You season 5 episode 7 recap: where’s the context?

You season 5 episode 7 brings back some familiar faces to tell their stories about Joe (Penn Badgley), and his only hope at saving his reputation is Maddie (Anna Camp).

Here's what happened in You season 5 episode 7, "#JoeGoldberg."

The past always catches up to you

Without custody of his son, Joe is spiraling, but his lawyer says that he doesn’t want to be in front of a judge while he’s still a headline, telling him they need to wait before appealing. Clayton’s family is also lawyering up, and his last name allows Joe to make the connection to Dr. Nicky. However, he is not capable of being patient.

Meanwhile, Kate’s (Charlotte Richie) lawyer says they need to come out swinging against Joe, but she stresses she can’t turn on him yet due to them being entangled. For now, they have to let him dig his own grave. She has Teddy (Griffin Matthews) take Henry (Frankie DeMaio) to an apartment in the West Village that Joe doesn’t know about.

She tries to send Maddie to a facility to process everything and recover, but her half-sister insists she is not having a breakdown. Kate apologizes for not protecting her and says she wants to make it up to her because she loves her, but all Maddie wants is her life back with Harrison (Pete Ploszek) and Gretchen, so Kate tries to offer her a new plan so she can have that.

Joe goes to Henry’s school, but they already know about the custody agreement. He has a backup plan though, asking the teacher to give his son a book, which has a tracker in it. This allows him to find where Teddy took him, and despite his brother-in-law trying to stop him with a knife, Joe overpowers him. Thankfully, before anything can happen, Henry interrupts them. Joe tells his son that he hasn’t left him and has another moment or two before security comes and drags him out.

When he gets home, Joe discovers he’s trending thanks to a video done by Bronte’s (Madeline Brewer) friends, accusing him of being a serial killer and listing the names of multiple victims of his. Past characters from throughout the show use the opportunity to talk about Joe, including Dottie (Saffron Burrows), Annika (Kathryn Gallagher) and Ethan (Zach Cherry). Sherry (Shalita Grant), Cary (Travis Van Winkle) and Paco (Luca Padovan) are also featured in the montage, but they show their support instead. This flips Joe out as expected, and ruins his chances of getting Henry back.

As for Kate, she decides to take Henry with her to London to fix her mistakes, wanting to do what she needs to in order to make everything better. She visits Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman) in prison, admitting she helped frame her before saying she wants to get her out and take down Joe together.

Stop ignoring me

Joe reaches out to Maddie for help with PR, using the video from the cage as leverage. She agrees, finding a journalist/influencer for an interview where he can save his reputation. All he has to do is admit to the mistakes he made without naming them, apologize if he caused pain, tease unrelated childhood trauma and not cry.

At Maddie’s encouragement, he takes the cameras down to the basement to show everyone the cage, stepping inside and explaining that it is for the storage and protection of rare books. He then starts to talk about his complicated relationship with Mr. Mooney, which included locking him inside for days. This is enough to make him break down, and they pause the live stream.

Maddie reminds him that the whole internet is watching and tells him to pull himself together. This is when he reads Bronte’s text, and that convinces him she doesn’t think he’s a monster. He backtracks on his earlier statements, saying he was in love and captivated by Louise before adding that he is not a victim and has a lot of privilege.

He finishes the interview strongly, leading to the public’s opinion of him starting to change and just like that, he’s back on top.

You did fall for me

Bronte is trying to text Joe, but she’s struggling with what to say. Her friends want her to be the face of their Joe takedown post, but she won’t do it because she won’t have a part in ruining an “innocent man’s life.” She tells Dom (Natasha Beham) that Joe saved her, and she tries to remind Louise that Bronte is not real, but Louise won’t hear any more of the conversation and leaves.

Bronte watches Joe’s interview live stream, where he says that their affair was inappropriate and that he is deeply sorry for his actions. He further says that Bronte and her friends were trying to goad him into someone they thought he was, that none of it was real, and that she is the biggest regret of his life.

That allows her to find her words, texting Joe that she told the police the truth, that he was protecting her, before purchasing a flight home. When Joe looks for her socials again, they’re all deleted, and instead, he discovers hate videos about Bronte with comments talking about how they should find her and teach her a lesson.

Joe realizes one of the men is actually stalking her, so he goes to save her from being abducted. But the next morning, we discover that he has a still-asleep Bronte lying and handcuffed to his bed.

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