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Impostor Syndrome

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Impostor Syndrome is the third episode of the fifth and final season of Netflix's YOU.

Premise[]

Plot[]

Still stunned, Joe stares at “the wrong twin” (Maddie) locked in the book vault.  He tells himself, she’s “not my favorite, but innocent”.  He needs to resolve this and suddenly, he sends a decisive blow to her head that instantly kills her.  But did he?  He looks down at his typewriter and we quickly see this was his imagination playing this out onto his blank pages.

Not letting this option go, he reasons that killing both twins would “just be kind of fishy” and starts to berate himself because he can’t find a way to write himself out of this situation.

Joe then heads down to the basement to check on Maddie, and although she’s upset, she’s also glad to see him.  She demands to know why she is locked up and all Joe can say is that it’s all a misunderstanding.  To cover his actions, he claims he’s always had a crush on her and plays it off that finding her with Harrison caused him to react as he did.  Joe is annoyed with his demeaning explanation yet urges Maddie to forget about the whole thing.  She doesn’t buy it so Joe takes the conversation back to Maddie’s affair, putting her on the defensive.  Looking for leverage, he reminds her that after sleeping with Harrison, she has much to lose and little to gain.

But Maddie is smart; she starts putting the pieces together.  She blurts out that Reagan is onto him and suspects Kate had Uncle Bob killed.  She deduces that Joe may be trying to eliminate Reagan before she could find proof, but instead, mistakenly locked her up instead of Reagan.  This hits a nerve with Joe; Maddie yells for help but to no avail.

At breakfast, Kate gently talks to Henry about his first therapy appointment.  Henry leaves; Kate and Joe start exploring options to quiet Reagan down.  Joe’s suggestion of turning Gretchen against her mother doesn’t sit well with Kate as she sees it as exploiting another child to solve the issue.  Joe feels emasculated by this but they agree Reagan is a threat and Kate sternly says she will handle it.

At the bookstore, Bronte greets Joe. She starts to banter about the lack of romance novels in the store and how there happens to be an estate sale that day full of them.  She asks Joe for the “company credit card” (Joe’s personal card) and his car so she can buy them for the store.  Not wanting to entrust her with his personal belongings, he goes with her.  Before they leave, he checks on Maddie and offers her a sandwich in exchange for a way out of the situation in the form of compromising information about Reagan.

Without hesitation, she tells the story of their 16th birthday when their dad took Maddie, Reagan and a few friends to Brazil.  Maddie was drunk, was abducted and woke up in a chicken coop with her feet and hands bound.  As she points to her “new” ear, she shares how her captor cut it off and mailed it to her family asking for ransom.  During this, Maddie sensed how her captor wanted to get away from his criminal lifestyle and asked “How do you say forgive in Portuguese?”.  He broke down and she comforted him.  After 3 days passed, he shot himself.  This was Maddie’s chance to escape, and she did.  She could never make sense of why all that happened until that moment as she tells Joe, it was “to prepare me for this”.  Not amused, Joe pulls the sandwich away from Maddie.  She laughs claiming, “every minute you starve me, I get hotter”.  She also reminds him that he could have killed her already but hasn’t. This annoys Joe even more.  He feels like he’s been “read like a book”.  Maddie reminds him that she takes insulin and he needs to get her some before it “gets messy”.  In a strange twist, Joe suddenly realizes “he’s become the hostage”.  His thoughts change to contemplating how the insulin can become his new leverage against her.

At the estate sale, Bronte has bought so many books it takes two trips to bring them back to the store.  As they unload them, Bronte hands Joe a book and describes how the protagonist seduces through biting her lip and purring and suggests they should reenact the scene.  Joe tries to stop her but she sees it as a challenge.  Joe tells himself, “she’s your younger employee and don’t be that guy”...

As Kate and Henry discuss his therapy appointment, Teddy walks in and tells Kate he spoke to the accountant and the answer is yes, “it’s embezzlement”.  Who and how much is not yet revealed but Kate is ecstatic and Teddy asks to loop Joe in but she says no.

At the vault, Maddie is slumped in the cage suffering the effects of low insulin.  Joe taunts her with an insulin shot while she reminds him he can’t let her die and asks, “Did Kate sign off on this?”.  She starts to describe Joe’s personality and how he “covets his wife’s power”.  Joe lashes back and says she needs him if she’s ever going to get out.  Maddie smells blood and calls Joe “Kate’s neutered purse dog”.  Joe moves the syringe and sandwich just out of Maddie’s reach and walks up the stairs.

As Joe and Bronte make their second trip to the estate sale, Bronte decides she is going to walk to her next stop but Joe’s protective side sets in and he walks with her.  They arrive at a dark and obscure literary salon where people are sharing their work on stage.  Joe notices Bronte at the bar where a stocky man is walking towards her.  Bronte abruptly claims it’s time to go but too late, ex boyfriend Clayton walks up.  He’s heard of Joe and says no one can be present unless they share their own work.  To stir up Bronte, Clayton says he will share one of her works.  He’s joined by a girl on stage (Dominique).  He begins sharing Bronte’s essay that turns out to be derogatory and embarrassing.  Bronte defends herself in front of the crowd by confronting Clayton but in turn, Clayton reveals Bronte’s true identity as Louise Flannery, dental hygienist from Ohio, who stole from him for months.  So who is Bronte and who is Louise?

Kate arrives at Reagan’s house and finds her in the next room crying.  “Security found him (Harrison) locked in a supply closet and Maddie’s phone was there”.  Reagan laments that they’ve been cheating for years and she is planning to divorce him and get revenge.  Kate and Reagan rebond over this and apologize to each other.  Reagan also agrees to back away from any actions against Henry and fix things with the school.

It’s dark at the bookstore as Joe walks in pondering how Maddie really does hold him hostage.  Kate calls and tells Joe she’s handled things with Reagan.  She tells him Harrison has been in a long term relationship with Maddie and she thinks Maddie is hiding.  Joe changes the subject and tells Kate he thinks Reagan is scheming to take them both down.  He has a flash that maybe the news of Maddie and Harrison could be motivation to keep Maddie quiet.  So, he tells her that Reagan knows everything and is divorcing Harrison.  Instead of Maddie seeing this as good news, she falls apart.  The worst is still ahead and she knows Reagan will take everything from her and Harrison.  Maddie also starts to grieve that she won’t see Gretchen…she reveals she was Reagan’s surrogate.  It was Maddie’s twisted way to have a baby with Harrison.  She gently tells herself, “No happy endings for Maddie”. Joe opens the vault:  he’s “out of leverage and out of ideas” as he gives her the insulin shot and walks out.

Joe starts researching Bronte/Louise and starts to wonder if she moved to the city to chase her dream or is she just using Joe?  He figures there’s only one way to find out.  He finds her in the apartment crying about the incident with Clayton, her debts and her lies.  She talks about her mom’s death from cancer and how she didn’t mind being Clayton’s “wounded bird”.  Joe takes her vulnerability as the moment to see what her motivations are.  Bronte asks him about Guinevere Beck and Joe confides he wished he’d killed Dr. Nicky because Beck may still be alive.  As they talk, Bronte’s comments make Joe feel like “she gets me” and “she could be mine”.

Joe heads home and Kate asks if he’s seen Maddie.  Kate struggles to get over her feelings about what they’ve done and wonders why Joe isn’t suffering the same?  This annoys him and he asks to “bring back the fierce Kate he married” as he starts to contemplate how Bronte may appreciate his form of protection more than Kate.

As the episode ends, we see a video of Maddie pop up claiming she wants to be ahead of any rumors by confessing her actions and announcing her board vote will go to Reagan:  Kate will certainly lose control over Lockwood.  This startles Joe.  Did Maddie escape?  No…it’s Reagan playing Maddie.  This gives him the answer he’s been searching for:  “impostor syndrome is my salvation”.  He finds Maddie securely in the vault and asks her if she’d like to “become” her sister.  

Cast[]

Trivia[]

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