Okay, I might be four months late, but I finally sat down and watched the second season of You! Now a while back I reviewed the second novel, Hidden Bodies, that this season was going to be based on. I would say that it was pretty loosely based on that book, but there were parts I liked more in the show than in the book.
The show did follow the novel in that the season starts with Joe moving to LA. The difference is that in the book he was just getting a fresh start, whereas in the show he was trying to escape a seemingly resurrected Candace. Also different from the book is Joe’s landlord, Delilah, who was just a neighbor…and also ridiculously annoying. She was definitely more redeemable in the show by being an investigative journalist. Delilah was also given a little sister, Ellie. Good lord was this teenager irritating!
Either way, Joe finds Love (a person), a decides he’s going to do it all differently. While there is a grocery store involved in the series like the book, Love’s career is that of chef rather than general fame. Her twin brother Forty is fame hungry and basically a man-child, but those were some pretty notable differences. Love seems to be all in with Joe from the get-go and very soon after, so is Joe. He just has to deal with a few things as he woos Love.
One of those things is dealing with the guy he has locked in the cage that he managed to bring across the country with him and reassemble in a storage unit. That man’s name is Will, and Joe has essentially assumed his identity. Something different that Joe achieves in not killing the real Will, and in fact lets him go. He actually almost forms what some would consider a friendship. Aside from Will, Joe also has to deal with the predatory comedian, Henderson (expertly cast with Chris D’Elia). That doesn’t take too long, and Joe seemingly gets away with his murder.
Up until the very end that is. Delilah’s got a close cop contact who seems to think Joe might have something to do with Henderson’s murder. This spurns Delilah to head over to Joe’s storage unit. Bad move, girl. Joe finds her and locks her in with the intention of letting her go after he gets the heck out of LA. In his quest to escape, Forty tracks him down, doses him with some LSD, and forces him to write a script. In all the madness, when Joe arrives the next morning, Delilah is dead and Joe is devastated with himself. Candace shows up to finally give Joe a dose of his own medicine by unveiling all of Joe’s dark secrets to Love.
Well that plan mightily backfires, because Love kills Candace and admits to Joe that she killed Delilah, too. Joe thinks she is crazy. Someone has finally out-Joed Joe, but he can’t handle it because even though he experiences some enlightening flashbacks, he still thinks his murders were well-intentioned. In the act of almost killing Love for her transgressions, she admits that she’s pregnant and Joe is willing to give it a go. But there’s also a pretty attractive new neighbor that catches his eye before the credits roll.
The major difference between the two here is that in the novel, Joe ends up in jail! I wonder how much consulting Caroline Kepnes did on set since she is in the midst of writing the third novel? Overall, I was satisfied with the liberties that the show took. It follows the general structure of the book with making more believable changes. That was my major complaint with the book, is that it seemed so far-fetched compared to the first outing. Either way, I’ll be interested to see where the story goes for the show and the book.