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(A disappointing synopsis and review of You Season 4)

Major spoilers for You, Season 4!

Going into the most recent season of You, I had some high hopes. Penn Badgley announced that he had asked the producers for fewer sex scenes out of respect for his marriage. Perhaps Joe might even get what he deserves.
Season 3 ended dramatically, with Joe Goldberg (Badgley) killing his murderous wife Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), abandoning his son Henry with their childless gay neighbors, and fleeing to Paris in desperate pursuit of his next true love, Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle), all to the soundtrack of Dr Swift’s Exile.
Joe skulking around with his stupid hat

After searching through Paris for months, Joe eventually gets a tip that Marienne will be at an art show in London, and successfully spots her. But during their chase, Marienne tells Joe that he is a monster and she could never love him (incredibly obvious, but it apparently shocks Joe). Marienne is also a single mother, and her daughter Juliette is waiting for her back in Paris; does Joe really want to orphan another child?
Joe confronts Marienne in London
Confronted with these realities, Joe (surprisingly) lets her go. Almost. A private investigator for the powerful Quinn family catches up with him, and makes him a deal: in exchange for the content’s of Love’s secret bank account, Joe will be provided with a new identity and papers: everything he could ever need to make the fresh start he is so desperate for a reality. The price: eliminate Marienne. After all, Joe faked his death back in Madre Linda, and Marienne is the only one who knows that he really survived. But killing Marienne would only be a return to his depravity, and proof that Joe Goldberg can never change. What to do, what to do? Eventually, Joe figures out a compromise: he stalks Marienne to the train station and steals her necklace as “proof” of her death. The gambit works: Marienne goes home to her daughter, the PI gets enough money to retire in luxury, and Joe Goldberg gets a new chance at life in London as Jonathan Moore.
Joe teaching American Lit
Jonathan rents a flat, begins teaching American literature at a university, and keeps to himself (for a little while). But just because you have a new chance at life doesn’t mean that it’s easy to abandon your old ways. Jonathan still dabbles with his online stalking and Peeping Tom schtick (after all, it’s not his fault that his neighbor Kate Galvin (Charlotte Ritchie) keeps committing bedroom acts in front of her open windows), but it’s all harmless. Until one evening he just so happens to be following Kate when she gets mugged, and he is forced to show himself in order to rescue her. As a thank you, Kate’s annoying boyfriend Malcolm (a total prick) demands that Jonathan accompany them to Sundry House, a club frequented by London’s rich and debaucherous. Despite his best efforts, Jonathan is quickly subsumed into Kate and Malcolm’s rich friends, and gets so trashed on absinthe that he starts hallucinating.
Joe walking into Sundry House for the first time
After a wild, blacked-out night, Jonathan wakes up the next morning safely in his flat with Malcolm’s dead body on his dining table and a new app on his phone. He starts receiving disappearing messages through the app from the real killer, who is threatening to expose Jonathan's true identity unless Joe disposes of the body.
Joe posing with Malcolm's body

Over the course of part 1, more of Kate’s wealthy friends are killed, and Jonathan battles against this so-called “Eat the Rich” killer. I think that it’s a really interesting dynamic, because the killer becomes this season’s You (the object of Joe’s obsessions). It’s the first time that You hasn’t been a woman and a love interest; the hunter has now become the hunted. Instead of stalking women for fun, Jonathan’s skills are finally being used for good as he tries to identify the real killer, who is now threatening Kate. Readers will know I hate when regular people play at detective, and Jonathan’s plans to study classic detective fiction to guide his mystery solving are very contrived contrived. He even resorts to asking one of his students Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman) for help, under the guide of writing his own mystery novel.
Nadia with Joe in the Library
At the same time, Jonathan begins to fall for Kate (and she him), which was not unexpected but nonetheless refreshing. Jonathan is stalking Kate out of guilt and obligation, not out of obsession. As he grows to love her, he doesn’t really manipulate her. Charlotte Ritchie is really excellent as a cool and independent Kate, especially considering it’s the exact opposite of her as herself on Taskmaster Series 11 (10/10 season, would recommend). Kate's secrets are much more normal: daddy issues and soulless corporate greed (à la Norfolk Southern or PG&E from Erin Brockovich).
Kate is a bad bitch
Part 1 ends with Jonathan finally identifying the Eat the Rich killer: it’s Rhys Montrose (Ed Speelers), a friend of Kate’s who grew up poor but discovered that he was the son of a British Lord and thus inherited a lot of wealth and privilege later in life. Rhys admires Joe (specifically Joe, not Jonathan), believing them to be cut from the same cloth, and demands that Joe kill “innocent” people so that they will take the blame for Rhys's crimes. Jonathan rejects him, refusing to kill anyone else, and is rescued from the basement of a country manor by Kate moments before the whole structure is engulfed by flames. Rhys escapes back to London and announces that he's running for Mayor of London.
Rhys talking to Joe that night at Sundry house when they were on absinthe
All in all, a great start to the season. Joe-as-Jonathan seems to be showing a lot of character growth: he is starting to recognize that killing people is wrong and stalking them is usually wrong. He refuses to kill people even to save himself. He even figured out who the Eat the Rich killer was (although his silly detective work did not help him at all). At this point the season seemed to be wrapped up nicely with a little bow, and I was wondering where else the writers could possibly go from there.
Joe and Kate watch the country manor burn to the ground

Reader, they found a way.
Part 2 of Season 4 goes completely off the rails. We discover that Marienne never actually made it back to her daughter in Paris, but was instead drugged and captured. She breaks her elbow in a struggle and later wakes up in a large plexiglass cell (Joe’s signature move). She gets regular deliveries of water and Indian take-out, and is apparently in there long enough for her arm to completely heal (Google tells me 3-6 weeks). Eventually the deliveries stop coming and the food begins to run out.
Marienne and saag paneer in the cage
At the same time, Jonathan is in a new sticky situation. On the one hand, we have Rhys, who is now running for mayor of London. On the other hand, we have Tom Lockwood, an evil billionaire (and Kate’s estranged father).
Joe sneakily observing Tom and Kate talk
Both Rhys and Tom know Jonathan's true identity and demand that Joe help them kill/blackmail the other. Joe flips back and forth, wondering how to balance the ever-increasing demands with his budding relationship with Kate. However, Rhys plays the trump card: he has Marienne, and if Joe doesn’t do his bidding, she will be killed. Joe is absolutely enraged, and decides that the best course of action would be to go after Rhys himself, by capturing him and bringing him to a locked basement. Surely some CBT (residents and guests of 40 Elm street, this is exactly what you think it is) will force Rhys to give up Marienne’s location so that she can be rescued.
Also at the same time, Nadia is growing increasingly suspicious of Jonathan. After all, he conveniently showed up in London right when the Eat the Rich killer first began. After dismissing detective fiction as inferior he suddenly wants to write his own. He's also starting to fan-girl over Rhys Montrose (not a good look). Even worse, Jonathan has begun skipping classes and office hours, and lies about having read her writing. Nadia impulsively breaks into Jonathan’s apartment and discovers a book on torture, stalker paraphernalia, and a mysterious key. After analyzing Jonathan’s past behavior, she retraces his steps and eventually finds an abandoned former crackhouse. Using the key she retrieved from Jonathan’s place, she opens the door to find… Marienne in a plexiglass cell. Wait, what?
Nadia discovering Marienne
We cut back to Joe, whose unorthodox torture methods have just killed Rhys without revealing Marienne’s location. Horrified, Joe steps back to see another Rhys walk into the room. Joe and Rhys (real) and Rhys (imaginary)
At this point, I was sure that there was going to be some kind of identical twin or Mission: Impossible-eqsue face masks that had allowed Joe to kill someone innocent while the real Rhys remained safe. Nope. Rhys really was killed. And the other Rhys standing right in front of him is actually a figment of Joe’s imagination. Rhys and Joe had only ever met once before his death. 90% of their interactions were completely hallucinated, and the remaining 10% was Joe stalking the real Rhys from afar. The show lazily explains that through a few flashbacks of Joe “talking” to Rhys while other characters give him strange looks, which imo was not nearly enough.
Imaginary Rhys harassing Joe in his own home

The writers claim that it was a form of erotomania, the delusion that a famous person who you’ve never met is actually in love with you and is communicating with you via codes. To be fair, they did previously introduce erotomania earlier in part 2 through a separate 1-episode-arc stalking incident involving Kate’s friends, but this was still completely off the wall. I don’t care if it makes it too obvious; foreshadowing is a necessary part of plot development, and the inherent shock value of plot twists doesn’t make them good TV.
Up to this point, the only instance of Joe being an unreliable narrator (which I don’t think he ever was in the past), was when he was tripping on absinthe at Sundry House. But that was a single incident; long-absinthe (like long COVID) isn't real. The only other possible clue that I could tell was Joe finding incriminating evidence from Rhys inside his own flat. I guess Joe put those things there himself, and then re-discovered them later? Another thing that I really can’t get past is the texts that Joe exchanges with the killer. Multiple times, Joe watches the “I’m typing” bubbles and exchanges messages with the killer in real time. The imaginary Rhys specifically implies that Joe in fact was just sending those texts to himself but I really just don't believe it.
Does this look like a man who sends texts to himself

Joe committing the Eat the Rich murders is the facet I have the least issue with. He is constantly on edge because he’s being “framed” for all of the murders, meaning that he's always a plausible suspect. However, I still have some questions. When did he send Malcolm’s finger to the police? When did he kill Gemma at all? Since Jonathan actually commits a few murders himself, I wouldn’t say that killing people damages Jonathan's character development that much. Plus, the Eat the Rich victims were all total assholes, so it’s not really that bad.

However, the biggest problem I have with the big twist is that it means Joe actually captured Marienne instead of letting her go. There was no hint at all that this was coming; the single scene of Jonathan and Kate at the Indian restaurant where Marienne’s rations came from was in the same episode as the final reveal. This does not count as foreshadowing.
Marienne’s freedom was such a fundamental part of the beginning: it’s the first time that Joe really recognizes that what he’s doing is evil and irredeemable. It sets up his entire desire for an unproblematic European holiday where he can reinvent himself as the good guy Jonathan Moore (especially since he didn’t kill her in order to gain that identity). It’s also the first time that he proves he can love his objects of desire selflessly by acting in their best interest instead of his own. Joe reflects multiple times about how he let Marienne go be with her daughter, and he ends up killing the real Rhys because he’s so horrified at the possibility of Marienne in danger. Having someone else capture Marienne in the cage could have had so much potential: it would have flipped the script and shown Joe the pain that his actions cause.
If Marienne absolutely had to be captured (she didn’t), the writers still could have saved it with Nadia. In the first half of the season, she did not impress me. I thought she was basically Ellie (Jenna Ortega) from season 2: a younger girl that becomes a bit of a sidekick for Joe, and a person who Joe tries to save even though he ends up screwing them over. But once Nadia discovers Jonathan's secrets, she starts plotting his downfall. Once she finds Marienne, they team up to outwit Joe and rescue Marienne.
Nadia and Marienne plotting her escape
But once Joe realizes that he was the one who endangered Marienne, he doesn’t seem particularly fussed to release her, even though she’s on the verge of dying of thirst. He instead spends a lot of time lecturing and hanging out with Kate. He also forgets the code to unlock the cage, which is a huge L.
the code is actually Dr Swift’s birthday
Nadia helps Marienne fake her own death by “OD-ing” on the opioids that Joe gave her weeks ago for her broken elbow. They faked a text exchange alleging that Marienne had lost custody of her daughter because she never returned to Paris; Marienne then killed herself with beta blockers to stop her heart temporarily. Horrified, Joe is finally able to unlock the cage, and ends up staging Marienne’s body as a drug addict on a park bench. He walks away feeling tremendously guilty that he caused Juliette’s mother to die, but moves on almost immediately. He finally kills Tom Lockwood (and a scapegoat) and solves Kate’s daddy issues, thereby cementing their relationship and allowing him access to her newly inherited wealth.
Rhys and Joe after killing Tom Lockwood
Nadia successfully revives Marienne, who really does get to reunite with her daughter in Paris (and presumably goes immediately into hiding). But Nadia feels that her own work is unfinished: she is determined to prove that Joe is the Eat the Rich killer, and enlists her boyfriend to assist her. I won’t say that she girlbossed a little too close to the sun with this one, because she was actually good and snooping and documenting all of the perverse trophies from Joe’s stalking and murderous behavior. Unfortunately, Joe swoops in and ruins everything.

Probably the worst spoiler that I could have received was that the final episode would close with Dr Swift's “Anti-Hero”. This is in fact true, but I had hoped that I would play over montage of Joe becoming more self-aware and getting his just desserts. That was not really the case. Joe's suicide scene was very confusing and unsatisfactory. To start, Netflix began the episode with a note that it doesn't condone suicide and who to contact if you are in crisis. (But Marienne's death scene didn't get one. Suspicious.) It reads as very woke: Joe is the villain, he is supposed to die as punishment for his sins, and we aren't supposed to be upset about it (I certainly wasn't). It would be the perfect way to get rid of imaginary Rhys once and for all, and be the final recognition that Joe and Rhys are one and the same.
Joe about to jump (about time)
However, Joe regretted jumping off of the bridge almost immediately, and was miraculously rescued by a police boat that constantly patrols for jumpers. He wakes up in a hospital room with Kate at his bedside, and they resolve all of their issues without revealing any secrets. Jonathan can go back to being Joe Goldberg, and Kate's money has eliminated all of the consequences. I could have lived with that if Joe showed that he was truly committed to change. But his actions towards Nadia confirmed that he has made zero lasting character development.
Nadia enlisted her boyfriend to break into Joe's apartment again, this time to find proof that he was the Eat the Rich killer. And she succeeded! But somehow, Joe caught up to her at the very last second and ended up destroying all of her evidence (reasonable), and then killing the boyfriend and framing Nadia for it (completely unreasonable). Multiple times, Joe has said how Nadia has impressed him with her writing and her general character. Sending her to jail for a crime she didn't do completely undoes any shred of character development he could have clung on to.
Nadia being threatened by Joe with her dead boyfriend just out of frame
The season ends with Anti-Hero played as Joe does a media interview in preparation for the rest of his new life with Kate. In a voice over, he admits that he will continue to kill for “good causes” as a way of supporting Kate's endeavours with her new wealth.
Joe being interviewed by Kate's PR team

Overall, I was not impressed with You season 4. I’ve read some interviews with the writers, and they say that just because Joe hasn’t been arrested it doesn't mean that he's “winning”. I heavily disagree: Joe got literally everything he wanted except for Marienne, but now that he has a new girl (and his new girl’s new assets), it doesn’t even matter. Joe is able to shed his Jonathan identity and restart his life. There was even a great hallucination scene where Joe's past victim's (particularly Beck and Love) came back to haunt him; but in the end it didn't make a difference.
Love and Beck
Kate is definitely an unusual love interest: she's overall pretty normal, but is so haunted with guilt about her past corporate crimes that she vows to never ask Joe about the many skeletons in his closet as long as he doesn't ask after hers. We hate to see a corporate girlie that's bad at negotiation because she's definitely getting the short end of the stick here. She's now stuck with a deranged killer and Joe gets off scott free.
Kate, no longer in her slay era
I appreciate that Joe fell for her but was never obsessed with her, and that the hunter became the hunted for once, but it's not really enough to counterbalance all of the other issues I had. Joe's inner monologue this season also bordered on ridiculous and annoying; I'm not a Penn Badgley girlie and the whole act is starting to wear thin.
One of many memes, you get the idea
I initially started watching season 1 because I read the book that it's based on (You by Caroline Kepnes) and wanted to see how it was going to be adapted. I ended up staying for the spooky serial killer vibes, but the series has definitely been going down hill. Will I watch season 5 (allegedly the final season) when it gets released? Usually I would say yes, if only to find out what happens, but I barely enjoyed watching season 4 at all. At this point, it'll probably only be if I'm absolutely desperate for thriller/horror vibes and I've exhausted all my other options.

A bonus meme

Rating: 2/5 unbreakable plexiglass cages that are the perfect size to hold your enemies/lovers

i am, your most faithful blogger, elisa