Joe Takes a Holiday
- Episode aired Feb 9, 2023
- TV-MA
- 52m
IMDb RATING
7.5/10
3.2K
YOUR RATING
Now living in London, Joe tries to lay low and resist old habits.. until he's forced to tie up loose ends and bond with wealthy socialites.Now living in London, Joe tries to lay low and resist old habits.. until he's forced to tie up loose ends and bond with wealthy socialites.Now living in London, Joe tries to lay low and resist old habits.. until he's forced to tie up loose ends and bond with wealthy socialites.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDylan Arnold (Theo Engler), Shalita Grant (Sherry Conrad) and Travis Van Winkle (Cary Conrad) are no longer part of the main cast.
- GoofsJoe attributes Mooney saying, "Not my monkeys, not my circus" but it is a Romanian phrase.
It's a *Polish* proverb, and Joe makes no attribution as he says, "As a man named Mooney used to say..."
- Crazy creditsThe title doesn't appear until the 13-minute mark.
Featured review
It's not me, it's "you"
Netflix's series "You," now beginning its fourth incompressible season, might be, peripherally, about a bookish man's search for a "soul mate," his ultimate "love"--that which one finds in romance novels. It wants to convince us of this idea, and we might fall for it, like him, yet don't. This series is not at all about love, but the absence of it, or the impossibility that love even exists, or has ever existed. "You," if it's anything, is a sociopath's Lovecraftian fantasy in the guise of post-adolescent lit (the lowest of the low). Adapted to television where it belongs--streamed, watched, and forgotten--it lays bare a privileged white male's self-indulgent insinuation into the entitled, petty lives of American millennials (this season, snooty Brits) and the charmed ease by which he goes about murdering them. He mostly murders those who pose a threat to his love life, yet ends up, nevertheless, also murdering the ones he loves because, well, just because.
The unexceptional center of this tilt-a-whirl is likable WASP Penn Badgley, the offspring of Bradford Dillman and Anthony Perkins. Called Joe (what else), he, with nonthreatening mien and Zelig-like personality, maneuvers slickly in and out of people's lives that they hardly notice or suspect, which makes him an ideal killer, but also an inconspicuous waste of a human life. No wonder the "you" he has a hankering for is an indefinite pronoun: anyone and no one, like him, average Joe, Joe Blow. In the current age of internet memes, cyber celebrities, and YouTube bloggers, anyone can be a someone--if you believe it, you can be it. Without much effort, individuality is obtainable, if one's connected, but also dispensable. Once Joe has found his irresistible "you," it becomes his prey, which he catches, cages, and--when appeals to goodwill fail--murders. Pausing a bit, he waits for God to say a word (quote Robert Browning), but of course God hasn't a thing to say. Then, like Mr. Clean, he fastidiously mops up and sanitizes the mess he's made of the murder scene, and his life. Whether it's good luck or providence, he gets away with it, often, then wheedles his way into cozy existence: Brooklyn, LA, San Francisco, London (where he happens upon his own kind)--new identity, new hairdo, new career, easy peasy. Apparently, if you're buying any of this, crime pays when you're white, entitled, and bland.
As required by TV standards and practices, the narrative of serial killers must have a backstory which outlines, in recurring, annoying flashbacks, the whole unfortunate childhood of typical abuse, neglect, abandonment, and manslaughter--all those ingredients necessary to excuse bad adult behavior, that make Joe sympathetic and--incredibly--forgivable. This is how a trove of writers construct a comedy of abominations in 40 episodes and, alas, ensure an audience of faithful viewers. What's disturbing to me is that such material fit for a psychiatric progress report has any entertainment value at all worth exploiting. Anyway, at least Joe thinks it has, as his babbling stream of consciousness voiceover tells us, providing snippets of social commentary like that of a make-do Oscar Wilde.
The terribly wasted mind behind this reimagined Grimms' fairytale, someone called "Caroline Kepnes," must think a charming serial killer as literary conceit conveys new insights into the human condition. Well, it's a good hook anyway, as evidenced by a 4th season (still incomprehensible), but the conceit itself hasn't any real pleasures to offer, none, not intellectual or sensual, only a caveat: be wary of the company "you" keep.
The unexceptional center of this tilt-a-whirl is likable WASP Penn Badgley, the offspring of Bradford Dillman and Anthony Perkins. Called Joe (what else), he, with nonthreatening mien and Zelig-like personality, maneuvers slickly in and out of people's lives that they hardly notice or suspect, which makes him an ideal killer, but also an inconspicuous waste of a human life. No wonder the "you" he has a hankering for is an indefinite pronoun: anyone and no one, like him, average Joe, Joe Blow. In the current age of internet memes, cyber celebrities, and YouTube bloggers, anyone can be a someone--if you believe it, you can be it. Without much effort, individuality is obtainable, if one's connected, but also dispensable. Once Joe has found his irresistible "you," it becomes his prey, which he catches, cages, and--when appeals to goodwill fail--murders. Pausing a bit, he waits for God to say a word (quote Robert Browning), but of course God hasn't a thing to say. Then, like Mr. Clean, he fastidiously mops up and sanitizes the mess he's made of the murder scene, and his life. Whether it's good luck or providence, he gets away with it, often, then wheedles his way into cozy existence: Brooklyn, LA, San Francisco, London (where he happens upon his own kind)--new identity, new hairdo, new career, easy peasy. Apparently, if you're buying any of this, crime pays when you're white, entitled, and bland.
As required by TV standards and practices, the narrative of serial killers must have a backstory which outlines, in recurring, annoying flashbacks, the whole unfortunate childhood of typical abuse, neglect, abandonment, and manslaughter--all those ingredients necessary to excuse bad adult behavior, that make Joe sympathetic and--incredibly--forgivable. This is how a trove of writers construct a comedy of abominations in 40 episodes and, alas, ensure an audience of faithful viewers. What's disturbing to me is that such material fit for a psychiatric progress report has any entertainment value at all worth exploiting. Anyway, at least Joe thinks it has, as his babbling stream of consciousness voiceover tells us, providing snippets of social commentary like that of a make-do Oscar Wilde.
The terribly wasted mind behind this reimagined Grimms' fairytale, someone called "Caroline Kepnes," must think a charming serial killer as literary conceit conveys new insights into the human condition. Well, it's a good hook anyway, as evidenced by a 4th season (still incomprehensible), but the conceit itself hasn't any real pleasures to offer, none, not intellectual or sensual, only a caveat: be wary of the company "you" keep.
helpful•19
- jgreco7
- Mar 9, 2023
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Filming locations
- Royal Holloway University, Egham, Surrey, England, UK(Joe poses as Professor Jonathan Moore)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime52 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
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