This You season 4 review contains major spoilers.
You is one of those shows that could so easily be terrible. It has a ludicrous premise, is stuffed to the brim with extremely good-looking actors, and appeals to pseudo-intellectual true crime aficionados. Yet, somehow, it is just so damn entertaining. And after four seasons, I’d be remiss to say it isn’t better than ever.
The excellent Penn Badgley is back as serial-killer romantic Joe Goldberg. After murdering his equally psychotic wife, Love Quinn, Joe has fled to old Blighty in search of a new life and his former lover, Marienne. Now going by the name Jonathan Moore and playing the role of an enigmatic and endearing university lecturer, Joe finds himself embroiled in the lives of high-society London socialites.
Things quickly turn sour when a murderer – dubbed the “Eat The Rich Killer” – starts picking off Joe’s new acquaintances one by one. His neighbour and new love interest, Kate (played by Charlotte Ritchie of Fresh Meat and Ghosts) is the high-flying group’s odd one out. She’s still posh but her troubled past makes her the perfect target for Joe’s white knight fantasy.
You season 4 review – Trouble in high-society
You season 4 is split into two parts. The first five episodes were released on Netflix on 9 February. Part two – also consisting of five episodes – debuted on 9 March.
At the start of the season, old flame Marienne is still kicking about somewhere. And Joe can’t have that.
First, Joe finds Marienne in Paris. But soon he follows her to London where he tries to entice her back into his life. She is clearly scared for her safety – and who can blame her. After Marienne rebuffs Joe’s advances, he surprisingly lets her go.
The rest of part one follows Joe as he integrates himself with his not-so friendly new friends. There’s the aforementioned posho love-interest Kate, ditsy but adorable influencer Phoebe, and her d*ckhead American boyfriend Adam, among other throughly unlikable yuppies.
While Kate doesn’t really fit in with this clan of narcissists, the true outlier is Rhys Montrose, a working-class author turned London mayoral candidate. Rhys and Joe quickly form a friendship based on their blue-collar roots. But good things never last for Joe, and Rhys is soon revealed to be the Eat The Rich Killer.
The deeper dynamics between members of Joe’s new group of friends come to the fore as they begin dropping like flies. They don’t all like each other quite as much as it might seem. And while that is about as cliché as it gets for a murder mystery, there is no shortage of skill in the way these egomaniacs are portrayed.
As part one draws to a close, the romance between Kate and Joe (or “Jonathan”) is in full swing. But Rhys knows about Joe’s murderous past and his dead wife, Love. Before long, he’s using it get Joe to do his dirty work. And Joe being Joe, vows he needs to eliminate Rhys so he can enjoy life with Kate.
Split personality
As season 4 of You got into the meat of things, it started to seem like the writers had forgotten what made the show – and its anti-hero – so special.
Joe Goldberg was always a psycho masquerading as a righteous romantic desperate to save lost women. But season 4 was turning into a full-fledged redemption arc. Joe was becoming a genuinely good guy. And that felt like a disappointing capitulation to an audience desperate to see the best in their protagonist. Oh, how wrong I was.
In part two, Joe is revealed to be the real Eat The Rich Killer. Rhys Montrose is an actual guy – but Joe has never met him. Instead, his personality has split in two. One side is obsessed with Rhys and his brand of self-help. It is only when Kate’s dad – billionaire Tom Lockwood – manipulates Joe into killing Rhys that he learns the truth. And it makes for one phenomenal twist.
From here, the pace picks up. We learn that Joe never actually let Marienne go. Instead, he has her encased in his old glass cage deep inside a disused London Underground station. Thankfully, Joe’s student Nadia becomes suspicious of her professor and finds Marienne before she starves to death.
The entirety of part two makes for particularly uncomfortable viewing as we learn the true depths of Joe’s depravity. This is in stark contrast to the Joe we saw in part one who was seemingly becoming his ideal self. Consequently, what seemed to be an uncharacteristic redemption story is reframed as the delusions of a psychopath.
In the end, Marienne escapes Joe thanks to a clever plot orchestrated by Nadia. Joe, in an attempt to end the cycle, tries to kill himself but survives. Instead, his two sides merge together and he embraces his darkness. As revenge for freeing Marienne, Joe kills Nadia’s boyfriend and frames her for his murder.
You season 4 review: Verdict
You has always been quite ridiculous. It requires serious suspension of disbelief at certain points – especially when Marienne (who has been locked in a cage for weeks) tells Nadia not to call the police. But if you can get past that, it is impossible not to enjoy You. It is stylish, sexy, and thoroughly entertaining. Lesser writers would’ve tanked You after its second season. But here I am, four seasons deep and eagerly awaiting a fifth outing.
Overall Rating: 9/10
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