Episode 3 of You Season 5, "Impostor Syndrome," sees the web tighten around Joe Goldberg, but not in the ways he expects. This instalment leans hard into disconnection, identity, and the dangerous allure of new beginnings—a potent cocktail for a man who’s spent his life reinventing himself with every corpse he leaves behind.
The episode opens with a problem Joe (Penn Badgley) cannot kill his way out of: Maddie. Still locked in a cage he never meant to recreate, Maddie remains stubbornly uncooperative, refusing to follow the script of Joe’s tidy plans. Her defiance is a reminder that control—Joe’s drug of choice—is slipping.
Meanwhile, Joe’s relationship with Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) continues to fray. The chasm between them widens, fed by secrets and their very different definitions of "darkness." Kate wants Joe's help, but draws a firm line at murder. Joe, ever the enabler of his own worst instincts, struggles to understand why she won't accept the parts of herself he believes she should embrace. It’s one of the show’s sharpest tensions yet: when the monster inside you yearns for company, rejection feels personal.
Into this maelstrom steps Bronte (Madeline Brewer), the enigmatic playwright Joe offered a job at Mooney’s. After their understanding in the previous episode, Joe rehiring her feels like a small, necessary anchor. They embark on a day of book shopping—an almost laughably normal date for a man who usually courts through surveillance and sabotage.
Their budding closeness, however, is derailed when Bronte leads Joe to a literary event where she encounters her ex, Clayton. Played with venomous smugness, Clayton humiliates Bronte in front of a crowd, reading aloud a sexual poem she wrote. It’s a searing, uncomfortable scene that showcases the show's knack for weaponizing public spaces into psychological battlefields. Worse, Clayton reveals Bronte’s past life and her real name, exposing the vulnerabilities she’s tried to conceal.
Joe’s reaction is textbook Goldberg. He comforts Bronte, but the comfort bleeds into obsession. Badgley plays it with exquisite restraint—the way his gaze lingers a second too long, the slight shift in his tone when he talks to her. Joe isn’t just helping. He’s imprinting.
Back at home, Kate tries to realign with Joe. She confesses that she’s willing to lean on him—just not to the extent of condoning murder. Joe, in his twisted worldview, thinks acceptance means embracing the darkness wholesale. Kate, still clinging to some version of herself physically untouched by blood, resists.
Their dynamic is painful to watch because it’s so grounded. For once, Joe’s partner isn’t a saint or a mirror. She’s a person trying—and failing—to find a middle ground. And Joe? He doesn’t do middle grounds.
The episode climaxes with a deliciously vicious twist: Reagan, pretending to be Maddie, uses a live broadcast to destroy Kate’s position by surrendering her board vote. It’s a masterstroke of Lockwood treachery, a reminder that bloodlines are just chains with prettier links.
Joe's counterplan? Have Maddie impersonate Reagan and take the whole thing down from the inside.
"Impostor Syndrome" is a quieter episode in terms of body count, but it’s brimming with psychological violence. It’s about stolen names, stolen trust, stolen futures. Joe is back in a cage—even if this time, it’s the invisible kind built from expectations and unmet desires.
Madeline Brewer shines as Bronte, bringing a chaotic energy that feels both fragile and combustible. Meanwhile, Ritchie continues to layer Kate with increasing desperation, and Badgley’s performance remains a masterclass in quiet monstrosity.
You thrives when it lets its characters squirm under the weight of their own decisions, and "Impostor Syndrome" turns that slow suffocation into an art form. The season’s central question sharpens: Can Joe ever truly belong anywhere, with anyone, without reverting to his basest instincts?
If you think you know the answer, you haven’t been paying attention.
The real impostor here has always been Joe himself.
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