The second part of You’s fourth season is set to come out soon (9 March 2023), but rather than asking ourselves how the flimsily constructed plot will resolve itself, is it time to consider whether the show has run its course and if the protagonist’s disturbing antics should finally be put to rest?
If you’ve missed the previous seasons of the show, You follows Joe (Penn Badgley), a New Yorker as obsessed with women as he is with literature. He stalks, manipulates and murders his way into their hearts and, once they inevitably find out about his actions, he kills them too. The first half of season four places Joe in London after chasing down his latest obsession, Marienne (Tati Gabrielle). Once he has cornered her in a conveniently placed abandoned warehouse, Marienne begs him to spare her, not trusting his claims that he has now changed. In a surprising twist, Joe lets her go, a decision which is admittedly a big step for him.
The basis of Joe’s character arc this season has now been set up: he is a reformed man, demonstrated by his decision not to harm a woman whom he stalked across the globe – what a hero! Now he can begin his efforts to save a friendship group of London elites, which he has somehow stumbled into, from a mysterious murdered to further prove how he has redeemed himself.
Now, naturally any show which features an obsessive stalker and murderer as its protagonist is going to have to tread carefully, especially if that lead is played by the charismatic Badgley. To the show’s credit, the first three seasons did a surprisingly good job at managing this, blanketing Joe’s wicked actions with irony as he persistently wonders why life must always be so difficult for him. Meanwhile, he buries his third corpse of the week. The introduction of the character Love (Victoria Pedretti) in seasons two and three exacerbates Joe’s suffering as he comes up against someone as deranged as himself, and the potential for him to recognise the consequences of his actions emerges.
However, the latest instalment of You fails to establish the irony in Joe’s actions that was one of the redeeming qualities of the show in its previous seasons. One such example of a detrimental component is the presence of the anonymous texter who is behind the murders of Joe’s new ‘friends’ and haunts him with threatening messages as well as encouraging him to kill more people. It seems that the show wants us to take Joe’s side, trying to evoke sympathy for him in this position. The show expects its audience to happily forget about all the murder and trauma Joe has caused in the past and now pity him.
Making matters worse is this season’s treatment of the female lead. Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), is a brilliant addition to this season and is a breath of fresh air as she calls Joe out for his oddities and is very rationally sceptical of his sudden appearance in her friendship group. When Joe develops a saviour complex after the anonymous texter threatens her life, he convinces himself that he must follow her across London to ‘protect’ her. After Joe is found out by Kate, instead of reproaching him for his creepy behaviour she bizarrely leads him into an overgrown garden and tears her clothes off. This entire scene feels confused and forced, perhaps only being included as an attempt to raise the viewer’s heart rate in an episode almost entirely devoid of any significant plot developments. The only character left in the show who was able to call Joe out for his disturbing actions has now inexplicably fallen for him. As a result, Joe’s saviour complex is reinforced, and the show appears to wholeheartedly back the obsessive murderer who has supposedly redeemed himself.
To be clear, I do not believe that art should steer clear of depicting morally corrupt or deranged people who do bad things. Such subject matter simply needs to be handled with more care than a conventional story requires, something which season four of You is clearly not capable of doing. It is amnesic in its treatment of Joe and seems to hope the audience will be too. Someone who has done the things he has done is unequivocally incapable of redemption. The pain and suffering he has caused others mean that even considering the question of his morality opens the door for a damaging precedent to be set.
Season four of You has left me feeling utterly bewildered that the show’s creators decided that this was an appropriate direction to take the show in. Sadly, the establishing shot of Magdalen Bridge, despite this season being set in London, is not its most inexplicable moment.