If there’s one thing Netflix’sYouhas been able to do successfully over three seasons, it’s reinventing itself. Despite some similarities between seasons one and two, there was still plenty to like about Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) relocating to the west coast and finding a new obsession (who, it turns out, had more in common with him than expected). Then the third season presented a total reinvention: Joe and Love (Victoria Pedretti) married with a kid and living out in suburbia. It was a brilliant subversion of what fans had seen so far, and presented brand new obstacles and annoyances for everyone’s favorite stalker antihero.
Season four ofYou(which,like the most recent season ofStranger Things, has been segmented into two parts) attempts yet another reinvention, with Joe relocating all the way across the pond and dealing with a serial killer. However, the first five episodes beg the question: when does a reinvention go too far? Is the show still the same thing if it suddenly shifts gears into murder mystery territory? Unfortunately for this latest season, the answers to those questions are not all that flattering.
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Following the season three finale, Joe finds himself living happily in London following his pursuit of librarian Marienne (Tati Gabrielle,who recently starred in Netflix’sKaleidoscope). Now going by the alias of Jonathan Moore, Joe has found work as a professor of literature at a university. It fits him like a glove, and he’s decided to embrace his new position, both as an educator and a mostly anonymous expat taking up residence in England. Of course, for someone like Joe, things can never go smoothly, and once he falls in with a wealthy crowd, everything begins to fall apart in rapid fashion.
Unlike previous seasons, Joe isn’t just dealing with the ramifications of his own actions. There’s a murderer on the loose targeting the same wealthy folks that Joe has just fallen in with. Dubbed the Eat the Rich Killer, this dangerous person seems like they are trying to make a point in choosing their victims. Joe is caught in the crosshairs, and his own situation is complicated by texts from a mysterious sender who seems to know his real identity.
All of this might have been interesting in a different show, but inYou, it all just feels desperately out of place. Obviously every season can’t be exactly the same, but season three managed to change things up while still deliveringthe pulpy tone and social commentarythat the series has become known for. Here, there’s very little to enjoy in those terms. Joe’s new friends might be compelling if they weren’t so insufferable.Youhas given audiences characters to root against in the past, but it’s never been the entire supporting cast, and there were usually some redeeming factors that made them likable at the end of the day.
There’s Adam (Lukas Gage), a struggling club owner with family money, Phoebe (Tilly Keeper), a wealthy British socialite who is at least more kind than the others, Rhys (Ed Speelers), the only self-made man among the bunch who is rumored to be mulling a run for the Mayoral race, and Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), Joe’s neighbor who has absolutely nothing kind to say to him (or anyone else really), and the almost sociopathically passive aggressive Roald (Ben Wiggins). The rest of the characters are hardly worth mentioning, as they are mostly reduced to the rude, snooty, rich person archetype.
The unlikeable characters also complicate the tension of the show’s murder mystery. There’s some meta-commentary thrown in about howJoe has found himself in a classic murder mystery, despite his distaste for the whodunnit genre. He receives some advice from one of his students on how to approach the case, and which tropes to look out for. However, one thing that makes a murder mystery more compelling is actually caring about the characters. By the end of episode four, it’s hard not to wish that the Eat the Rich Killer would just do away with all of these people. That might be the point, andYouhas never tried all that hard to be subtle with its commentary, but here it’s way too on the nose. Once the rich characters start talking about how much they hate democracy and how they just want the aristocracy to control everything with no hint of irony, it’s all over.
There are other issues with the new structure that You has adopted. Despite wanting to try its hand at inserting Joe into a genuine murder mystery, it doesn’t entirely hold true to that genre. There isn’t ever a trail of clues that could potentially reveal who the killer is, a staple of any good whodunnit that allows the audience to deduce the answer themselves if they are smart enough. Instead, Joe just stumbles his way through the story, being just as surprised about everything happening as anyone else. Unlike previous seasons, Joe feels far more passive here. Instead of being proactive and driving the story forward, it just seems like he is reacting to the events of the story and trying to keep up with everything.
Penn Badgley, luckily, can still turn in a solid performance. As always, he excels at playing both sides of Joe: the one that he has to put on for everyone else, and the one that narrates the show, the inner self that can never quite believe how annoying everyone around him really is. Oddly, Season four seems to lean more heavily on these voiceover intrusions, and it can feel somewhat distracting, especially in the moments when they aren’t all that necessary. It’s also unfortunate that the only people that Joe has to bounce off of are the two-dimensional fodder for the Eat the Rich Killer. Even his back and forth with Kate, which develops over time, never lives up to how he had to deal with Love.
There are still five more episodes set to be released in March, but if this first half is any indication, it seems thatYoumay be on its last legs. there’s only so far the show can go in totally reinventing itself, and it may have hit its limit here. Joe is still as compelling as ever, but without a good story and a good supporting cast, his journey just feels pointless. It might be time for fans to find a new obsession.
YouSeason 4 Part 1 is now streaming.
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