You Season 5 is a homecoming for Penn Badgley in more ways than one. 

For its fifth and final season, the thriller returns to New York City, which is not only where the first season was shot and set but also where Badgley lives with his family. And in the same way that returning to Mooney’s bookstore reminds Joe Goldberg (Badgley) of who he once was, coming back to film on Stage B at Silvercup Studios in Queens allowed Badgley to reconnect with one of his former roles. 

“Returning to the Mooney set on these stages was particularly poignant because this is where we shot Gossip Girl,” Badgley tells Tudum. “And I hadn’t really been back here except for one day of camera testing a long time ago.” (The first season of You filmed on a different lot, so other than that brief visit, it had been more than a decade since he’d returned.) 

“So it was creating new memories but with something that is already also quite iconic,” he says as we sit in the opulent bedroom Joe shares with his wife, Kate Lockwood (Charlotte Ritchie). It’s “definitely very interesting just being back here, on several levels.” 

Badgley’s familiarity with these stages also reflects his evolving relationship with Joe, his murderously lovesick protagonist. Playing such a dark and twisted figure for seven years has never been easy, but in You’s final season, Badgley may be the most comfortable he has felt in the role. From meditating to zeroing in on a particular spot at the back of his neck when he’s supposed to be enraged, Badgley knows exactly what he needs to do to be Joe. 

“My first memory of stepping into Mooney’s [in Season 1], the space felt big and new, and obviously now it just doesn’t feel that way to me. It’s very familiar, and it feels smaller, and maybe that’s just a metaphor for the whole thing,” he says. “The whole thing — the character, the concept, and the cultural thing it became —  used to feel a bit daunting, and now I feel like it’s a bit more manageable, [a bit] smaller for me.” 

Watch the Trailer for the Final Season of You

Ironically, Joe’s life is the biggest it’s ever been — and the stakes are higher than ever — in the fifth season, which launches April 24. As you can see in the brand-new photos and trailer, Joe has it all: a loving wife, his precocious son back in his arms, a sterling reputation, and money — lots of it. But the allure of his inner darkness combined with his history of violence threatens to undo it all as the series builds to a killer finale. 

Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg, and Charlotte Ritchie as Kate Lockwood

Charlotte Ritchie as Kate Lockwood

Clifton Prescod/Netflix

While coming home to NYC doesn’t portend a happy ending for Joe, the opposite could be said for You. “I do think that the show is best in New York City,” says Badgley. “It’s where it started. It’s where it’s ending. It’s fitting.” 

Charlotte Ritchie as Kate Lockwood, and Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg

Based on the novels by Caroline Kepnes, You centers on Joe, a book-loving hopeless romantic with a penchant for stalking and killing the women he (claims) to love, as well as anyone who gets in his way. While Joe’s search for The One began in New York (pour one out for Guinevere Beck), it took him to Los Angeles in Season 2, then to the suffocating suburbs of San Francisco in Season 3 (RIP Love Quinn), and then to London in Season 4. Across the pond, the genre-hopping drama threw Joe into a 1%-skewering whodunit that forced him finally to accept he’s not a good man — an undeniable truth he avoided for far too long as bodies piled up around him. At the season’s conclusion, Joe returned to New York City with his wealthy partner Kate and a new lease on life … or so it seems. 

“There’s a little bit of a reset and a recalibration,” says Badgley. “So he’s compartmentalized fully again.” 

Picking up three years later, the new season reveals that Joe hasn’t killed anyone since we last saw him. Progress! Instead, he’s been focused on raising Henry, the son he had with his ex-wife Love (Victoria Pedretti), and helping Kate steer the Lockwood Corporation in a more charitable direction. Joe never dreamed he would be part of New York’s elite, and he’s doing everything in his power to protect what he has.

Anna Camp as Kate’s twin sister Maddie Lockwood.

Clifton Prescod/Netflix

Griffin Matthews as Kate’s brother Teddy Lockwood.

Clifton Prescod/Netflix

“If you ask Joe, he’s incredibly happy with the life he has being Prince Charming in his marriage to Kate,” says executive producer Michael Foley, who serves as co-showrunner alongside fellow EP Justin W. Lo. “Kate and Joe are adulting in a way, and he’s accepting of that. In some ways, he’s existing at the margins of the Lockwood ecosystem, and you would think that wouldn’t be enough for Joe. And yet he loves this current life so much that he’s willing to resist any impulses that might rock the boat and threaten the life he’s made for himself. Most importantly, we’re really keying in on the life that he’s providing for Henry.” 

Badgley adds, “Joe doesn’t feel great about anything, really. He’s trying to stomach being one of the 0.01%, a billionaire, which is exceptional. He’s fooling himself, but he’s doing a pretty good job, as he always does. He believes he’s changed so that it can be enough for him.” 

Anna Camp as Reagan and Maddie Lockwood, and Pete Ploszek as Reagan’s husband Harrison. 

Through his marriage to Kate, Joe also acquires a larger family — Kate’s siblings. This season, we’ll meet her twin-sisters, the shark-like Reagan and hot mess Maddie (both played by Anna Camp), and Kate’s loyal half-brother Teddy (Griffin Matthews). Whereas Love’s chaotic brother Forty (James Scully) just wanted to adapt The Dark Face of Love into a movie, Kate’s siblings are playing for much higher stakes — the winner will have control over the Lockwood family business.

“He’s very much in a pit of vipers,” says Foley. “They are every bit products of Tom Lockwood, who was a Machiavellian, corrupt son of a bitch.” 

Madeline Brewer as the enigmatic Bronte.

Matt Infante/Netflix

When Joe met Bronte.

Clifton Prescod/Netflix

But at least Joe has his beloved Mooney’s, which he bought upon returning to the city. It’s at Mooney’s that he meets Bronte (Madeline Brewer), a free-spirited playwright who reminds Joe of what his life was like before he became a husband and father.  “I think she’s exceptionally talented, and we’re lucky to have her this season,” Badgley says of Brewer. “Maddie and I have this special thing going, where [the story’s] crazy, and you have to find ways to make it light and normal every day. But then you also have to really key into each other and make this crazy stuff work.”

A lot of this “crazy stuff” is brought to the surface by Bronte, and Joe will find himself torn between being Kate’s perfect husband and indulging his darker impulses. All of this raises the eternal question: Can Joe Goldberg have it all? Or put another way: “Can he be the old Joe and the new Joe?” says Lo. “It’s the essential question of the season.” Foley adds, “[It’s] a lot about identity, our hard coding, who we are, what’s changeable, and what’s immutable about ourselves.” 

Brother and sister bonding: Charlotte Ritchie as Kate, and Griffin Matthews as Teddy.

But Joe should beware of the past, because it just might come back to haunt him as the season barrels toward its conclusion. “One of the most fun things about this season is the Prince Charming aspect, that Joe is actually famous,” says Lo. “All the other seasons, he’s been really under the radar. That’s how he is able to move from season to season and place to place, because of his anonymity. Now that he is well known in New York, social media is on him. That’s something fun for us to explore.”

As for Badgley, he’s ready to see Joe face justice — and also prepared to say goodbye to the character. 

“It’s bittersweet, as anything is. It’s probably a lot sweeter than it is bitter,” he says. “You’re in this same space and doing this same work for just about seven years and you love it, but you’re happy to move on. It’s time for him to lay down, to stop, to put that knife down.”

Welcome back to the cage.