Will Bettelheim

**William "Will" Bettelheim** is a recurring character in the second season of *You*. He is portrayed by Robin Lord Taylor.

## Plot

Joe Goldberg sought Will out to assist him in changing his identity and becoming untraceable when he is hiding from Candace. Will indicates to him that to truly achieve this successfully, it could not be done in a short period of time. He states that developing his own identity has taken a long time. Joe decides that since he cannot create a new identity quickly, he needs to steal Will's instead. He hits will in the head and locks him away in his glass cage, now in a storage unit. Joe rents an apartment and secures a job under Will's alias.

Joe ends up in a complicated situation when a man name Jasper, mistaking him for Will who he has never seen, tracks Joe down and cuts off part of his finger demanding the $50,000 Will owes him. When Joe confronts the real Will with this problem, he finds him slipping into a paranoid and mildly delusional episode caused by his lack of medication for severe bipolar. He sends Joe to someone Joe believes will be providing him with the money owed to Jasper, but it is in fact a large supply of bipolar meds. By the time Joe returns with it, Will has slipped further from reality and refuses to take them. Joe brings Jasper back to the cage, showing him that he is not the real Will, will is in fact in the cage, and he is not the one who owes him the money. Jasper insists that Joe pay him anyway, and when he attempts to attack Joe, he kills him.

After Joe has successfully mixed medication into Will's food and drinks, he is brought back to a stable state of mind. He tells Joe he knows how far gone he must have been, because at one point he could have sworn he saw Joe murder somebody.

The two of them develop a bit of a rapport, with Joe telling Will details about things happening in his life and Will commenting on them and occasionally giving him advice. When Joe suspects Henderson is preying on young girls, he enlists Will in helping him hack into Hendy's laptop and accounts looking for proof, and later he asks for instructions on disabling his home security system.

Will is able to convince Joe that he has no intention of turning him in if he releases him, that he just wants to go to Manila to be with his girlfriend who he met on the internet. Joe decides to let Will out believing the promise that Will won't tell anyone about Joe's true identity. Will sends Joe a post card once he has arrived in Manila as planned. Joe later contacts him on the number he had given him, confirming he is still in Manila and things are going well for him and Will offers some insight into Joe's situation with Delilah.

At some point after Forty's death, Joe receives another post card from Will, with the card stating that Will hadn't heard from Joe in a while. After giving the post card a cursory glance, Joe proceeds to shred it and the other post cards in his box.

## Trivia

* In the second season of *You*, it shows that Joe is on the run from Candace, so he went to Los Angeles and steals Will Bettelheim's identity. In the books, it does not do that. In the second book, *Hidden Bodies*, Joe wasn't on the run and had no reason to steal someone's identity. So Will did not exist in the book.

## Quotes

"Someone else, not you, a less stable person, might see Hendy's depravity as justification to kill him."

"You're thoughtful, controlled. The more i learn about you, the more clearly I see the answer to your question. How can you be sure I'll be loyal once you let me out? The answer is, there is no answer. No matter what I say, you'll never be sure if I'll turn you in. I know you want to do the the right thing, or you wouldn't have asked at all. I've done business with bad people, you're not them. You, do bad things when you feel trapped. Or, key, to protect someone. We all hope we would have the courage to do that. To me that makes you more good than bad. I think you're a good man. You could kill Henderson, but you're going to let justice take its course. That's what a good man would do. But to truly be good Joe, you have to let me out of the cage."