Warning: This story contains spoilers for season 2 of You, now streaming on Netflix.
Twitter loves a celebrity feud, so it was only a matter of time before people started pitting two of pop culture's most famous killers against one another.
On December 26, 2019, season 2 of You dropped on Netflix, giving fans a new chapter in the saga of Penn Badgley’s serial stalker (and more-than-occasional murderer) Joe Goldberg. In the new season, Joe finds a new lady to stalk — in this case, her name is literally Love (Victoria Pedretti) — but is haunted by the demons of his past.
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In season 2, Joe sees visions of the people he’s hurt and been hurt by, including Beck (Elizabeth Lail), the girlfriend he murdered, and his mother Sandy (Magda Apanowicz). Throughout the season, it’s also revealed that Joe killed his father when he was a child, in order to protect his mom from further abuse.
It seems that these visions — as well as Joe’s stalker nature and his murder of his father — are what caused Twitter to see the similarities between the love-obsessed stalker and one of film’s first famous killers: Norman Bates, who is also haunted by his past.
In 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho (which is based off the book of the same name by Robert Bloch) Norman kills people who “deserve” to be punished while acting as his “mother,” Norma.
Though we don’t learn very much about the life Norman (Anthony Perkins) led before the events of the film, A&E’s modernized prequel series Bates Motel, which ran from 2013 to 2017 and starred Freddie Highmore as the character, fleshed out Norman and the issues that set the groundwork for violence.
Like Joe, Norman is responsible for the death of his father. Much like Joe’s mother, Norman’s mom Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga) — whom Norman has a toxic, co-dependent relationship with — hid the truth. Throughout the show, Norman hallucinates his mother instructing him to commit heinous violence on her behalf.
Since You and Bates Motel have similar characters at their centre, fans pit the two killers against one another on Twitter in a March Madness-like battle to find the "worst" killer. Most fans declared that Bates Motel’s Norman was the significantly creepier villain of the two. At least Joe never dressed up like Beck and pretended to be her while killing her friends?
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Breaking my Twitter break to say, Norman Bates is the original psycho. That lil boy on You will never compare to him. Never.
— Danyi the Writer ✍🏾 (@SinEater_Danyi) December 30, 2019
Of course Norman Bates! Joe Goldberg is learning work https://t.co/oSebgXp4Ji
— AJ (@Aj_Agaba) December 30, 2019
literally norman bates this shouldn’t even be a question😭 https://t.co/nLGS8tyMFi
— becca (@laurieslaurence) December 30, 2019
y’all thought Joe was crazy. ahahahaha Norman Bates laughs at the sound of that.
— bad bitch. (@viewsbyneka) December 30, 2019
baby he ain’t got nothing on Norman Bates https://t.co/ehOvPdLy2H
— niece 🥳 (@janieceK__) December 30, 2019
Norman Bates literally killed his mom and kept her dead body while dressing up like her and imagining she was still alive. Fuck out my face https://t.co/Rpb2s2fEh1
— Jac又 (@Circa_SurJac) December 30, 2019
bates motel is trending hello yes i am a Norman Bates Lover™️ here
— inet 🦇 (@inettino) December 30, 2019
Please...Norman Bates makes Joe actually look like the good man he's been wanting to be. Sir, Norman Bates is a different type of crazy. https://t.co/5Dg3IikAK7
— Mariam (@_Yehya_M) December 30, 2019
Norman Bates makes Joe look like a Sesame Street character
— Ka'ra'buir(Spectre2) (@ShaunaRust) December 30, 2019
Back me up @ShannenCbooks https://t.co/LR8Ukfy0UP
Whoever the macabre winner is, it’s worth noting that both Joe and Norman are cut from the same cloth: They’re both men who use their “love” of certain women in order to justify violence, and punish women who don’t behave exactly the way they want them to.
In fact, Norman and Joe both tried to kill a woman they had a relationship with in the same way: Joe attempted to kill his cheating ex-girlfriend Candace (Ambyr Childers) by bashing her head with a rock, while Norman succeeded in killing friend-turned-something-more Bradley (Nicola Peltz) because his “mother” didn’t think she was behaving like a “good girl” should.
Given that Bates Motel is currently on Netflix, the comparison to You could be just the thing to get more people to tune into the series years after its finale — a post-You binge, if you will. And if Netflix just so happens to want to create a crossover episode and actually pit Joe and Norman against one another — I’ll tune in.
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