WARNING: the following contains spoilers for Season 3 of You, now streaming on Netflix.
Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) always gets the girl he wants. He’s charming, intelligent and resourceful –which makes it easier for him to stalk the women he becomes obsessed with and trap them in relationships. His determination to be with the objects of his affection sent Joe down a dark path, as he ruthlessly murdered anyone who got in his way.
Over the span of the show, Joe has killed nearly a dozen people. Here is a detailed list of his victims:
Benji
Beck’s (Elizabeth Lail) on-and-off boyfriend Benji (Lou Taylor Pucci) was, according to Joe, “everything that’s wrong with America”. Benji was a typical trust fund kid who occupied his time with start-up projects like dating apps and artisanal beverages. Jealous of his relationship with Beck, Joe tricked Benji into meeting up with him by pretending to be interested in his company and invited him to an underground speak-easy, which was actually the basement underneath the bookstore. Just as Benji started to realize that something fishy was going on, Joe knocked him out and locked him inside the book vault. Despite begging Joe for freedom and admitting to being part of a fraternity hazing ritual that led to a pledge dying, Benji was eventually killed via drinking coffee that contained peanut oil, which he was allergic to.
Peach Salinger
Peach Salinger, portrayed by Shay Mitchell of Pretty Little Liars fame, was a wealthy socialite who had gone to college with Beck. She took an instant dislike to Joe for his attachment to Beck and was not afraid to show it. Joe saw Peach as a threat to his relationship and hit her over the head with a rock while she was running in Central Park. Much to his dismay, Peach survived the attack. Persistent as ever, Joe followed Beck and Peach to the Salinger estate in Greenwich and stayed hidden in the house until Beck left. Peach discovered him in the house and threatened him with a gun. Joe, however, managed to get the gun from her, then shot her and made it look like a suicide.
Elijah Thornton
Not much was known about Joe’s ex-girlfriend Candace (Ambyr Childers), but a series of flashbacks revealed that she was a musician. Joe grew possessive of her and became suspicious that she was seeing someone behind his back, particularly a representative at a record label that was interested in signing her. This lead to Joe finding Elijah (Esteban Benito) at a party. Once he was alone on a rooftop, Joe confronted Elijah about taking advantage of Candace. Elijah then told Joe that Candace was the one who initiated things between them, claiming that he had no idea Candace was in a relationship. Visibly hurt by this, Joe took his anger out on Elijah and pushed him off the rooftop.
Ron
One of the reasons why Joe seemed like a redeemable character (if you can forget that he’s a serial killer) was his relationship with Paco (Luca Padovan), a young boy who lived next door to him. Joe seemed to genuinely care about Paco and provided a safe space for him while his mom, Claudia (Victoria Cartagena) was otherwise occupied. He was less fond of Paco’s stepfather, Ron (Daniel Cosgrove), an abusive ex-parole officer who disliked Joe. After numerous altercations with Claudia, including an attack that left her hospitalized, Paco attacked Ron with a baseball bat and hid from him behind their apartment building. Joe sneaked up on Ron and slit his throat, then instructed Paco to pretend that he didn't know where Ron was.
Guinevere Beck
Joe’s obsession with Guinevere Beck was the reason for all his stalking and murdering. Things seemed to be going well in their relationship until Joe’s ex-fling confronted Beck and warned her that he still wasn’t over Candace. This made Beck curious, so she went digging for information about Candace’s mysterious disappearance, which led to her finding a box of artefacts hidden in Joe’s ceiling that contained Peach and Benji’s cellphones, her own underwear, and some human remains. When Joe discovered that Beck knew his secret, he locked her in the book vault. Beck pretended to be grateful for Joe’s deranged behavior and managed to escape and lock him in the vault, but he got out and killed her. Being the resourceful guy that he is, Joe submitted a false memoir under Beck’s name that framed her therapist for all the murders that Joe had committed.
Jasper
After a confrontation with Candace, Joe left New York for the sunny city of LA, where he kidnapped and stole the identity of a hacker named Will Bettelheim (Robin Lord Taylor). Unbeknownst to Joe, Will happened to owe $50 000 to a man named Jasper (Steven W. Bailey), who came looking for the money at his apartment. Joe met up with Jasper outside Anavrin, and Jasper removed the tip of Joe’s pinkie as leverage. Joe then led Jasper to the storage unit where he was keeping the real Will in yet another plexiglass prison and explained that Will was the one who owed him money. Jasper still attempted to attack Joe, but Joe stabbed him first, killing him instantly. This death turned out to be the most gruesome one, as Joe cut up Jasper’s body with a meat grinder and then threw the remains into the trash.
Henderson
Henderson (Chris D’Elia) was a comedian who sexually assaulted Joe’s neighbor Delilah (Carmela Zumbado) when she was a minor. Out of concern for Delilah’s younger sister Ellie (Jenna Ortega), Joe broke into Henderson’s house and found a secret room where he kept Polaroids of other underage girls that he had abused. Joe later followed Ellie back to Henderson’s house and drugged him after seeing Henderson spike Ellie’s drink. Joe tied Henderson to a chair and told him to confess to his crimes, but Henderson managed to get himself loose and was almost free when Joe flung him down the stairs, causing Henderson to hit his head against a wall and die.
His mom's partner
Joe’s troubled childhood is revealed sporadically throughout the show via flashbacks of his past. The emotional abuse from the bookstore owner Mr. Mooney explained Joe’s habit of locking people up in cages, but it was his relationship with his mother that caused the most damage. When Joe was about nine years old, his mother was in an abusive relationship with a man who may or not have been his father. In a Season 2 flashback, Joe’s mother showed him that she had a gun hidden in her closet for protection. Later in the episode, Joe saw his mother being beaten by her partner and grabbed her gun, shooting the man in his chest. After the shock of the death, Joe’s mother repeatedly told him that he was a good boy who would never hurt anyone, but she was clearly very wrong about that.
Ryan Goodwin
Ryan Goodwin (Scott Michael Foster) was a news reporter and the ex-husband of Joe’s latest obsession, Marienne (Tati Gabrielle). Marienne had been trying to gain custody of their daughter, but Ryan used his fame and connections to convince everyone that Marienne was an addict who was incapable of being a parent. Joe followed his usual pattern of snooping around to thwart Ryan’s plans to leave with his and Marienne’s child, but he wasn’t cautious enough, as Ryan became aware that Joe was up to something. In the penultimate episode of Season 3, Joe followed Ryan into a parking lot with a plan to inject him with enough drugs to kill him. Ryan got the better of him and attacked Joe first, but Joe pushed him off the edge of the building and then impaled him with a knife to finish the job.
Love Quinn-Goldberg
Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) was Joe’s perfect match. She was charming, witty, talented… and had no problem with killing anyone who got in the way of their relationship. After having a baby and moving to the suburbs of Madre Linda, Joe and Love’s relationship became unstable. Joe fell into his usual patterns of obsession with other women, which made Love behave erratically and attack people who threatened to disturb her peace. After learning about Joe’s relationship with Marienne, Love paralyzed him with aconite and attempted to kill him. Always expecting the worst of his wife, Joe had prepared for this by taking adrenaline and came out of the paralysis sooner than expected. He injected Love with a large enough dosage of aconite to kill her, then sent a mass email from her account in which she confessed to murdering their neighbors, and faked his own death by burning down the house.