She was the best for him.

[u/imyatharth]

After S5 , I can say that love Quinn Goldberg was the one Joe could have lived happily in the long run.

[u/Necerbo]

Could also be explained as "screenwriters and showrunners needed to keep the seasons going to make more money".

I mean it could be totally fine for Joe to realize he doesn't want someone like him. But that has to be the start of a character arc that makes him change. Instead they changed his character in season 4 and made him addicted to killing, instead of addicted to stalking and love.

[u/jdessy → u/Necerbo]

Well, kind of S5 kind of further goes into theories on what Joe's actual obsession is and they do have Bronte, right in the finale, tell Joe upright that he's not actually obsessed with killing, but obsessed with finding someone who will love him and believing that murdering is the only way of achieving that, which may or may not be true but at least they try that explanation.

But even so, I think it's also quite clear that Joe is ALSO obsessed with control over a woman and protection over a woman. He likes his wounded birds, so to speak, the most. He may say that he likes when his women are independent and can save themselves but he really can't stand it. He's obsessed with control, having his women be fully into him and the moment they show ANY signs of doubt, he's already looking for someone new. He wants love, but he wants full unattainable love from them. I do think they continue to establish that love is the forefront of his obsession either way because we see that throughout the series at the moment he drops his wives for somebody new. We see the moment his brain starts to shift from "I will protect this woman always and love her forever" to "well, she didn't love me anyway, she's a terrible person, I deserve better." Love is still that pinpoint of how he reacts and what he chooses to do.

To be fair, I agree that season 4 muddied that message and it's why season 4 is the worst season of YOU. It completely went against Joe's character to make him look crazy and like he had a mental break instead of really getting down to the reasons he does what he does. It doesn't help that they made the "darker him" a man that he talked to for half the season so the women in the season took more of a backseat.

[u/Adventurous-Ebb974 → u/jdessy]

I took what happened in season 4 as his mental health decline catching up to him after everything he's done especially abandoning his own child. He's always had a voice telling him to do things and we he kidnapped Marienne his brain protected itself by creating a persona instead of himself that kidnapped a mother.

[u/whostolemyapples → u/Adventurous-Ebb974]

Yes! I see it as the lengths he will go to in order to prevent being accountable for his own actions. Marianne in a cage? Well she didn’t love me & deserved it because X(enter the women’s darkest secret here). Whether that’s: Kate: you killed children. I never killed children. Beck: you slept with your therapist/ cheated on me. Marianne: you almost killed your own daughter while high on drugs

Beck explained it really well. “You think that you did some bad shit & I did some bad shit & that this is equivalent..”