The actor tells ET he was 'crestfallen' about Love's big turn and hints at what could come in a third season.
Warning: Do not proceed if you have not watched the entire second season of You. Major spoilers ahead. Hear Victoria Pedretti, Ambyr Childers and James Scully's takes on the shocking ending.
Jaw, meet floor.
You finished off its second season with a doozy of an ending, with twists and turns that would give any other TV show -- we're looking at you, Game of Thrones, Lost and Westworld -- a run for its money. How did the latest season end? With the revelation that Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), proven serial killer and all-around (sexy) creep, isn't the only murderer.
That lucky distinction goes to Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), Joe's latest girlfriend obsession, whose hidden murderous streak -- stemming from a traumatic childhood, very much similar to Joe -- was revealed in dramatic fashion in the penultimate episode, when she violently and shockingly killed Joe's ex, Candace (Ambyr Childers), by slitting her throat with a broken glass bottle. The fact that Love is a killer like Joe doesn't earn her any brownie points with her beau. How screwed up is that?
Adding insult to injury is the fact that Love is pregnant with Joe's baby, a fact that won't be easy for the former bookstore manager-turned-Los Angeles transplant to reconcile. In the final moments of the season two finale, Joe already has his eye on a new obsession, a faceless woman suntanning by a pool in the house next door. What does this mean for Love and season three?
For much of the season, it was presumed that it was Joe who was guilty of committing horrific crimes and never was it suspected that Love could be capable of hurting a fly. Well, that narrative shifted in episode nine when she killed Candace in cold blood after discovering the box; revealed to Joe that it was her who killed Delilah, Joe's nosy investigative reporter neighbor; and that she framed her brother, Forty, for the death of their au pair even though she was the one who murdered her.
"She is theoretically a perfect match, because she wants to see somebody the way Joe wants to be seen, and vice versa," Badgley told ET of Joe and Love. "They both want to be seen... actually you understand more and more, she has a mania there too. That once you understand why Love is the way she is, and who she actually is, you realize that there is no perfect match for Joe. 'Cause actually, he's found her, but that's the thing... we are too accustomed to being like, if she didn't find the box, they'd be together. Like, no! ... People like Joe cannot receive what they want because they want something impossible. I feel like when we see what Joe, what Love's character is, then it's like, oh yeah, of course. Did he find his soulmate? And he turned her into a villain in a split second."
Badgley said he was aware of Love's dark turn from the very beginning but had trouble negotiating just how similar she actually is to Joe. As he tells it, Love isn't exactly on the same level as Joe with the motivations behind her kills.
"I knew that she was the whole time, but I didn't know that Joe would then hate her for it," Badgley said. "I think that got me through episodes one through eight was like, at least he's got somebody, you know? ... I was crestfallen 'cause for me it's not so much that she's a killer -- it's like, 'OK yeah, theoretically they're the same -- but then he denies her, which again brings up the archetypes of man and woman and the oppression of women, the inequality of men and women. This is actually why you don't have that many female serial killers. There's something there, there's something to that, there's something to the fact that men behave the way they do and women tend to not do the same thing. So, what is that? I don't know, but I feel like that's what we see, is that she doesn't appear to be the same kind of person, she doesn't appear to be the same kind of predator."
While Badgley accidentally let slip during the interview about plans for a third season when speaking to Love's arc moving forward, he backtracked a bit, saying he "technically" cannot speak to "anything official." So, how are we to read the final shot of the season where Joe is peering out longingly to the mysterious girl one house over, while a pregnant Love stands by their new home?
"Joe's looking for something that he can't... The way that I understand these things is that no one is born a sociopath or psychopath. Maybe the world of medicine hasn't decided definitively, but I'll go ahead and say that. We're not born that way, we're made that way, we're made that way by the life we then receive, the education we receive, parents, environment, whatever," Badgley said of the final scene. "So I think Joe is looking for that which was taken from him as a child."
With the likelihood of You season three high, Badgley expressed his desires for what he hopes is coming for Joe -- and it involves, gasp, happiness.
"I think he deserves something better now, you know? Like I'm not sure that that's possible," the 33-year-old actor conceded. "What does Joe need? Joe needs, ugh, Joe needs justice, but what does that mean? Does that mean prison? Does that mean death? I don't know." (By the end of Caroline Kepnes' sequel novel, Hidden Bodies, Joe is locked up for murders committed.)
Considering how many times Joe has avoided getting caught, Badgley pondered the realistic chances his character may be murdered by someone else's hand at the end of the day. (He came very close to it this season when Love's brother, Forty, confronted him with a gun to his head in the finale.) "He inevitably will be, right? I mean, he has to be," Badgley said.
Asked whether there's a chance You could continue on for years and years, "It's not up to me," he admitted. "Yeah, I don't know... Yeah, my lips are sealed on that."
The second season of You is streaming now on Netflix.
To stay up to date on breaking TV news, sign up for ET's daily newsletter.
RELATED CONTENT:
TV
