Does You Season 4 Get Better?
Joe Goldberg is back for You season 4 — but did it live up to the hype?
Where we last left Joe in season 3, he had staged a fake murder-suicide and ran off to Paris to follow his new “You” in Marienne (Tati Gabrielle). Season 4 kicks off with Joe going by the name Jonathan Moore and posing as a literature professor at a fancy London university. When members of London’s wealthy elite start being killed off, he goes on this Agatha Christie-style whodunnit mystery to find out who this new murderer is. The roles have been reversed as Joe becomes the new “You” of this story. This initial premise really intrigued me. But I felt as each episode of Part 1 went on, I was losing interest.
From Love (Victoria Pedretti) to Peach (Shay Mitchell), every season there’s been people who really stood out next to Penn Badgley as Joe, but this season had a weaker cast. You don’t care about them, they had no depth, and there were no standouts. Joe’s personality was lacking and they focused on so much internal narration that from the first episode I didn’t get why these rich people wanted to be around him anyway. He’s literally just standing around staring off into space deep in thought. It's awkward — and that’s before the murders even start.
The first part of season 4 just felt like a completely different show to me, like a capsule season that didn’t really connect back to what we’ve experience over the past three seasons with Joe.
Now I will admit after initially watching part 1, I didn’t want to continue with the season, but I’m so glad I did because Part 2 was exactly what I was waiting for. It turns out Joe has become an unreliable narrator and was telling half-truths all Part 1 long — to both the viewers and himself. While his reasoning for being the Eat The Rich killer doesn’t fit his usual motive, the twist with Marienne does for sure, with the season tapping into literary classics like Romeo and Juliet and Jekyll and Hyde.
Season 4 finally explores the self-love Joe has needed to find over the course of the series. In season 1, Joe came across as a serial killer, while season 2 Joe had more of an anti-hero energy. He was doing the wrong things for what he felt were the right reasons. When we get into season 3, you could’ve had this insane Chucky and Tiffany energy with Joe and Love, but he sees himself as this white knight and her as an evil woman — even though they’re basically doing the same things. Now in this forth season, Joe must truly come face to face with this darker side of himself and accept who he truly is. The reality is that despite all the bad things Joe has done, we’re meant to root for him, and now it finally seems like he’s found his happily ever after — complete with next level white privilege and power.
When it comes down to it, Part 2 really saved this season. It was a big mistake to divide the season into two parts. It was very dragged out and shouldn’t take until episode 8 for things to really come together in a 10 episode season. It finally got back on track when they went back to Joe’s roots and took us to some truly shocking and thrilling places.
You season 4 is streaming on Netflix.
