Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Season 4 Part 1 of You.You Season 4, Part 1 has introduced a new version of Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), where he has sworn off love and murder in order to pursue a quiet career as a literature professor in London. Of course, it’s not long before he’s swept up in violence and deception once again, but the drama of Season 4 is not actually caused by Joe — rather, he has become entangled in a different serial killer’s game, despite his best intentions. This new premise asks whether Joe can truly be redeemed, or is it simply too little, too late?
Season 4 of 'You' Begins With a Change of Pace
Season 4 opens with a surprising twist in that Joe’s pursuit of Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) to Paris seemingly does not end in tragedy. In Episode 1, “Joe Takes a Holiday,” the Quinn family’s jaded hitman Elliot (Adam James) provides Joe with a new identity, on the one condition that Marienne, who now knows that Joe survived the fire in Madre Linda, is dealt with. It would have kept Joe safer to permanently silence Marienne, but he decides to let her go in order to prove her wrong. Marienne has called him a murderer, something which he simply cannot accept, and so he determines to show her his good side by facilitating her escape. Joe sees his actions through a distorted lens, where he believes he doesn’t deserve the label of murderer and villain. This drives Season 4’s redemption arc, where Joe is determined to prove to himself that he’s not a born killer.
Complete with his new alias of "Jonathan Moore," Joe is determined to stay out of trouble. Of course, this doesn’t last long, as his new London home has a view directly into his neighbor's apartment, where fellow professor Malcolm (Stephen Hagan) lives with his girlfriend Kate (Charlotte Ritchie). Kate naturally intrigues Joe, but he’s determined not to repeat old patterns, even after saving her from a local mugging.
Wherever Joe Goes, Murder Always Follows
This season implies that Joe’s best intentions are to avoid stalking, murder, and seduction – but that these things just keep finding him anyway. The problems begin when Joe is introduced to Malcolm’s circle of particularly awful upper-class friends. This group of filthy rich socialites soon start dying, but not by Joe’s hand. Joe wakes up from a night of revelry to find Malcolm’s dead body in his kitchen. Fraudulent artist Simon (Aiden Cheng) is the next to go. As the group retreat to the country for safety, outspokenly problematic Gemma (Eve Austin) is found dead by Kate. The murders are soon connected, and a police search develops for the wryly named "Eat the Rich Killer." There is a clear parallel between Joe and the anonymous murderer, where Joe’s voiceover reveals that he is also partial to imagining the murder of his wealthy associates. But this time he’s not acting on those urges – he merely wishes to protect Kate and to turn over a new, less murderous leaf.
This season continues the show’s trend of situating Joe among a cast of rich, unlikeable socialites. We are encouraged to see these people how he does – ultimately as vile, spoiled, and a representation of what’s wrong with the world. The group is not merely wealthy, but unfeeling and out of touch, with a blatant disregard for anyone below their status level. Although this doesn’t excuse Joe’s previous penchant for murdering the rich, it does position him as the anti-hero, and the underdog, where his fellow cast is so unpleasant that suddenly he doesn’t look so bad.
The anonymous killer won’t let Joe forget his past, however, sending him encrypted messages and papering his apartment with articles concerning his former crimes. Joe soon pivots into an Agatha Christie-style detective mode, as he attempts to decide which member of the wealthy friend group is the real killer. This positions Joe as the detective hero, rather than as the murdering villain. This change in Joe's role is furthered by the fact that he really hasn’t intended to kill anyone so far this season. He is forced by the real murderer into killing Adam’s bodyguard Vic (Sean Pertwee), who probably would have killed him first or would have wrongly exposed him as the serial killer. The act disgusts him, which is perhaps a sign that he really has changed.
Joe Is Surrounded by Villains in 'You' Season 4
In Episode 5, "The Fox and the Hound," Kate’s obsessive friend Roald (Ben Wiggins) tries to shoot Joe whilst out in the country, thinking that he’s the serial killer. They both find themselves chained up in a dungeon by the real murderer, who is revealed to be the soon-to-be mayoral candidate Rhys (Ed Speleers). But when Rhys leaves them both to die, Joe helps Roald escape, an act of mercy entirely undeserved by Roald, in perhaps the clearest demonstration so far that Joe is trying to make different choices.
Joe originally finds common ground with Rhys – both had difficult upbringings, and are outsiders in the world of privilege, but Rhys is disappointed to find that Joe is somewhat in denial about his capacity for cold-blooded murder. They are strikingly similar, but decisively different when it comes to how they see themselves. As the show is from Joe’s perspective, he has always seen himself as someone with good intentions. Now he is consciously trying to avoid killing, and genuinely seems to have lost his appetite for vengeful murders and crimes of passion.
Perhaps it is easier to root for Joe this season now that Love (Victoria Pedretti) is presumably out of the picture. In Season 3, she was the morally dubious underdog that we all wanted to triumph against Joe’s machinations. But Joe isn’t the real source of evil and malicious intent in the show anymore; instead, trigger-happy Roald and genuinely villainous Rhys both seem more morally corrupt than Joe this season. Although Joe and Kate do end up sleeping together at various stages, Joe has so far resisted the urge to go all-out obsessive. When she invites him out for a drink at the end of Episode 5, he declines. He really is trying not to repeat old habits. This toning-down of the show’s sexual content resonates with star Penn Badgley’s recent podcast revelation that he requested less intimate scenes in Season 4, out of respect for his marriage. But in terms of the storyline, this only emphasizes that we are seeing a different Joe this season.
Ultimately, Joe’s redemption hinges on whether he is only deceiving himself that he has changed or if he really has put his old life behind him. His dubious actions are never as sanctimonious as his internal monologue, but so far this season he has demonstrated a capacity for restraint. It will be interesting to see if Joe’s redemption arc develops in the next installment, or whether he will quickly lapse back into old habits. It is very possible that Joe can be redeemed within the scope of the show, where his character already believes in his own redemption. But whether viewers will happily buy into this entirely depends on the delivery of Part 2, and how thorough Joe’s turn to good really is.
Find out when you can tune in for You Season 4, Part 2 on Netflix.