Goldberg exhibits traits of an “intimacy seeker” according to the stalking categories, but as You progresses, he fluctuates between the identities of a “rejected” and “resentful” stalker who feels wronged by others or wants to reconcile with his partner.
Joe's behaviour is a classic example of the delusional nature of erotomania. He is convinced that Beck is sending him signals of her love and is willing to ignore any evidence to the contrary.
Joe Goldberg is the protagonist and narrator of You, but he is far from a hero. As an obsessive stalker and killer, he is relentless in his pursuit of Guinevere Beck, determined to make her love him regardless of her desires.
During the second half of the season, he also kills Rhys (Ed Speleers), Kate's father, Tom (Greg Kinnear), his bodyguard, Hugo (Craig McGinlay), and his student, Edward (Brad Alexander). Adding up all of Joe's kills throughout the series brings us to a grand total of 18.
But according to mental health experts, Goldberg's mental health is more complicated, especially since the term psychopath doesn't hold much meaning, clinically speaking. Goldberg shows signs of antisocial personality disorder, narcissism, and codependency in season 1.
If you've been following the psychological thriller series You, you know it follows a bookstore manager who falls in love and develops an extreme obsession with different women. The latest season finally gives main character Joe Goldberg's condition a name—erotomania.
Abandonment Issues. Many of Joe's obsessions are a result of his upbringing. As a child, Joe's abandoned by his mother and placed into foster care after he kills his mother's boyfriend, an abusive partner.
The 'You' Season 4 Finale Finally Proves Joe Is a Villain, Not a Hero. After spending much of Season 4 convincing fans that the murderous Joe Goldberg is a tortured hero to root for, its finale (refreshingly) makes it explicit: This is one bad dude.
The serial-killing protagonist (Penn Badgley) of Netflix's hit show You, now in its fourth season, is not a good person. He's killed a lot of people — like, a lot of people — and he abandoned his son after seeming to murder his (fellow serial killer) wife, Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti, in a sorely missed role.) So.
Gamble explains. "Joe's not a sociopath. Killing isn't easy for Joe, but he obviously has something inside him that allows him to cross lines in what he considers extreme circumstances... People who do bad things aren't that different from people who don't."
During season four, it becomes clear Joe has developed split personality disorder, which is why he always thinks he is killing for good, can't remember some of the times he's killed people, and when he is killing people, loses all control.
But underlying all the blood and gore, Goldberg's unhealthy fixation on those he loves might be attributable to a surprisingly common condition called love addiction — a desperate need to find someone to love unconditionally fueled by the irrational fear of being alone or being rejected, according to The Ranch ...
Biography. Joe is a loner bookstore manager who becomes infatuated with a woman named Guinevere Beck and begins to stalk her to find out everything about her and hopefully make her fall in love with him. However, his obsession soon becomes out of control when he starts trying to control every aspect of her life.
While doing all that, “he wasn't Joe,” as he kept repeating to her: he was an alternate personality who needed to exist and keep Marienne imprisoned because the “Joe” inside him could never do that to Marienne. Rhys is another alternate personality, and also Professor Moore.
Played by Lou Taylor Pucci, Benji was Joe's first victim in series one of You after the ex-boyfriend of Beck proved to be a love rival amid Joe's obsession with Beck.
So why did Joe kill Love? Because he wanted to break up with her, tired of living with a killer and keep hiding the bodies she killed, because he wanted to start a new life with Marienne, and ultimately because Love attempted to kill him.
Besides being obsessive, Joe Goldberg is also very manipulative. He can easily put on a charming façade to hide his true intentions and make others trust him.
In part 2 of You's fourth season, Penn Badgley's former bookstore manager discovered that Rhys (Ed Speleers), a.k.a. the person he identified as the Eat the Rich killer was... not real. But rather, Rhys is a figment of Joe's imagination. It seems all that killing and head trauma finally led Joe to a psychotic break.
“For some women, they see a person that is broken, and that failed to be loved at some point in their lives and can deeply empathise with him,” she said. “They can see past the pathology and see a person who can benefit from their nurturing.”
Kelly Scott, a therapist at Tribeca Therapy, told the publication that Joe exhibits symptoms of both antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder (presumably among other more sinister conditions).
When Jo tells Laurie that she's tried to love him like he loves her but she can't, this is a nod to the author's struggle to love men as she thought women were supposed to love men but she just couldn't. Jo was never supposed to marry, much like Alcott never married.
Weaknesses: Human limitations. Joe is obsessive and suffers from hallucinations of his exes and eventually hallucinations of a split personality known as "Rhys Montrose", which lead to severe lapses in his memory.
It comes down to the empathy that Joe evokes, according to Neo. "Empathy is really about how we are compelled to understand why things are the way they are. And we try to do that for other people, especially if we are very understanding of other people. So when we have empathy for someone, it hooks us in."
Early life. At the story's outset, it is revealed that Joe was orphaned at a young age. From flashbacks, it is revealed that Joe's biological mother, Sandy (Magda Apanowicz) was abused by his biological father and that he was subjected to neglect and abuse by his father.
To give a brief summary of Part One's events, the season picked up where Season 3 left off. Joe left Los Angeles—where he faked his own death, blamed it on Love (literally and figuratively), gave his son Henry to their neighbors, and fled to Paris in search of Marienne, his one true love (this time for real).