You season 5 ending explained: the ending you deserve?

The finale of You season 5 (and series finale) starts off as a road trip romance, only to turn into a horror nightmare as Bronte (Madeline Brewer) erases Joe (Penn Badgley) for good.

Here's what happened in You season 5 ending.

Leaving New York behind

While Bronte imagines shooting Joe, she concludes doing so would mean the world would never know the truth, and she would never get the answers she needs. So instead, she tries to figure out the ending a man like Joe deserves while the two of them go on the run. He finally admits to her that Kate (Charlotte Richie) sent something to the police that he will have a hard time denying, though he insists it made total sense in context.

His idea is to lie low while the noise dies down. Bronte comments how she has nothing but him, and in her narration, she explains he has sadly become her whole life, but she’s going to use that as her key to get out of this. Joe calls Will (Robin Lord Taylor), who is working on passports for them, for another favor: helping him reach Henry (Frank DeMaio).

At a gas station, Bronte buys a copy of Beck’s book, and soon enough, they reach the secluded house that they’ll be squatting in for a few days. Will has everything ready with the passports for “Ezra and Ella,” the names of their immortal protagonists. However, Joe’s getting a surge of superstition thanks to all of the women of his past.

At dinner, Joe reveals he doesn’t have a backup copy of his book, but will write it up again once they’re safe. Bronte asks if he’s come up with an ending, and it opens up a conversation about what his protagonist deserves. He grows defensive when she mentions a reckoning, pointing out how he’s already lost his son, home and Mooney’s. She switches the focus to the fact that immortality isn’t real and says she’s worried about the two of them, asking if she makes it in his story. He immediately assures her that she does, and the most important thing to him is her happiness and safety.

With you, love has a price

Joe wants to give Bronte a taste of their future, so the two of them go out on the lake. While it’s “peak romance,” she manages to keep her head clear. While in bed, she pulls a gun on him and demands he tell her how he killed Beck. He tries to talk his way out of it, continuing to act as if Marienne, Kate, and Nadia were the problems, but it’s not working because Bronte wants the truth.

Bronte throws the copy of Beck’s book in front of him, demanding he redact himself and give Beck her voice back. He does so while convincing himself that they can bounce back from this; it’s all part of the universe’s plan for them. As he finishes, he tries to convince her that no one will ever love her the way he does again, saying all he did was embrace her despite her tricks.

Joe’s phone then goes off, and he begs Bronte to let him answer for Henry’s sake. She does, making sure it’s on speaker so she can listen to the conversation. He is able to speak with his son, but Henry shocks him when he questions Joe about what he did to Kate before calling his father a monster. It causes Joe to have a complete breakdown, acting as if he is still the victim in all of this. It’s enough to have Bronte ready to call the police and end things, but Joe violently attacks her in what might be the most brutal sequence of the series. They wrestle for the gun, which ends with a shot and a bloody Bronte running out of the house.

She throws him off her track by leaving her necklace in a different area, going back inside to get the phone. Unfortunately, it’s cracked, but she manages to call 911 before jumping out the window and dropping the phone on the ground so he won’t see. While going after her, Joe confesses he is the one who broke her ankle, and now it’s working in his favor. He finally shows his true colors, commenting that he’ll show her how he killed Beck before attempting to choke her.

Bronte escapes by stabbing him with the self-defense cat ears keychain she bought at the gas station. She runs away again, but he throws them both into the lake and tries to drown her. It seems as if he is successful, just as the police sirens can be heard in the background. He kills one officer, hoping to escape, but more begin to close in. It turns out Bronte survived. She finds him in the woods and holds him at gunpoint as he begs her to kill him, but she won’t because she wants him to finally be forced to see himself and everything he’s done. She reclaims her name, Louise, and expresses that “the fantasy of a man like you is how we cope with the reality of a man like you.” Joe goes to attack her again, but she shoots him in the genitals as the cops finally reach them, arresting him.

He has a trial, and Louise describes the evidence as horrific and the truth as undeniable. He is convicted of the murders of both Love and Beck, with more allegations snowballing into more convictions. He will never be free again.

How does You season 5 end?

Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman) returns to writing and teaching, using her gifts to help other women process their own trauma. Charges against Harrison (Pete Ploszek) for Reagan’s murder were dropped, while Maddie (Anna Camp) didn’t have to serve time despite being tried for arson and her sister’s murder. Instead, she went to rehab for her pill addiction and is now expecting twins. Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) survived the fire and was “reborn,” keeping custody of Henry and championing the art of Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), whom the world now loves. Meanwhile, Teddy (Griffin Matthews) has made the Lockwood Corporation 100% nonprofit.

Louise pulled Joe’s contributions out of Beck’s book, releasing the redacted version, which is more praised and more Beck. Still, Beck won’t get the chance to make what she wanted to make of her life because of Joe, so to honor her and the rest of his victims, the survivors must make the most of theirs. Louise concludes that every day that passes, Joe shrinks, and while she has no idea who she wants to be, she can’t wait to find out.

As for Joe, he will spend the rest of his life alone in a cage with no hope of being held, and that punishment is worse than he ever could have imagined. He tries to reason it’s not fair and that he never stood a chance because of the environment he grew up in. We then see him open and read letters from crazy fans, who write what they want him to do to them. It makes him turn the blame on us, saying maybe we have a problem as a society and we should fix what’s broken in us, that maybe the problem isn’t him, maybe it’s you.

All episodes of You season 5 are now streaming on Netflix.