The Scariest Moments In You So Far

After beginning on the Lifetime channel in 2018, "You" was picked up by Netflix after its first season when Lifetime had to drop the series due to its low ratings (via The Hollywood Reporter). As soon as Season 1 of "You" hit Netflix, a lack of an audience was no longer an issue, as the thriller became an instant hit on the streaming service. The series has aired three seasons and is still going strong, with Netflix even renewing it for its fourth season before the third had premiered (via Deadline).

Once you get going with "You," it's clear why it's become so popular — the thriller drama is, well, thrilling. It follows Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), a self-proclaimed romantic who will do anything for the woman he loves — including stalking her, manipulating her, and even killing for her. A few episodes in and it becomes clear that Joe is a serial killer, but that's not how he sees himself — and through Joe's narration, viewers get to experience how the killer justifies his actions.

Considering the nature of the plot, it's no surprise that the series is full of creepy moments, but which ones are the most terrifying? Here, we break down the scariest moments in "You" that viewers have seen so far.

Benji turns out to be alive after Joe attacks him, but he isn't free. Joe decides to keep him locked up in his vault until he figures out what to do with him. Joe narrates, "Okay, granted, didn't think too far ahead when I swung that mallet. I just knew Benji was the worst kind of poison." By this, Joe means that he has to get Benji out of the equation because he thinks Beck is too good for him. The fact that he doesn't think it through, however, only makes it scarier — his impulsiveness can lead to violence at any time.

Benji, pleading with Joe, says, "Whoever you are, you're not a killer." Joe, within his narration, agrees with Benji. This, of course, turns out to be far from the truth. Knowing that releasing Benji means possibly landing himself in jail (or worse), Joe decides to kill him, and Benji soon becomes Joe's first murder that the viewer witnesses. 

Joe gives Benji a latte with two hidden tablespoons of peanut oil in it, which Benji is deathly allergic to. Joe watches calmly as Benji gaps for air and eventually dies — and the viewer gets confirmation that not only is Joe willing to kill, but he doesn't feel anything when he does.

The first season's finale is an action-packed one. Following the Episode 9 cliffhanger, Beck wakes up in the book vault after Joe realizes she found his obsessive box of her things, which includes everything from her underwear to a used tampon, and things get a lot more intense very quickly.

Eventually, Beck decides to tell Joe how much she loves him and that she forgives him to get him to let her out of the vault — which he falls for. Beck manages to stab Joe, then lock him in the vault while she escapes. Beck even gets to tell Joe off, as she asserts that he's a sociopath, that tells him that she could never love him. Unfortunately, Beck doesn't know Joe has a key in the cage in case something like this happens. Beck manages to knock Joe down with a mallet but cannot escape before he grabs her. In the next shot, it's revealed that Beck has died.

Even though it becomes clear before it happens that Joe will kill Beck, it's still terrifying to watch. Beyond that, as the first instance in which we actually see Joe get rid of someone he claims to love, it leaves the door wide open to all the possible future victims of Joe's — including any and all future girlfriends (or wives).

As Season 2 begins, Joe has moved from New York City to Los Angeles to escape his ex-girlfriend Candace, who he thought was dead. To start a new life, he has taken on a new name, Will Bettelheim, and is determined not to get fixated on someone again after what happened with Beck, as this is meant to be his "fresh start."

Of course, it turns out that Joe hasn't exactly turned over a new leaf. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that Joe is keeping the real Will Bettelheim hostage in a brand new book vault, this time within a storage unit, to use his identity. In this case, Will hasn't even done anything to Joe that Joe could possibly use to justify his actions — this capture is merely Joe deciding that he'll do anything to get what he wants.

What he wants is Love (Victoria Pedretti), a woman who he sets his sights on immediately after coming to LA despite claiming to be past his old fixating ways. By the end of Season 2, Episode 1, it's crystal clear that Joe has not changed one bit and that he is just as, if not more, ruthless than ever.

Joe isn't the only monster in Season 2 of "You." One of the characters introduced this season is Henderson (Chris D'Elia), a famous comedian who recently beat testicular cancer. Despite his fame and the public sympathy for him post-cancer, Henderson's true nature is soon revealed through Joe's digging and Delilah's (Carmela Zumbado) work as a celebrity reporter. Henderson, as it turns out, is a different kind of predator than Joe — he's one that preys on underage girls, sexually assaulting them after drugging them. He has a collection of photos that prove this, which Joe finds.

After learning this, Joe is worried about Ellie (Jenna Ortega), who wants Henderson to mentor her. In the fourth episode of Season 2, Ellie goes over to Henderson's house, hoping to show him her short film. While there, Henderson attempts to roofie her. Luckily, Joe, looking out for Ellie, is there, and, in a rare moment in which his stalking is a good thing, he intervenes by drugging Henderson's drink as well. It all ends when Henderson dies after falling down the stairs while fighting with Joe.

However, the fact that the fight ends in death is not the scariest part of this sequence of events. What's most terrifying about the whole thing is seeing a grown-up, powerful man attempt to abuse his power with an underage girl — something we know he has gotten away with over and over again.

By the ninth episode of Season 2, viewers are likely very worried about the fate of Love — after all, we all saw what happened to Joe's last love, Beck. Plus, the beginning of Episode 8 sees Joe finding Delilah, who he trapped in his vault after she discovers his true nature, dead. Joe fears he may have killed her while tripping on acid with Forty (James Scully) the previous day.

Meanwhile, Candace continues her quest to make Joe pay for his actions. Right as it seems she may be about to get what she wants by locking him in the vault with Delilah's dead body, Candace calls Love to the vault, hoping to expose Joe. However, Love isn't exactly disgusted or scared to find out that Joe is a killer, and she stabs Candace to death in order to save Joe.

After that shocking twist, Love returns to Joe and reveals that she "took care" of Candace. In the final episode of Season 2, fans find out that Love also killed Delilah in defense of Joe and the au pair who abused her brother when they were younger. She tells Joe about all of the digging that she did into his past, revealing that he isn't the only one who resorts to stalking a love interest. Love showing her true nature paints a clear picture that there's never just one sociopath out in the world.

We see Joe do a whole lot of stalking and spying, often letting himself into the homes of women, sometimes even while they're present. Who could forget him hiding in Beck's shower while she stood at her bathroom sink or underneath the bed that Beck was lying on with Peach?

In Season 3, after the death of Natalie, Joe finds his new target in Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), his colleague at the library. As viewers would expect, Joe begins to stalk Marienne just as he had with his past loves. With Marienne, Joe claims that it's different and that he knows she is the one he is meant to be with. In a way, she is different, as Marienne is the first individual that Joe hasn't become obsessed with upon first sight, but rather gradually (not that this makes his obsessive stalking even 1% better).

So, there's something especially creepy about Joe sneaking around Marienne's home and hiding underneath her bed when she shows up when he claims that it's different this time around. Really, it's just a blatant reminder — if you needed one — that Joe hasn't changed and that he never will.

However, it turns out that Joe is not actually surprised by Love paralyzing him. Sensing that something is off, he looks into what she was growing in the garden, discovering that she was preparing a paralytic to potentially use on him at any given time. Sensing her anger before their dinner — during which he tells her he wants a divorce — he takes adrenaline as an antidote in preparation for her to paralyze him. 

With the adrenaline in his system, the paralysis wears off much quicker. When Love returns, he has his own dose of the paralytic ready to inject in Love. Joe narrates, describing that when injected directly into the body, the substance "burns as it moves through the system to the heart," resulting in a "slow paralysis" and "total f***ing agony." Love dies as Joe explains how he took her down, claiming he had to stop her.

After giving their baby, Henry, to his colleague Dante (Ben Mehl), who has been trying to adopt with his partner for years, Joe finishes his plan. He fakes his death and flees, but not before sending a message out as Love, in which she confesses to all the crimes, from Natalie's death to the attack on the anti-vaxxer and even Joe's faked demise. When we next see Joe, in the final moments of Season 3, he has moved to Paris and is still in search of Marienne — destined to commit more and more horrific crimes.