At this point, you probably know whether the Netflix stalker drama You is, well, for you. If you’re a fan of its over-the-top premise, bonkers storytelling, and high-tension twists, Season 4 of the show (the first five episodes of which land this week) doesn’t rock the boat in that regard, and there’s plenty to delight viewers who love watching stalker/murderer/generally terrible person Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) obsess over women, narrowly escape justice, and literally get away with murder. Don’t get me wrong, this show remains an entertaining, fun, and wildly propulsive ride in its fourth season, and You, in general, remains one of the best arguments for Netflix’s full binge model that encourages you to snack on just one more episode before shutting it off.
But four seasons into You’s run, it may be time for even those of us who enjoy the series for what it is to ask ourselves whether its premise still has something meaningful to say. After interrogating the dangers that can often lurk behind the public veneer of supposed “nice guys,” lambasting the insidious ways social media can be used to do real-world harm, skewering life in Instagram-friendly suburbia, and pairing Joe off romantically with a woman whose body count was considerably higher than his own, where could the show possibly go next? After all, we already know the basic beats of a typical season: Self-involved voiceovers, multiple grisly deaths, and all-too-convenient narrow escapes from everything from nosy neighbors to law enforcement. How many times can we possibly watch this story play out?
To its credit, You is particularly deft at maneuvering Joe out of particularly hairy situations—or straight up ignoring the inconvenient fact that the sheer number of both new lives he’s built and near-discoveries he’s managed to avoid is fairly ridiculous. But as Season 4 once again attempts to reboot Joe’s story, it seems worthwhile to ask: What’s the point of all this? And, perhaps most importantly, how complicit are we as viewers when we inevitably find ourselves actually kind of rooting for a man like Joe Goldberg to succeed?
You Season 4 attempts to reframe Joe’s story, this time through both a change in location—he faked his own death and relocated to Europe at the end of last season—and the introduction of an entirely new set of antagonists for him to combat in the form of a squad of uber-rich British aristocrats. With the recent popularity of shows like The White Lotus and movies like Glass Onion, You Season 4 fortuitously arrives at a time when audiences are especially primed to embrace stories about sticking it to the uber rich. And so, while it may not make a ton of sense, Joe (now going by the name Jonathan Moore and somehow having parlayed his love of reading into a job teaching college-level literature with no identifiable credentials or resume to speak of) suddenly finds himself a regular guest at members-only clubs, exclusive dinners, and hunting weekends at Downton Abbey-esque estates.
His new circle runs the gamut of assorted rich people stereotypes, including sketchy professor Malcolm (Stephan Hagan), icy art gallery curator Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), ditzy heiress Lady Phoebe (Tilly Keeper), American playboy Adam (Lukas Gage), mysterious artist Simon (Aidan Cheng), his spon-con influencer sister Sophie (Niddy Lin), and Rhys (Ed Speelers), a scrappy striver from a poor background with grand political ambitions. Naturally, Joe hates all of them and their various associated hangers-on, so he is immediately forced to become an intimate part of their circle after a drunken night out with the group takes a dark turn.