WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Netflix's You season 4!Breaking away from the expected, You season 4 changes Joe Goldberg’s long-standing victim trend in the best possible way. Penn Badgley, who plays You’s infamous stalker/murderer, already teased audiences prior to You’s season 4 release about the Netflix show’s departure from its proven and tested formula. While You’s restructuring initially raised eyebrows for its high risk of failure strategy, it eventually paid off with You season 4 part 2’s big reveal.
Part of the appeal of Netflix'sYou is that its narrative centers around an outwardly charming everyman who is secretly an unhinged and depraved killer, playing along the terrifying yet fascinating idea that anyone could be a Joe Goldberg. So when You season 4 part 1 seemingly attempts to provide Joe a redemption arc, audiences and critics alike were quick to throw in their two cents about Joe being undeserving of absolution. And with Joe being able to rise above his compulsions of obsessing, stalking, and murdering, You season 4 doesn’t seem as interesting as its predecessors; something that You season 4 part 2 flips by altering Joe's fixation criteria.
You Season 4 Breaks A Trend About Joe's Obsessive Tendencies
In stark contrast from You season 1’s Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), You season 2’s Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), and You season 3’s Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), You season 4 chooses Rhys Montrose (Ed Speelers), a London mayoral aspirant, as Joe Goldberg’s new obsession. Deviating from his known victim pattern, You season 4 breaks Joe’s victim trend of only pursuing and stalking potential love interests and changes it into someone whom he identifies with and admires. Joe’s obsession with Rhys, along with his denial of his own evil, became so bad that he projected his darkness into a hallucination of Rhys’ Eat the Rich killer persona.
Since exiting You’s season 3 finale, Joe has become much more aware about his morality and compulsions, so much that he even stops himself from falling into his old habits when he notices that he’s taken a liking to Charlotte Ritchie's You character, Kate Galvin. Although Joe was able to control himself with regard to Kate, Rhys becomes a genius exception to a rule. It’s not uncharacteristic of Joe to obsess over a man (previous seasons have shown him do it; albeit not long enough to have their own creepy box), but it does indicate that he is beyond saving from his patterns.
Why You Season 4 Was Right To Break The Franchise Victim Trend
Netflix’s You was bound to get repetitive with Joe Goldberg moving to a new location and falling for anyone unlucky enough to catch his eye. Considering that You is a psychological thriller, its main hook is to deliver fun, if not shocking, plot twists that’ll keep audiences guessing what’s going to happen next. Hence, You season 4 made the right call of changing its narrative’s formula, especially its Joe victim trend which surely benefits any future You seasons to come.