Nothing is truly adequate. It’s more complex than just asking, “Did he die?” Does he end up behind bars? Is he under torture? Is he lonely and does he survive? It truly comes down to how we get there.
In the same interview, Penn expressed his worry that he had made Joe “too likable,” a problem he had been dealing with in public for years.
Regarding the way some people stand up for Joe, Penn said in an interview with EW in 2020: “He’s a killer! He is a sociopath.
He is violent. He has hallucinations. He is also self-obsessed. You cannot deceive yourself into believing that all he needs is the proper person. No one is suitable for him.
In an interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show that same year, he stated: “I struggled greatly with the conflict of playing such a guy and him being partly so likable and having such a, as we say, thirsty response to him.”
The series finale’s self-referential treatment of viewers’ affection for Joe Goldberg is arguably its most poetic element.
