If "My Fair Maddie" was the match striking the flame, episode 5 of You Season 5, "Last Dance," lets the fire rage completely out of control. This is You at its most electrifying: a brutal, twist-laden hour that upends everything we thought we knew, all while setting up a cataclysmic second half of the season.
We open with Joe (Penn Badgley) basking in a rare moment of bliss with Bronte (Madeline Brewer), lounging in her apartment. Bronte, playful and teasing, glorifies his "fictional" serial killer persona, blissfully unaware—or so Joe thinks—of how real those dark stories are. Joe allows her to play with the fantasy, but the seed of doubt is planted. Would she still smile if she knew the truth?
Meanwhile, Maddie’s impersonation of Reagan is fraying badly. Haunted by Reagan’s memory and unable to maintain the necessary cruelty, Maddie lashes out at Harrison and Gretchen. Her psychological deterioration is becoming harder for Joe to contain, another loose thread in his unraveling world.
Back at Mooney's, Bronte becomes evasive—a change Joe initially chalks up to exhaustion. Ever the fixer, he showers her with comforts: food, massages, attention. His smothering love-bombing culminates with Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) following him to Bronte's apartment, only to find her in her underwear. The betrayal is like a dagger. Kate, furious and desperate, begins digging into Joe’s past with Teddy (Griffin Matthews).
Kate and Teddy’s confrontation is critical. They voice what audiences have long feared: that Joe may have killed Marienne, Love, and who knows how many others. Kate’s refusal to go to the police is a devastating moral compromise, an admission that she’s willing to dance with devils as long as it preserves her control.
Meanwhile, Bronte shares pages of new writing with Joe—sensual, dangerous pages about losing control in bed. They experiment with light BDSM, and for a moment, Joe is drunk on the trust she places in him. But Bronte pulls away before it gets too intense, sending Joe into a spiral of self-doubt.
That spiral deepens when Maddie's frantic texts pull him away. She’s on the verge of collapse. Joe urges her to hold on for another month before staging Reagan’s "death," but his empire of lies is crumbling fast. When he returns, he finds Bronte gone, leaving behind a note that reads like a slap in the face. She's ended things—or so it seems.
Joe returns home to more betrayal. Henry finds a knife hidden in their bed. Kate confronts Joe, throwing accusations and bitter truths in his face: she knows about Love, about his darkness, about the hollow thing that beats inside him. Joe, desperate, offers her his life—literally telling her to kill him if she can't trust him. Instead, Kate chooses divorce.
Joe doesn’t grieve. He feels freed. The marriage was a sham, and now he can finally pursue the fantasy Bronte offers.
Or so he thinks.
Bronte calls, sounding confused and terrified. Joe races to the rescue and finds her holed up in a beach house—the perfect setting for his fantasy to finally come true. They dance. They promise each other a new beginning. It’s everything Joe ever wanted.
Meanwhile, Kate visits Maddie, desperate for answers. Maddie cracks under pressure and spills everything about the impersonation and Joe’s manipulations. But even in her confession, she’s conflicted. Joe, for all his monstrosity, also freed her from Reagan’s tyranny.
The final minutes of "Last Dance" detonate the entire season.
Clayton storms into the beach house and confronts Bronte. Joe fights him off and, in a rage, kills him. But the moment the body hits the floor, the trap springs shut. A group of women from the literary salon burst in, filming everything live on TikTok. Bronte—or rather, Louise, as they call her—points a taser at Joe. She’s been working against him all along?!?!
It’s the biggest cliffhanger You has ever pulled. Fans who’ve been suspicious of Bronte from her too-perfect meet-cutes to her strangely persistent interest in Joe are vindicated. Madeline Brewer’s performance was just subtle enough to keep us guessing, but all the signs were there: the lip bites, the proximity invasions, the carefully staged vulnerability.
Every move was calculated to make Joe trust her.
Now we’re left wondering: why? Who is Louise, really? And how deep does this trap go?
The genius of "Last Dance" isn’t just the twist—it’s how it forces us to confront our own complicity. Penn Badgley’s Joe remains as beguiling as ever, tricking us into rooting for a man we should revile. Even now, there’s a part of us that wants him to escape.
But this is the final season. And this time, it’s starting to feel like Joe Goldberg might not wriggle free.
"Last Dance" is peak You: sexy, brutal, shocking, and impossible to look away from. As the second half of the season looms, one thing is certain: the real game has only just begun.
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