Netflix You season 5 explained: How Jenna Ortega's Ellie Alves helped to bring down Joe Goldberg

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers from You season five.

You season five brings a plethora of familiar faces from Joe Goldberg's murky past back to haunt him - among them is Ellie Alves, seeking retribution.

Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) has been spreading chaos and destruction well before You hit our screens in 2018 – starting with the attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend Candace (Ambyr Childers).

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Since then, Joe has accumulated a long list of adversaries, including the spirited teenager Ellie Alves (played by Jenna Ortega), whom he encountered in the second season.

Joe forged an unlikely friendship with Ellie after moving into her apartment building, where he lived alongside her sister Delilah (Carmela Zumbado) while romantically entangled with Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti).

Tragically for Delilah, her discovery of Joe's storage unit – and by extension, his murderous activities – led to her untimely demise at the hands of Love, who killed her to shield Joe.

But Love's scheming didn't end with murder as to divert police suspicion away from herself and Joe, she insidiously implicated Ellie in Delilah's vanishing.

Facing Joe once again, Ellie recounts overhearing Forty (James Scully) exposing Joe's grim history with Beck and Candace, but her primary concern is the loss of her sister.

After Joe confesses that Delilah was killed, he aids Ellie in escaping to forge a new path.

Despite this, Ellie's feelings are raw: she despises Joe for dragging the Quinn family into their lives and, before departing, she venomously wishes him to "burn in Hell".

Regrettably, actress Jenna Ortega does not physically reprise her role as Ellie Alves in the final season of You.

However, this doesn't prevent her character from playing a significant part in Joe Goldberg's downfall.

It is revealed at the conclusion of series five that she is actually a "benefactor" of Dominique (Natasha Benham) and Phoenix (b) who collaborate with Bronte (Madeline Brewer) to catfish him.

When asked how Joe star Penn Badgley felt about Ellie being "behind all of it", he disclosed: "I knew that there was going to be a way to bring Jenna back.

""Everybody wanted to see her come back. That's where the culture, the show, and reality all blend together.

""We all wish we could have had her more, and she wanted to be a part of it. For the littlest bit we could get of her coming back, it was great."

Ortega was unable to physically return for the final season of You due to commitments to other projects, including the second series of Wednesday which is set to premiere on Wednesday, August 6.

You is available to watch on Netflix.