Kate Lockwood "Locked In" in YOU Season Five

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Image from Netflix

We first meet Kate in season 4 as a hardass art gallery director, and a take no prisoners type of person. She's very untrusting of Joe and has a complex past with her family. Kate is constantly on guard, and not really the most friendly love interest Joe has had.

To be completely honest, I didn't always like Kate. I'm not going to lie and say that Kate was my favorite character when she was introduced in season 4. From what I can remember (no, I didn't rewatch season 4), Kate was kind of a blah love interest. Very little personality, kind of stone cold. The only thing that really stuck out about her is how loyal she was to Lady Phoebe. And of course, the fact that she was involved in a business deal that resulted in a group of children developing cancer. Let us not forget she also covered up Joe's murder spree in London.

But they somehow managed to turn that around and make Kate a pretty likable person. She takes on the role of mother pretty well as she helps Joe regain custody of Henry, and is now the CEO of T.R. Lockwood Corporation. She uses her position to do more good than she has in the past, such funding the education of orphaned children in foster care. Kate seemingly turned a new corner after the move to New York.

Of course, we can't ignore the elephant in the room. Once her right hand man, her uncle Bob, decides he wants her position as CEO and starts to look into her past then things take a turn for the worst. Not only does Joe go into insane protective mode, Kate begins to overthink everything. She doesn't want to lose her position along with all the good she's done with it, but she's terrified of her past coming to light.

So after Kate confronts her so-called uncle, and Joe practically begged and harassed Kate, she signs off on him killing uncle Bob. Now, this isn't excusable and is totally wrong. But people are seemingly ignoring the fact that Kate absolutely did not want to resort to that at first. She is actually trying to be different. But sometimes old habits die hard, and she felt it was only thing she could resort to. Especially with Joe being an enabler (like he usually is).

What follows is some family drama, including her own flesh and blood. Little Henry's having some anger issues, and decided it was best to assault his classmate, who is technically his cousin. Sister Reagan threatens to destroy the Lockwood-Goldbergs, and out any secrets that she may find the process. In classic Joe fashion, he wants to permanently take Reagan out of the equation, which Kate rejects.

Here's the thing about Kate. She doesn't want to rely on murder as often as Joe would like her to. She had one screwed up moment, but that doesn't dictate who she is as a person entirely. If anything, she starts to feel more and more guilty about her past, and wrongfully helping Joe erase his past because she was that in love with him. The same thing that poor Love did and fell victim to.

As the show goes on and Joe continues to fall in love with Bronte, Kate is not only looking for a way out of the marriage, but out of the violent cycle Joe seemingly likes to keep with him. Kate decides that no matter the consequences and no matter what happens to her, she has to set things right. Starting with releasing Nadia from prison in London, after wrongfully setting her up for the murder of her then boyfriend, Edward.

Kate explains to Nadia that she was the one responsible for her arrest, and that she has a plan to end Joe's shenanigans once and for all. After some convincing, the pair make their way back to New York to set the trap which ends in Joe being locked inside his own cage at Mooney's bookstore. Now, I'm not going to touch on everything that happened down there in the Mooney's basement, but things do end in a tense brawl between Joe and Kate. Kate has possession of a gun (thanks to Nadia) which Joe tries to take from her.

The wrestle over the weapon for sometime, but it does end up with Joe shooting Kate in stomach/abdomen. The former couple end up seemingly dying on the ground together as the establishment is set aflame by Kate's other sister, and twin half to Reagan, Maddie. She catches Joe's confession to murdering Love (HA!), presumably letting out her dying breath.

Now, I am going to skip over the rest of the season and cut to the chase. Kate lives and has the scars of a survivor. There are an overwhelming amount of people that stated that Kate should've died, but I disagree. First of all, Mooney's was in a rich snooty part of Manhattan. An upper class part of the city. You best believe the FDNY is gonna fight to preserve that expensive ass building. And second of all, everyone just assumed she was consumed by the flames as soon as Bronte escorted Joe out of the store. But maybe she didn't give up that easily. Maybe Kate fought hard to survive long enough for firefighters and paramedics to save her.

On top of all that, I am sick of the bad guy winning in the end. I don't know about anyone else, but I find it so annoying when the antagonist still succeeds despite the odds, and how smart their opposition is. Kate did everything perfectly. She was a bad bitch! She got Joe to sign his parental rights over to her, she brought Marianne to New York, she froze Joe's funds, AND set him up with decoy so that they could capture him. She even discovered that Maddie was posing as Reagan after he forced her hand, and made her do it. Mentally, Joe had met his match and she was unafraid of him. Kate had all the resources at her disposal and she sure as hell used them.

Her personality isn't as stone cold as it was in season 4, but she still had the grit to go toe to toe with Joe. She used her strengths to ensure the safety of those around her (at least the ones that Joe didn't get his hands on) and finally took accountability for her actions. In the confrontation following Joe's initial arrest, she showed no fear. She gave Joe no power, and reminded him who was in charge. Kate had all the power and made sure her dear husband knew it. And she had a poker face like no other, not letting anyone know what she was thinking or if she was panicking.

Sure, she made some terrible decisions along the way, but she showed something that Joe didn't have. Remorse. And genuine shame for what she had done. From the moment she confessed what she did in London, she was appalled by her actions. The same went for the murder of uncle Bob. Kate confessed to having nightmares and feeling so much guilt over it that she could barely sleep. And remember people, Joe pretty much pressured her into saying yes. The constant fearing mongering eventually gets to a person. So no, I don't think Kate needed to die or that she was a terrible person.

She was protagonist that everyone should have rooted for. It's just that a majority of people weirdly wanted to root for Joe.