What Really Happened to Joe's Ex-Girlfriend Candace on 'You'?
Over the holiday season, You on Netflix became everyone’s favorite new binge-watch, and it’s easy to see why.
🚨Beware: There are many spoilers ahead. 🚨
From its suave serial-killer protagonist Joe Goldberg (superbly played by Gossip Girl‘s Penn Badgley), to the multiple mysteries and major cliffhanger Season 1 ended with, You captivated its audience with ease. Following the news that the show will return for a second season in 2019 (it’s moving from Lifetime to a Netflix Original), it’s time to reexamine one of Season 1’s biggest mysteries: Is Candace really alive after that crazy finale?
First of all, what happens to Candace in Season 1 of You?
Throughout the first season of the show, Candace is Joe’s mysterious ex-girlfriend—a musician who cheats on him, then flees to Italy to start a new life with her lover. When asked what happened to her, Joe shows Beck photos of Candace’s new, secret Instagram account, in an attempt to prove that she’s still alive and well. However, Beck is suspicious, especially when they bump into a friend of Candace’s at a party who proceeds to quiz Joe about his ex, who is apparently missing.
Gradually, it’s revealed that Joe murdered the person with whom Candace was cheating—a record executive who was helping her launch her career—by pushing him off a tall building in a fit of rage. Viewers were shown Candace breaking up with Joe, but we never saw her die, though the character appeared to Joe in flashbacks and hallucinations. It seemed likely she was dead—her fate predicting Beck’s end at Joe’s hands.
That was until the finale, when Candace turned up at Joe’s bookstore, wearing her Lolita heart-shaped shades and telling him, “I think we have some unfinished business to talk about.”
What happens to Candace in the book?
The book version of You, written by author Caroline Kepnes, presents a very different end for Candace, with zero doubt about her fate.
Per the Express, while Joe is killing Peach Salinger (played by Shay Mitchell on the show), he has a flashback to Candace’s murder. Author Kepnes writes, “It wasn’t my fault that Candace followed me down to the water’s edge and it wasn’t my fault that I picked her up and held her down in the water and watched her pass on to the great beyond.” Yes, Joe drowns Candace at Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach after she cheats on him.
However, it seems the show has deviated from this story with Candace’s return at the end of the season.
Is Candace back for Season 2?
Following Season 1’s major cliffhanger, it seems pretty certain that Candace will be back for the second season. However, though we already know the next season will see Joe move to Los Angeles, it’s unclear whether Candace will follow him there. Can she really escape Joe’s clutches for a second time?
The TV show’s co-creator, Sera Gamble, told Cosmopolitan UK, “I can tell you we will see more of Candace and that she shakes Joe to the core with what she brings to the story. And so it propels that character [Joe] a lot in what he decides to do next.” Clearly, Candace is fully back for Season 2 and instrumental to the plot.
The actress who portrays Candace—Ambyr Childers—has also been teasing her return on Instagram:
But… is she dead?
With You, anything is possible. Joe has vivid hallucinations and flashbacks throughout Season 1, making it extremely possible that when Candace shows up at the bookstore, she’s just a figment of his imagination.
However, TV Guide theorizes that all signs point to Candace being alive for real—including the fact that the show’s writer, Sera Gamble, told Variety, “What if he didn’t; what if he just thought he did?… It just opened up all of these avenues for Joe Goldberg’s future that [were] irresistible.” Gamble also (correctly) noted that Candace’s return “would be the best cliffhanger and f*ck with everybody’s head in the best way as they waited for more.”
Season 2 will largely follow Kepnes’ second book in the series, Hidden Bodies, which you can catch up on now.
With You set to return to Netflix in 2019, we’ll hopefully have all of our questions about Candace answered before the year is out!
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