After finally giving in to their feelings in the previous episode, You season 5, episode 5, opens with Joe and Bronte having moved the action from Joe’s office to Bronte’s apartment where they talk through notes on his book and she points out that “girls like messy,” but Joe isn’t sure how much of his mess he should actually let her see.
Following his night with Bronte, Joe is riding a high and doesn’t seem to mind that Kate isn’t paying much attention to him as it’s allowing him time for his extramarital affairs. Little does he know, Kate’s suspicions haven’t lessened. In fact, she calls up the investigator she hired to look into Joe three years ago to request the details on the information Cynthia scrubbed.
As for Maddie? Well, it seems she’s struggling to maintain her persona as Reagan as we see in a brief glimpse of her fumbling through her act with Harrison and Gretchen.
At Mooney’s, Joe wants to find a way to get Bronte to show him more of her and grows suspicious when she gets a call and hides the phone from him. Knowing that acts of service are her love language, Joe arranges for groceries to be delivered and hires a masseuse to give her a massage in hopes that it’ll help her relax and get her creative juices flowing. Joe heads out and we later see Bronte rushing out of the apartment to give the masseuse a tip – and we’re not the only ones who witness this. Turns out Kate had been following him and witnessed Bronte coming out of the building, putting things together.
Upon learning of Joe’s affair, Kate opens up to Teddy about her frustrations in being fooled into being cursed with Joe and alludes to things he had done before. When Teddy presses her for details, she reveals how in London, Joe told her he had done things in his past that she allowed herself to believe he did to protect others. She tells Teddy how Joe has hurt people, but that’s just the beginning.
Cynthia’s findings revealed that he cheated on his last wife with a woman who has since gone missing: Marienne Bellamy, a librarian, whose affair with Joe began a few months before Love Quinn supposedly killed herself. Kate’s now questioning Joe’s story about Love. Kate tells Teddy they’re safe as long as Joe doesn’t know they know the truth. She asks Teddy to let her handle things and to trust her because she knows what to do to handle things.
Back at Mooney’s, Bronte has been writing again and leaves the pages on Joe’s desk to read. They close the store early and take things up to her apartment, and Joe fully embraces what she wants: a dominant man. Things seem to be going fine until Joe tells Bronte to tell him she’s his, which makes her use her stop word. While she walked up to the ledge and almost gave him her full trust, something made her pull back, but Joe wasn’t able to stick around to talk through things.
Maddie has been blowing up Joe’s phone about meeting, so he goes to see her. She tells him they need to move up their timeline as Kate keeps asking questions. Joe reminds her they need to wait at least a month, but Maddie is worried she’s too undercover as Reagan is haunting her. Joe assures her they just need to wait one more month and that she’s got this.
Bronte leaves Joe, sending him into his old ways
Following his meeting, Joe heads back to Mooney’s and instead of finding Bronte, he finds a goodbye note on his typewriter.
“Joe, I’m sorry. I’m leaving town. Thank you for everything. Bronte,” reads the note. He races up to her apartment only to find that her belongings are gone and there is no sign of her anywhere. Like literally nowhere. Her phone is disconnected, and his texts aren’t even going through.
As Joe spirals, he sees a story on Clayton’s timeline that makes him momentarily question whether he could be behind her disappearance. He sets a trap and tries to return to normal life, but quickly realizes things aren’t normal when Henry finds a knife under Kate’s pillow in their bed. Joe confronts Kate, who turns things back around and questions what he did to Reagan to get her to flip.
Things get incredibly heated as Kate confronts Joe about her suspicions that he killed his first wife and makes it clear she knows he’s sleeping with his shopkeeper. Ever the gaslighter, Joe spins the conversation back to Kate, claiming that she had no problem with who he was when it benefited her, as he reminds her hands aren’t clean either. When Kate tells Joe she wants a divorce, he storms off to go sleep at his shop since she doesn’t feel safe with him around.
Once in his car, Joe gets a message back from Clayton confirming he’s out of town. Joe sees this as an opportunity to break into Clayton’s apartment, poke around, and discover more about Clayton. He begins by looking at his recent searches on Clayton’s computer, wondering if Bronte might have run away with him. The theory changes as he notices an empty gun case and wonders if Clayton pressured her into going with him.
Much to Joe’s surprise, Bronte calls Joe and asks if he got her note. She says she can’t talk right now, but needed to hear his voice. Joe asks if Clayton did something, but before answering, she tells Joe not to worry about her as she hangs up. Joe calls back, and a diner employee answers the phone, giving Joe the address and Joe races out to the address.
The diner employee confirms Bronte and Clayton were there last night. Not only were they together, but they got into a fight. The diner employee tells Joe they had plans to go to the Sandbox, a house on the beach, so Joe heads out to check it out. While he’s poking around, Bronte comes up behind him and tases him.
When Joe comes to, Bronte apologizes for tasering him and explains he caught her off guard, so she tried to defend herself. As Joe asks about Clayton, Bronte makes it clear to him that she is not his to save. Bronte tells Joe that things were too real and she was scared. She never wanted to be a trope or an affair, which is when Joe poses the question, “What if you weren’t the other woman?” as he then tells her about his divorce.
Back in the city, Kate goes to see Reagan but finds Maddie instead. Maddie tries to make excuses for why Reagan doesn’t want to see Kate and even tells her about Reagan’s “plan” to head to the Philippines for some me time in a month. Kate asks Maddie if she knows why Reagan stepped down and whether Joe had something to do with it."
Maddie goes upstairs to “get Reagan,” but ends up locking herself in the bathroom instead. As Kate pounds on the door outside, Maddie channels Reagan and tries to get Kate to leave. When Kate persists, Maddie ends up having a meltdown as the lines blur between the two roles she’s playing as Maddie and her Reagan persona argue in the mirror. Kate finally manages to pick the lock and, to her surprise, when she enters the bathroom, Maddie is the only one there.
Confused, Kate asks Maddie where Reagan is which is when Maddie finally comes clean telling Kate the truth: Reagan’s dead and she’s haunting her because she killed her. Maddie tells Kate about being trapped in Joe’s cage at the bookstore. As she spirals, Maddie begins to question whether it was a good thing, as it made her finally see who Reagan really was and that Joe helped her to finally realize all of the trauma she’s endured. She begs Kate to pretend like this never happened, but it’s clear Kate isn’t going to let Joe get away with this.
We cut back to Joe and Bronte, as Joe demands that Bronte say she belongs to him and he’s hers forever. She questions whether he would feel the same if he knew the real her, and things move to the bedroom from there. This time, Bronte fully gives in to her desires and the pair end up together.
After learning the truth about Maddie and Reagan, Kate fills Teddy in on things. Needless to say, he’s not happy about Kate refusing to go to the police, which is when Kate tells Teddy the full truth about how Joe killed Bob for her and how she stood by as he framed a young girl for the murder of Rhys. Teddy points out that no matter what happens, he’s the Black guy from Harlem who is going to look like he profited from Bob’s murder. Kate insists she’s got things under control, and he reminds Kate she has no control over what Maddie and Joe will do.
You season 5 episode 5 ending explained: Joe is caught red-handed
As the episode draws to a close, we return to the Sandbox where Joe is getting dressed in front of the mirror when he hears a noise from downstairs. We hear Clayton telling Bronte not to talk about his dad like that as Joe rounds the corner to see Clayton standing over Bronte, yelling. Joe pulls Clayton away from Bronte which is when Clayton takes a swing at Joe, before turning his attention back to Bronte.
Joe begins to strangle Clayton, who puts up a fight before Joe smashes Clayton’s head against the stone hearth by the fireplace, killing him instantly. Before Joe even has time to react, two women burst into the house with one live-streaming the entire incident. As one of the women races to check Clayton, only to find he has no pulse, the other continues to keep the phone fixated on Joe and he recognizes her from the literary salon.
The woman tells the viewers watching live on TikTok that her friend is dead and Joe Goldberg killed him. When Bronte walks back into the room, Joe tells her they need to leave right now. To his surprise, Bronte holds up her taser again as the friend holding the phone comments, “We f-cking got him, Louise.”
The episode ends with Joe questioning what has just happened as it sets in that he seems to have just walked into a trap set by Bronte. Joe has gotten out of some tough situations in the past, but with just five episodes left, it’s clear we’re racing towards the finish line, and there is no telling how things will end as we enter the final episodes of You.