Of course Joe from “You” is an English professor – but how is he? We grade our antihero academic

Joe as Jonathan leans into the archetype of a professor. He grows a beard — how distinguished! The respectability of his faked profession gains him entrée into spaces where he otherwise would not be welcomed (i.e., the rich kids’ club). He dresses shabbily, but that’s just the absent-minded academic in him so he will be excused, allowed inside. He’s so brilliant, after all, so preoccupied with books and deep thoughts. He wears corduroy blazers and little buttoned vests with burgundy ties. And tweed. So much professorial tweed. He carries a battered briefcase and rolls his sleeves up when he teaches. He looks exactly like he belongs in the center of a campus scandal.

Joe tells himself, in one of his many voiceovers, that he’s great at this “professor-ing.” His pedagogy seems to be a mixture of luck, arrogance, winging it and charm. He phones it in, allowing students to teach themselves under the guise of a being a cool guy, a relaxed prof. He leans back against a table, with those aforementioned sleeves rolled up, crosses his arms and lets his students do the work.

“There are tricks to being a professor,” he says in his voiceover. “Like this.” Then he says aloud to his seminar, “Say more.” He muses in his head, “Wind them up. Let them go. Teenagers will argue for you.” You know he’s not returning papers on time. Like every white guy who fell up, Joe says to himself, “I needed cash but it turns out teaching’s fun.”

It makes sense that Joe would revel in the power of his position. He’s king, at least in the confines of his classroom. Joe has always had a high opinion of himself and teaching young people who hang on his every word feeds his ego. To be called “professor” while not actually having a PhD, not having any degree, is to confirm what he’s always believed about himself: he’s smart and right and his ways, no matter how illegal, are correct. “This is my class,” he tells Nadia, asserting his authority as she looks at him, adoringly.

Showrunner Sera Gamble told EW, “Very early on in the life of the series, [author] Caroline Kepnes told me that she envisioned him in this academic setting eventually, and I just loved that image . . . we’ve known for years that we wanted to eventually put him in a university. It’s also fun because for the first time, really, he’s talking about the books he loves so much and getting the correct level of respect that he never really got.” Joe being Joe, he’s unlikely to last anywhere for long (he keeps peskily murdering people), but one could imagine him firmly planting himself in the university, never publishing, never serving on the committees marginalized faculty are forced to, never facing consequences and refusing to retire. 

Joe is a murderer, racking up nearly a dozen bodies in seasons past. He’s far from the only professor to have killed. From Harvard poisoner Eric Muenter to Ohio University murderer and most-wanted escapee Gene Isaac Stees to University of Georgia professor, poet and killer George Zinkhan to Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, professors have murdered.

Perhaps like Joe, an elevated sense of self combined with the fawning attentions of impressionable young students and academia’s lack of consequences reinforces the belief that one can do anything, get away with everything, once in an ivory tower. Teaching doesn’t seem like it will be good for Joe (definitely not for his students) but as a narcissist, nothing sticks to him, least of all self-improvement. And change won’t happen in an antiquated place, sheltered and self-important as many storied academic institutions are. As fellow professor Malcolm Harding (Stephen Hagan) says to Joe, “Rouse young minds and et cetera. Perks of the job, rumor has it. I wouldn’t possibly know.”

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