Who Is Bronte in <i>You</i> Season 5? There’s More to Joe’s New Flame Than Meets the Eye

Spoilers ahead.

In every season of You, Joe Goldberg finds himself becoming besotted with a new woman. Despite being married to Kate Lockwood (Charlotte Ritchie), a rich and powerful CEO and stepmother to his son Henry, Joe meets a new love interest in You season 5. While spending time at Mooney’s, the fateful bookstore where Joe grew up and later murdered Beck, he meets Bronte (Madeline Brewer), a young woman who has been sleeping in the closed shop. Before long, Joe and Bronte develop an attraction to one another and start up a romantic relationship. But who is Bronte, and does she really love Joe?

Bronte is the new object of Joe Goldberg’s affection.

When Joe meets Bronte in episode 1, he’s instantly taken with her literary name and penchant for quoting famous authors. Discussing her intriguing character, The Handmaid’s Tale star Madeline Brewer told Tudum, “She likes romance novels, fairy smut, and Internet sleuthing. That’s Bronte.”

Speaking to Tudum, actor Penn Badgley revealed that Joe is drawn to Bronte because he’s unhappy with certain aspects of his life with Kate’s wealthy family. “He’s trying to stomach being one of the 0.01 percent, a billionaire.” Enter Bronte, the “archetype of the manic pixie dream girl.” “She’s got this tattered cardigan hanging off her shoulders with a short skirt and Doc Martens,” Badgley told the outlet. “This dramatic, kind of sexy little bob. And she’s talking about books.”

Before she can leave Mooney’s, Joe offers Bronte a job and says they can reopen the bookstore together. She immediately accepts, and Joe gives Bronte one rule: Stay out of the locked door that leads to the basement. In episode 2, she manages to pick the lock and discovers Joe’s famous glass cage filled with rare books, accidentally getting locked inside. When Joe finds her there, she claims she was searching for the rare books, hoping to find something valuable to sell. “Just one book could pay off all my debt, and put up my play for an entire month,” she tells him, and he believes her. While in the cage, Bronte reads Joe’s manuscript, and the pair forge a bond over their shared love of writing.

Bronte and Joe meeting at Mooney’s.

At the end of season 5’s second episode, Joe lets Bronte move into the apartment above Mooney’s. She asks him if there’s a “catch” to the offer, before sharing she’s read a self-help book called Caging, written by Joe and Love’s former neighbors, Sherry and Cary Conrad from season 3. “They said it was your late wife’s idea to put them in a cage in Madre Linda,” she explains. “And I know I’ve been pretending I don’t know anything about your life, but you’re low-key famous. So I guess when I saw the cage here, it just kind of freaked me out a little bit.” Joe tells Bronte that Love was inspired to use glass cages after learning about “how Mr. Mooney used to lock [him] in the cage as a form of punishment.”

Reassured, Bronte agrees to stay in the apartment in exchange for critiquing Joe’s writing. However, there’s more to Bronte than meets the eye.

Bronte knew Beck, and wants justice for her friend.

Episode 6 reveals that Bronte’s real name is Louise Flannery and she was friends with Beck, who was her TA at college. When Bronte learned of Beck’s death, she was devastated. “When her book came out, it was a way to hold onto her,” she explains in narration. “But it was weird, like parts of the book weren’t written by her.” Finding a positive reference to the playwright Henrik Ibsen—of whom Beck was not a fan—sends Bronte down an Internet rabbit hole.

She discovers a forum full of strangers seeking answers about Beck’s murder, with many disbelieving that Dr. Nicky (Beck’s therapist) killed her. Bronte is able to share the name of Beck’s boyfriend at the time of her death—Joe—which connects her with a group of likeminded amateur sleuths. Dominique, Phoenix, and Clayton, who is Dr. Nicky’s son, become Bronte’s chosen family after her mom dies. She shares her theory about Beck’s book with them, and Clayton reveals he’s heard recordings of Beck’s therapy sessions with his dad, in which she shared she was “having major problems with her boyfriend, Joe.”

When Joe resurfaces in New York under his own name (shown at the end of season 4, and orchestrated by his rich partner Kate), Bronte moves to the city in order to find out the truth about Beck’s death. However, Bronte becomes impatient about the length of time it takes her friends to surveil Joe and come up with a plan for his capture. She takes matters into her own hands and sneaks into Mooney’s, where she meets Joe. “I think he liked me,” Bronte tells her friends, who are livid she’s done something so dangerous. But Bronte refuses to stop, and proceeds to get closer to Joe.

Bronte develops real feelings for Joe.

Even though Bronte sets Joe up, in an attempt to capture Beck’s real killer, she appears to harbor some very real feelings for him. “Bronte’s very intrigued by [Joe],” Brewer told Tudum. “They’re both big book nerds, writers, and enchanted by New York City, and Mooney’s specifically...Bronte reminds Joe of himself, in a way.”

In episode 3, Bronte tells Joe she “couldn’t handle an affair,” but by the end of the next episode, they kiss and embark on a sexual relationship. After episode 6 reveals that Bronte and her friends were attempting to entrap Joe, a flashback shows her doubting whether or not he killed Beck. “He tells me he wishes he killed Dr. Nicky,” Bronte tells Dominique, confessing that the detail is “gnawing” at her. “He said that maybe if he did, maybe Beck would still be alive,” she tells her friend. “Would her killer say something like that?” While claiming she needs certainty that Joe is a murderer, Bronte shows she’s thawed towards him.

Joe is lured to the beach house (as seen in episodes 5 and 6) after believing Clayton has won Bronte back. “Clayton put me in a situation where he thought I might die,” Bronte tells a detective. “Joe thought Clayton was dangerous, because that’s what we set him up to believe.” She tells the detective that Joe acted in self-defense, and that he didn’t “murder” Clayton. In episode 7, Bronte’s friends want her to go public with her story about Joe, but she refuses, instead appearing to hold on to some hope that their romance was real. After Joe gives a candid interview about Bronte catfishing him, misogynistic hate directed at her begins spreading online. Joe realizes Bronte is being followed, and manages to intercept her being kidnapped by a random man.

Bronte awakes in episode 8 to find Joe has handcuffed her to the bed in the apartment above Mooney’s. They have an honest discussion, and Bronte reveals how “rattled” she was when Beck died, subsequently joining forces with Dominique, Phoenix, and Clayton. “Then I got to know you and I began to suspect that we were wrong,” Bronte tells Joe. He asks her if their relationship was “real,” to which Bronte replies, “Not at first. But it became real. Despite my best efforts to think of you as a monster...I couldn’t.”

Narrating the start of episode 9, Joe says, “So, this is what it feels like to know you’re truly loved. To feel it in every bone of your body.” Bronte gets an offer from a publishing house who want her to write a book about her romance with Joe. It seems as though their love might actually survive, until Bronte meets Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), who gives her a huge wake-up call. On the phone to Dominique, Bronte apologizes, saying, “I just got lost in him...I don’t know how to fix what I broke, but I swear to you that I will.”

Bronte realizes she’s the only person capable of stopping Joe Goldberg.

At the end of the episode 9, a fire breaks out in Mooney’s. In the basement, Kate—who has been shot by Joe—is left for dead, and Bronte helps Joe escape. Outside, Joe proposes to Bronte. “I should leave you, run away, and never look back,” she says in her narration. “But then there’d be no justice, no answers. I’m the only person in the world that can stop you.”

After accepting Joe’s proposal, Bronte goes on the run with her new fiancé in the grisly You season 5 finale. Since Kate sent proof of Joe’s guilt to the police, the couple need to hide out, so they travel to a cabin in the woods. At the end of a romantic evening, they head to the bedroom, but before they sleep together, Bronte pulls a gun on Joe and demands, “Tell me how you killed Guinevere Beck.” She requests that Joe highlights all of the additions he made to Beck’s book, then tells him, “If I can wake up, so can the world.”

Unfortunately, Joe easily overpowers Bronte, and hunts her in the grounds of the house, before drowning her in a lake. The police arrive and chase Joe through the woods, but it’s Bronte—miraculously still alive—who finds him. He begs her to kill him, which she refuses to do. “The fantasy of a man like you is how we cope with the reality of a man like you,” she tells him. Desperate to die, Joe lunges for Bronte’s gun, which causes her to shoot him in his genitals. He survives and is convicted of murdering Beck, Love, Benji, and Peach; Dr. Nicky’s conviction is vacated. Bronte finally gets justice for Beck, whose book is re-released without Joe’s additions, and vows to make the most of her life. “My life doesn’t boil down to before and after him,” Bronte says in her narration. “Every day that passes, he shrinks. Eventually, he’ll just be some asshole I dated. I still have no idea who I want to be. But I can’t wait to find out.”