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Let's Be Real: You're Beck and Your Ideal Partner Is Joe

The Lifetime show 'You' has become a Netflix sensation, and for good reason. Many people will see themselves in the characters. Spoilers ahead!

By N (just n)Published 5 years ago 3 min read
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Joe (Penn Badgley) "admires" Beck (Elizabeth Lail) from afar.  

Okay, I'll give it to you guys. There's been some serious cognitive dissonance between you guys and the new hit television show You. You premiered on the Lifetime channel on September 9, 2018. However, I feel like it wasn't until it was released near the Christmas holiday on December 26 that it really took off.

The number of my friends watching this show was astounding. I was watching snapchats on snapchats, Instagram stories on Instagram stories, tweets on tweets. I am a woman of the people, and I live to follow trend so I found myself tuning in as well.

I binge watched the entire series in one day.

This article is by no means anti-You, the show is fantastic and it feels like Penn Badgley was made for this role to be quite honest.

However, I do find the amount of tweets and comeback against Joe's character a little surprising to say the least.

I've seen more people coming out to call Beck an "idiot" and "basic" than I have seeing people dragging Joe's character.

But what exactly is so basic about Beck? She's got a relatable storyline: a rough relationship with her parents combined with the need to please those around her. I'm not sure what's so unlikable about her.

Not gonna lie, I was also annoyed by Beck throughout the series. Her obliviousness was the worst attribute about her though. While I find Beck unlucky, I actually find it a little hilarious that no one sees the irony of the show's characters.

I think a lot of you hate Beck because there's a lot of her in a lot of us.

Towards the end of the season, Beck begins to question how this all could have gone wrong. As she's sitting at the typewriter, attempting her last chance at escape (unbeknownst to the viewer) and we're given a sneak peek at what Beck is writing.

She writes: "How the hell did you end up here? You used to wrap yourself in fairy tales like a blanket but it was the cold you loved."

I'm not foolish. I know very well what Beck is trying to say here and if you don't quite understand let me elaborate.

We all claim that we deserve love, and we're not willing to settle for less. But don't we? In our everyday life, how many times do we take ourselves for granted and settle for less, especially in terms of our interpersonal relationships?

When a friend shuts us out, are we not driven to figure out why? In those moments we don't think of the friends that love us whole-heartedly, our only concern is the friend who has left us out in the cold.

The person who has left us feeling alone.

Beck continues on, "Didn’t you want this? To be loved? Didn’t you want him to crown you? Didn’t you ask for it? Didn’t you ask for it? Didn’t you ask for it?"

And that's the saddest part of all, and probably the saddest part of the series. By the time Beck has had this realization, Joe (presumably) kills her in less than a few minutes.

Aren't we all looking for someone to understand and appreciate us? Aren't we all looking for someone who will defend us no matter what? Aren't we looking for someone who will tell us when the people around us are not for our benefit?

CLEARLY, no one is looking for someone who will murder people on our behalf and Joe crossed several lines.

But I think that's what makes the show so nuanced is its' portrayal of Joe as a "good guy," one that couldn't possibly harm Beck. He knew best for her, he just "went about it the wrong way."

I think it's easy to make fun of You. I think it's a show that you can't possibly take seriously, until you do. I think that if the show was even slightly more under exaggerated it would too close to home for many of us.

I think it already hit too close to home, as is, for me.

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About the Creator

N (just n)

I'm a twenty-something that's coming back from an existential crisis. Trying to figure out life, love, careers and what this is all for.

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