all the feelings come flooding back, and this leads to a flurry of flirty texts. Turns out, Beck is also still seeing Dr. Nicky, and she definitely still has feelings for Joe.

This becomes even clearer when they’re roped into helping Blythe and Ethan move in together. (Unexpected couple!) They can’t resist each other. Joe needs to be needed, Beck needs a lot, and Karen is way too well-adjusted for either of them. Beck breaks down into tears and admits that she’s jealous of Karen and regrets letting Joe go. Joe breaks up with Karen immediately after she literally saves the life of Paco’s mom, Claudia. Karen doesn’t deserve to be dumped by Joe that way, but in another, more important way, she absolutely does. (Run, Karen! Run for your life and don’t look back!) Joe braces himself to get slapped, but Karen takes the breakup like an adult and just leaves… but not before doing her duty as a normal mature person and warning Beck about what a liar Joe is.

Joe sprints all the way to Beck’s place in a big rom-com gesture to restart their relationship. He accidentally breaks the window he’s spent hours spying on her through, yet it works — she said yes! They’re back together! Isn’t it romantic?

“Candace”

The name on everybody’s lips is Candace. After hearing Joe scream out her name at night, Beck is finally prying into Joe’s history with the mysterious Candace, who allegedly disappeared to Italy. Joe tells Dr. Nicky all about his nightmares (using the fake names, of course), and, for therapeutic reasons, thinks back on his and Candace’s relationship. It started out great, until Joe’s suspicions that Candace was cheating on him with a music exec named Elijah turned out to be right. He went to confront Elijah and, in an impulsive rage, pushed him off a rooftop — Joe’s real first kill.

After a Google deep-dive turns up some red flags, Beck demands to know the truth about Candace and her whereabouts. Joe tells her that Candace fled after cheating on him and Elijah’s death, changing her name. Beck buys the explanation and even blames herself for doubting Joe. To get Beck to trust him even more, Joe takes Beck to see Mr. Mooney, the previous owner of the bookstore, the man who raised — and abused — Joe. That’s a devastating card, played by a master gaslighter. 

Beck gets another text from “Fox,” which triggers Joe’s memories of Candace hiding her texts from Elijah. Joe previously suspected Dr. Nicky of being “Fox,” and when he steals Dr. Nicky’s phone, he discovers his earlier instincts were right — even though Beck broke up with him over the accusations. Can Joe forgive Beck’s betrayal? Why would you even ask that?

Devastated, Joe wrenches the truth out of Beck, who admits she was lying and says she loves him like she’s never loved anyone — she got confused because she didn’t know what to do with that love. That speaks straight to Joe’s heart, and they make up; she’s completely forgiven. The next morning, while Joe goes to pick up breakfast, Paco comes by and makes an offhand comment that Joe likes hiding things in the ceiling above the toilet. Beck has just enough doubts about Joe to go looking, and she finds a box full of evidence that he’s been stalking her all along: her stolen phone, diary, tampons; Benji and Peach’s phones; a box full of teeth. Teeth! Joe walks back in with breakfast, and she cuts her finger while rushing to put the box back, which tips him off that she’s discovered his secrets. What’s a boy to do? Before you answer, remember that this boy has access to a temperature-controlled underground plexiglass cage.

“Bluebeard’s Castle”

Joe finally has what he wants: complete control over Beck’s whole life… and her undivided attention. Now that she’s locked in the bookbinding cage, Joe’s willing to answer any of her questions. He has deranged explanations for why he killed Benji and Peach and why he has her underwear. It all makes sense to him, and he’s shocked when Beck doesn’t accept the justifications immediately.

While Beck’s asleep, Joe sets up a perfect little writing studio around her, complete with books, snacks and a cute desk. Some writers would, and do, pay good money for that kind of retreat — even the being-held-against-your-will part, since involuntary confinement can be a great productivity tool (trust us). Still, Beck is not into it. She tries to appeal to the side of Joe that’s in love with her, but Joe doesn’t budge. She’s truly trapped and has no choice but to write — the dream! No. Sorry. Excuse us. No, Beck is writing for her freedom.

Meanwhile, Joe meets up with the remainder of Beck’s friend group, Annika and Lynn, to ward off their suspicions as to Beck’s whereabouts. He learns that Peach’s family has hired a private investigator to dig into her death — they won’t accept that a Salinger would ever commit suicide. The P.I. pays Joe a visit, and he’s good at his job — he found the jar in Peach’s house that Joe peed in while hiding there.

Beck continues to try to charm her way out of the cage. She convinces Joe that she doesn’t want Joe to go to jail, for Paco’s sake, since he has no one else; his mom is in the hospital, and Ron is raging worse than before. So bad, in fact, that Joe stabs Ron dead to protect the kid. Joe’s in more trouble than ever, but Beck gives him an out — she’s written an account of her affair with Dr. Nicky that incriminates him instead of Joe. She romances him through the glass so effectively that Joe unlocks the cage and they kiss — but she stabs him with a typewriter part, escapes and locks him inside his own cage. She runs up the stairs, but the basement door is locked — the only person who hears her screams is Paco, but he won’t open the door out of loyalty to Joe. Excruciatingly, he turns away. Joe escapes the cage — he’s hidden a spare key — and we fade to black.

Four months later, Beck is dead. Joe has gotten her manuscript published — it’s a bestseller — and Dr. Nicky has been incriminated for Joe’s crimes. So Joe is free and clear and still working at the bookstore when a mysterious girl walks in. Is history about to repeat itself? In a way… since the girl who walked into the bookstore is none other than Candace.

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