You is easily one of the creepiest new shows of 2019. The Netflix original—which first aired on Lifetime last fall—centers on a bookstore manager, Joe (Penn Badgley), who develops an unhealthy obsession with a woman named Beck (Elizabeth Lail). Joe's fascination causes him to do some bonkers things, like stalk Beck and her friends, manipulate everyone around him, and, oh yeah, murder. Why some people are actually romanticizing Joe is beyond me. He's a killer—a very, very creepy killer.
But do you know what makes him even creepier? Removing his voice-over from You's episodes. If you watch the show, you know it's heavily guided by Joe's narration—but what you might not realize is without it, the characters don't actually say much. In fact, as Netflix points out in this video, in one scene the only word Beck and Joe say is falafel. That's it: just "falafel." The rest is Joe's voice-over, which makes the scene very awkward when you remove it.
"For someone so obsessed with keeping a relationship alive, Joseph, there's a lot of dead air," Netflix writes in the video, and it's so true. Joe spends most of his time on this show staring blankly into space and saying literally nothing. Why did Beck fall for him? How did she not realize he was suspect from the start? He doesn't know any words—and he works at a bookstore! (Also, side note: We never see Joe read on this show, either. He just keeps books in that weird glass box.)
Watch You without voice-over for yourself, below.
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"I don't see him as a portrayal of a real person; I see him as a representation of the part of us that identifies with him," Badgley told Today about his polarizing You character. "The part of us that is a troll; that part of us that is victim blaming; the part of us that is privileged and blind. We're meant to identify with him."
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