![]() ![]() Under a new identity as a professor, Joe’s made a quiet life for himself discussing American literature with young minds at a local college. He’s great at subtly reacting and giving his scene partners something to bounce off of, knowing that his wry narration supplements that performance. We’re now four seasons into a show that takes on an almost entirely new supporting cast every year and Badgley is consistently able to hold it down as the straight man to the bigger characters. You is good at upping the ante of dynamic complexity with each season, with Joe as the evolving (devolving?) constant from season to season. Joe and Love, seemingly perfect for each other before, have become something so disgusting and revulsive that you can’t look away from the disaster. ![]() ![]() You has always done the latter well, and it continues to do so with Season 3. Others want to see the worst of the worst – truly despicable people wallowing in their destruction. Some viewers want to see good people doing good things. It’s not a big thing, since these lovebirds don’t factor in too much with Joe’s interests, but their inconsistency rubbed me the wrong way after we get an understanding of their motives and how they interact. Their story mainly exists to color Joe’s priorities as he pursues his new object of desire, Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), but there seems to be missing information that leads to jarring and implausible shifts in their characters. Tilly Keeper and Lukas Gage join the cast as a rocky couple who play a secondary role in this season, and Keeper sparkles as the sweetly naïve Phoebe while Gage portrays failing American crypto-bro Adam with an easy bliss. You keeps inconsequential characters simple and out of the way, which isn’t a problem for this genre – and when our detective has to eliminate suspects quickly. On a different show, Part 1 and Part 2 would’ve been two solid, if short, back-to-back seasons, fully fleshing out supporting characters and extending the mystery. Here, the murder-mystery genre conventions efficiently enrich You’s own tradition of non-linear storytelling. Whereas he’s had to simply survive among the New York Peach Salingers, the Los Angeles Quinns, and the mommy bloggers of Madre Linda, he now has to thrive among the generational wealth and status of London society – a culture of classism that has been bred for centuries and beyond American understanding. ![]() Definitely not what anyone was expecting, but it’s an exciting direction that puts Joe in a new and complex position that will test his patience and restraint. Season 3 ended with Joe faking his death so he could follow Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) to Paris, but season 4 takes a sharp right, sends Joe to London, and makes him an unsuspecting Hercule Poirot in the middle of an Agatha Christie murder mystery with an overt “eat the rich” slant. What dangerous, outrageous thing will he do to “protect” her? Season 4 provides us with another great round of all of that and more, giving Joe a complex new situation that challenges his sense of duty, while still telling a story that’s a bloody good time. It’s an unhinged, unpredictable, very unserious show that has me sadistically curious to see just how much more delusional Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) can become in pursuit of a woman’s love and place in her life, and what bodies he’ll leave in his wake this time. I am always giddy whenever there’s a new season of Netflix’s You. ![]()
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