In season 2 of You, we learn the truth about Joe’s past relationship with his ex Candace.
After getting into a fight upon discovering that Candace was having an affair, Joe accidentally
makes Candace hit her head. Thinking he’s killed her, Joe buries Candace’s body and flees. It
turns out, Candace wasn’t dead, and wakes up after having been buried alive. She goes to the police
to have Joe arrested, but they turn her away. And so now Candace had to get her own justice,
by making sure Joe’s life was miserable and to stop him from ever hurting another woman.
With Candace back in the picture, Joe flees New York City to hide out in Los Angeles. He locks
up professional identity forger Will Bettelheim in a newly built book vault and assumes his identity.
Then quickly secures himself a new apartment and a new job working in the book section of a
trendy grocery store called Anavrin. Although, his new life is quickly complicated by enemies
of the real Will, like Jasper, who cuts off Joe’s finger due to being owed $50,000.
Joe is forced to kill Jasper, but proving to himself that he’s a better, changed man,
Joe also releases the real Will Bettelheim from the book vault after he promises to keep quiet.
Joe quickly finds a new object of his desire,
Love Quinn, a recent widow from a wealthy family that owns Anavrin. Unlike Beck,
Love is quickly all in on her relationship with Joe right from the start, and it’s Joe
who is hesitant to pursue the relationship due to fearing it will lead Love to the same
fate as Beck. But Joe eventually succumbs to his desires and engages in a relationship with Love.
Complicating his relationship with Love is her own co-dependent relationship with her twin brother,
Forty. Forty is a recovering addict and trust fund baby who dreams of being a famous writer and
director, but lacks the drive and talent necessary to succeed. If Joe wanted to be with Love,
Forty came with her as a package deal. Soon, Joe has been roped in to helping Forty write
his next attempted film project, an adaptation of Guinevere Beck’s book.
And if Forty’s own personal drama wasn’t enough, he soon finds himself a new girlfriend named Amy,
who is actually Candace, arriving in LA to blow up Joe’s life.
When Candace tells Love the truth about “Will Bettelheim”, aka Joe Goldberg,
the murderer of multiple people, including Guinevere Beck, Love takes Joe side,
who explains that Candace is just a crazy ex girlfriend he was trying to escape from.
As all of this is going on, Joe is also developing a friendship with his new teenage neighbor,
Ellie. When Ellie lands an internship with famous comedian Henderson, Ellie’s older sister Delilah
confides in Joe that Henderson has a history of sexually assaulting minors, including Delilah
when she was younger. And so, Joe goes into vengeful protector mode, confronting Henderson
about his history of abuse. This confrontation ends with Joe accidentally pushing Henderson down
a flight of stairs, which kills him, leading to yet another murder for Joe to have to cover up.
Henderson’s death is ruled a suicide, but Delilah’s cop friend with benefits, Fincher,
starts looking more into the case and begins to suspect Joe. This prompts Delilah to search
Joe’s apartment for evidence, which prompts Joe to lock Delilah up in his book vault.
Joe doesn’t want to kill Delilah and leave Ellie an orphan, so Joe plans to release her and flee
the country, leaving behind Love. But when Joe goes to book vault the next morning, he finds
that Delilah has been murdered. Candace arrives and locks Joe inside, then calls Love to the scene
so she can prove once and for all that Joe is a murderer. But this plan backfires on Candace,
as Love murders her and confesses to Joe that she also killed Delilah so that Joe’s secret was safe
and he wouldn’t need to run away without her. And then Love reveals that she also killed her
and Forty’s au pair when they were children AND that all season long SHE has been manipulating JOE
to make him fall in love with her, the same way he did to her and Beck.
This shatters Joe’s image of Love and he even debates killing her, but Love reveals that she’s
pregnant, so Joe decides to try loving Love again so he could be with his baby.
And although Love can forgive Joe of his past crimes, her twin brother Forty can not,
confronting the two of them and holding Joe at gunpoint. And that’s when Officer Fincher arrives,
shooting and killing Forty. The murder of Henderson is then pinned on Forty,
and the Quinn family helps to cover up the crime.
Joe then gives the newly orphaned Ellie a stack of cash and promises to continue
sending money as she runs off to start a new life somewhere else.
Now with all of his roadblocks and issues resolved, Joe was free to be with Love,
moving into a nice suburban house together in which they could raise their baby.
Buuuuuuut finding out Love is a murderer is not something Joe can move past so easily,
and he’s already got his sights set on his next object of desire, his new next door neighbor.