Late this summer Lifetime quietly premiered You, a terribly titled new drama starring Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl) and Elizabeth Lail (never heard of her). Advertised as a thriller about a man stalking a romantic interest, I wasn't expecting much from the show, but I had read some decent reviews so I decided to check it out. The show follows Joe, a quiet bookstore owner who begins dating Beck, a loopy and irresponsible, but kind, student and aspiring writer. Soon Joe becomes completely obsessed with Beck, monitoring her texts and phone calls and tracking her every movement, as well as doing everything he can to remove anyone vying for Beck's attention from her life. This leads to a series of more and more serious crimes and a web of lies that finally begins to unravel in the last couple thrilling episodes of the season.
What could have been a mediocre show is elevated by the out-there, balls-to-the-wall performance of Badgley as Joe. His acting never did much for me on Gossip Girl (at least from what I saw of the teen drama), but here his performance totally makes the show. He skillfully creates a character that the audience believes could exist; we can see how Beck could be drawn to him, why he goes to such crazy lengths for love, and how he ended up becoming so disturbed in the first place. Badgley’s voiceover narration is award-worthy by itself. He injects darkness and wry humor into lines that are often quite cheesily written. Because of Badgley, I found myself actually rooting for the character despite of all his crimes. I even found Joe and Beck to be cute together, and I kind of wanted them to succeed as a couple, even though I knew that would never happen in the end.
Also notable is the subplot involving Joe's neighbor Paco (Luca Padovan), a young boy who Joe takes under his wing and tries to protect from his mom's abusive boyfriend. Despite all of his misdeeds involving Beck, Joe does right by Paco, but towards the end of the season I started to wonder if Joe would start to groom him into becoming a sort of monster like himself, whether intentionally or not. There's a moment in the finale where Paco discovers at least a piece of Joe's misdeeds, but he keeps the secret to himself, leading the viewer to believe that Joe now has a dangerously strong hold over him. This sets up some interesting possible story evolution for next season.
Despite the show's fast-paced storytelling and strong performance from Badgley, it does still have a few flaws. As I mentioned before, the writing is often quite cheesy. The writers paint Beck into such a naïve nitwit that I sometimes just wanted Joe to kill her already (yes, I'm twisted). I can't really fault Lail's performance for her character's flaws, however. After all, her character is completely in the dark for most of the season, so she's just portraying a young girl falling in love. When she does begin to uncover the truth in the last 2 episodes of the season, Lail switches gears and becomes a terrified victim, stepping up her acting game in the process (although still not matching that of Badgley). Despite these flaws, I definitely recommend bingeing the 10 episode first season (now concluded). I'm really curious to see where the story goes, if it comes back for season 2 that is...
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