Spoiler alert: The following article discusses major plot points from “You” Season 4 Part 2.
“He can’t get away with this,” one might think (à la “Breaking Bad’s” Jesse), watching each new season of Netflix’s “You.” The soap thriller, which follows its ever-murderous, always-weezing antagonist Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) as he terrorises and kills person after person, is about to kick off audiences once again in Part 2. The first season 4 saw a format change. With a twist plucked straight from Goldberg’s deranged psyche (Moonlight as Professor Jonathan Moore), showrunners Cera Gamble and Starr Badgley were well aware of the pressure of keeping viewers on their toes as they prepare for a potential fifth Looking forward to new dynamics in the season. ,
“From the beginning, Penn’s burning question was, ‘Are you going to try to redeem this man?’ This season is about the difference between a romantic idea of redemption and the truth that you have to dig into in order to turn a bad guy,” Gamble, who said he already has an “idea” for season 5. told TheWrap in an interview. “So we’re all on the same page there, but whoever is feeling particularly righteous at the moment is advocating for justice. But I am of the opinion that people like Joe often do not see justice. That part of the story is up in the air for us. I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that Joe will ever get the punishment he deserves, but we want to give it to him.
As Gamble and Badgley point out, a running joke is the title of the show, which is more prominently flipped on its head in Season 4 Part 2, as Jo learns that she is largely Rhys Montrose’s Ed Spellers. Introducing the character of. A real-life writer familiar with Kate’s (Charlotte Ritchie) social circle and London mayoral candidate, Montrose is not the Eat the Rich killer, with the latter half of the senior installment exploring the split consciousness and broken physical manifestation of Have a moral compass.
“If this whole show was like this exploration [of] Love – what do we think about love as modern people – I think it’s gotten to that point in the story where it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s not about the other person, I really I’m at war with myself,'” Badgley explained. “I think we’re at a point with Joe where he’s realizing it’s not you, it’s me. The irony, of course, but it’s funny, like, he thinks it’s all about you.” , But then he has to realize, ‘No, it’s about me, it’s about him.’ And I think it’s a very appropriate development. It may be the only development of its kind that it should be.
Part 1 ends with the bombshell that Rhys is behind the murders, only for Part 2 to establish Joe as the sole killer. Throughout the season, Joe kidnaps Marinette (Tati Gabrielle), splits up, goes on a murder spree, concocts fake text messages and hides all the evidence – it’s time for that justification. is the progression he’s been employing in previous installments to explain himself. own goodness. Not only was the setup narratively challenging, but Gamble outlined the laborious filming issues of creating the payoff track.
“Was building this writer with outlandish political aspirations; real mind [was] Basically every beat you see this season, we were tracking it in all these different ways, like ‘Raees is a real person, here’s what he likes and why he does these things in this scene. doing? OK, now, coming back to the beginning of the conversation, let’s figure out the painful logistics of making sure Joe would have been there at that time, and then talk about Rice as part of what Joe did so much. He’s now essentially autonomous, and how Rhys is protecting Jo and helping Jo,” explained the writer-executive producer.
This leads to the conclusion of Season 4, in which Kate and Joe end up together – supported by their savvy PR machinations that are able to shield them both from controversy, as well as Love’s (Victoria Pedretti) death. This is despite parts of her past and a vague confession of the murder of her father (Greg Kinnear’s Tom Lockwood).
“I think it’s fair to assume that she hasn’t told him everything,” Gamble said of how much Kate has revealed about Joe’s true origins. “I don’t think he has a whole day, first of all. To me, there’s a really strong dividing line in the kind of bad things Joey has done. He justifies them all for himself and that’s the season. If my husband were to walk into this room right now and sit down and tell me the story of Paco’s abusive stepfather and how he stabbed him, I don’t know if it would be a 100% deal breaker. Wrapping up is an easy thing.
Gamble continued, “It’s specifically the things she’s done for women. It was a long conversation between the writers, and also between Mike Foley and me, when we were writing episode 10, and so we ended up doing that.” where we cut to the conversation before seeing it. In an ideal world, this would be a major story for Kate: ‘What does she know, what doesn’t she know and also how curious is she?’
Naturally, the less Kate knows, the easier it will be for viewers to mold season 5, playing with and mining the rich dramatic irony, from a practical standpoint.
“every time [the writers have] have set themselves a very difficult task, which is, ‘Where do we go from here?’” echoed Badgley. “For Season 5, should that happen, if that’s where she’s going, seeing her explore more is probably more interesting and that gives room to sarcasm and hate and plot to kill.”
Both the actors and the creative argue that season 4 explored one of Joe’s seemingly healthiest relationships yet (which really isn’t saying much), given its whodunit qualities and the character’s pre-existing passion. Noticing, the adversary “you” (who he also ends up killing).
“They come out of the season looking like a fairly healthy, happy couple on top of the world, but part of it is that she didn’t even become ‘you’ until very late in the season. And the ‘you’ that He’s battling, on one level, this famous author that he’s obsessed with and then on another level, he’s himself. In the end, it’s time for ‘U’ to be Joe,” Gamble said.
Badgley said, “With Kate, you’ve got to ask yourself some new questions and learn some really valuable lessons about real love and friendship, even though she’s an unreliable narrator and it’s never really happening.” is the way he’s showing us. Either way, it’s true. I think Joe was saying the most emotionally mature things ever. He added with a laugh. responding appropriately to those whom he is determined to kill.”
In the final moments of the season, Joe – now clean-shaven, back to his “real” identity – embodies the power previously wielded by Tom Lockwood, looking out over the cityscape as he takes up the position he absorbed and stolen. If Joe was able to get everything before he acquired immense wealth, who can say what he can do now?
Gamble explained, “When you look at the kind of access and privilege and resources that one is now going to be able to touch, you’re really in the same position that Tom was in at his age.” “Anytime we put a character on the show who checks all the surface boxes like Joe does, where he’ll slot into our society, we’re looking at ways that people think he’s different, but he Not there. “
Then there are other loose ends: Marianne is still alive and well, thanks to her and Nadia’s timely-executed plan, and Nadia is framed and imprisoned for her lover’s death. In Part 2, Pedretti and Elizabeth Lael’s Beck also return, who struggles to piece together his identity and actions, hallucinating a courtroom scene in which he is exonerated for his crimes.
Gamble noted that “you’re open to featuring more character retribution for a number of reasons, including that Joe has a very active imagination as well as we’ve intentionally left a lot of dangerous threadbare for him.” (There’s a running joke in the writers’ room about resurrecting Peach’s distant cousin, aka the late author JD Salinger.)
However, he is quite cautious about bringing Marianne back: “I’ll look at her and say, ‘Please raise your daughter, you’ve been through a lot, and I hope you never get over it again because you’re so happy. and who does not know that you are alive.’”
After all, Badgley knows how “you” will end. That is, if executive producers Greg Berlanti and Gamble pitched to him years ago, it worked out.
“I can’t tell you what it is because it’s such a great ending, but I think it’s a very beautiful and surprisingly good answer to the question [of justice]'” he said. “Because, really, if this show is a meditation on toxic misconceptions about love and all those things — and maybe masculinity, but I think mostly love — then there’s a B story about what justice is. ? Because the whole time everybody says ‘Oh, I love watching this dude, but he’s got what’s coming at him.’
