You 1x01 Pilot

Usually when I start a new show, I give it 3-4 episodes before I decide whether to keep watching it or not. If I still don’t care about the story or any of the characters after four episodes, it’s time to let go. But every once in a while there comes a series premiere which grabs me by the shoulders, pulls me close and whispers „I’m amazing… you need me in your life” into my ear. Of course, there’s always a chance of deterioration of quality as the season continues, but as a general rule of thumb if I love the premiere, I’m gonna love the rest of the show as well. So chances are I’m gonna love You! It’s definitely my favourite new series of the season so far, and I can easily see it being in my top ten come the end of December.
 

You is the story of Joe Goldberg, played by Penn Badgley, who I will confess I only know from Easy A, since I have yet to see a single episode of Gossip Girl. He wasn’t even the reason why I checked out this show – that honour goes to Shay Mitchell, the second of the Pretty Little Liars girls to be back on the small screen (Lucy Hale’s Life Sentence aired from Janury to ?? this year, and although it started promisingly, it dug itself so deep that by the end I was just relieved to see it go). I was a bit disappointed when I saw how small her role actually seems to be (so far, anyway), but that disappointment was countered by my enormous delight at seeing the actual leading lady of the show: why it’s Elizabeth Lail, aka Princess Anna from Once Upon a Time!

She was one of my all-time favourite recurring/guest stars in OUAT, and I’m so glad she’s getting leading roles now! This, alone, is reason enough for me to stuck around with this show, even if the aforementioned deterioration of quality kicks in eventually.

Anyway, as I said, You is the story of Joe Goldberg. Handsome guy, helpful bookstore employee, social media stalker extraordinaire. The object of his obsession is a girl named Beck, who chooses to go by her last name because her first name, Guinevere, is apparently too embarrassing. Guinevere. Embarrassing. If I was called Guinevere, I would insist that everyone call me by my full name all the time, no nicknames, no shorthands. Just Guinevere. One of the most badass names of all time. But anyway, „Beck” is a part time college student, part time yoga instructor, full time aspiring poet, trying to earn enough money to get by while navigating a complicated life of annoying best friends, useless boyfriend, and inappropriately behaving professors. The cute and witty guy she meets in a bookstore must seem like a breath of fresh air for our poor girl, but little does she know… he can piece together her entire life from the smallest of clues and decide to insert himself into it.

The irony of the situation is, of course, that if Joe took the time to approach Beck like a normal person, she would totally fall for him naturally. But Joe is clearly not a normal person, and who knows how much of his projected personality is real, anyway. Sure, he clearly loves books dearly, as demonstrated by that actually lovely scene where he shows his abused little neighbour, Paco, how do rebind broken old books. But everything else he showed of himself so far? He’s a textbook case of the unreliable narrator, so as of yet I choose not to believe anything he says or does.

So that leaves us with Joe spying on Beck in the most inappropriate moments, following her everywhere and completely lacking the self-awareness about it (you can’t help but snort when he says shit like „You ought to be more careful, Beck, or some weirdo might follow you down here”), and, eventually, kidnapping her kinda-boyfriend and beating him bloody. The whole setup is absolutely terrifying, but God, I can’t wait to see what happens next.