Joe Goldberg The Obsessive Stalker. That is all. He is portrayed by Penn Badgley. Joe Goldberg is a charming and seemingly normal bookstore manager who becomes obsessed with his girlfriends and often resorts to extreme measures to control their lives and eliminate any threat to the relationship.
He is an lunatic serial killer and obsessive stalker who uses technology and social media to stalk the people that he says he loves. In the first season, Joe, a bookstore manager in New York , meets Guinevere Beck , an aspiring writer. He quickly becomes obsessed with her and starts stalking her on social media, using the information he finds to get closer to her. Determined to protect his relationship and ensure that Beck stays with him, Joe resorts to extreme measures, including kidnapping and murder, to eliminate anyone he sees as a threat.
Joe sees Paco as a younger version of himself and tries to protect him, justifying his violent actions as a way to save those he loves. Beck, on the other hand, starts to sense that something is wrong and begins to suspect that Joe is not who he appears to be. Despite her efforts to escape, Beck is ultimately killed by Joe, who stages the scene to make it look like someone else was responsible for her death. The season ends with Joe believing he has once again gotten away with his crimes until Candace Stone , his ex-girlfriend whom he thought he had killed, unexpectedly reappears, setting up a cliffhanger for the next season.
In the second season, Joe flees from New York to Los Angeles , trying to escape his past and start a new life under the name Will Bettelheim. In LA, he meets Love Quinn , a talented chef who works at her family's grocery store. Determined to avoid repeating the same mistakes, Joe tries to maintain a healthy relationship with Love, but his old habits of stalking and obsession soon resurface. However, his efforts to redeem himself are compromised when he discovers that Candace, his ex-girlfriend whom he believed to be dead, is alive and determined to expose Joe's true nature to everyone.
The season explores Joe's internal struggle as he tries to reconcile his dark nature with his desire to be a better person for Love. Throughout the episodes, Joe faces various challenges, including Candace's growing suspicion as she infiltrates Love's life to expose him, and the dark secrets that Love herself is hiding. At the end of the season, it's revealed that Love also has a dark side. She kills Candace to protect Joe and reveals that she was aware of Joe's violent actions all along.
