It's been over four years since the addictive television adaptation of Caroline Kepnes's You hit the small screen, and what a wild ride it's been. What started out as commentary on men and the dangers of meet-cutes has become a slasher series stringing audiences along one killer's jarring jamboree. We've followed anti-hero Joe (Penn Badgley) from New York to Los Angeles and California's affluent suburbs in previous seasons as he moves from obsession to obsession, transforming himself each time. Now Season 4 takes us all the way to London in what's by far the show's most ambitious season yet.
If you don't remember what happened in You's last season, fret not, because it doesn't really matter. You Season 4 feels like a completely new show with a completely new Joe. The season is split into two parts, with Part 1 introducing us to Joe's new life in London and the threats looming around him. We quickly learn that Joe's adopted a new identity to escape his past. He's now Professor Jonathan Moore, and he's busy teaching an English class at a university and infiltrating London's wealthiest social circles.
But Joe's big day out with his new glitzy gang is cut short when they slowly start getting murdered by a serial killer dubbed "the eat-the-rich killer." This mysterious murderer begins targeting Joe in a fun turn of events where we finally see Joe getting a taste of his own stalker-y medicine. From playing things out like a whodunit to giving us a new antagonist, You Season 4 Part 1 is different, and the real fun of it is joining Joe on his first attempt at solving a mystery.
You Season 4 Part 1 is a whodunit that asks you to play along.
This season of You is essentially a game of Cluedo. Like Colonel Mustard and Mrs. Peacock, You Season 4 Part 1 introduces us to a cast of characters that fit a murder mystery's many caricatures and that all exist as players on the killer's board game.
There's Lady Phoebe (Tilly Keeper), a rich socialite who's more like Instagram royalty. There's Adam (Lukas Gage), her boyfriend with secrets up his sleeve and an exclusive nightclub to run. There's also Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), an art gallery director with a no-frills attitude, and her boyfriend Malcolm (Stephen Hagan), a fellow professor at the same university as Joe. We also can't forget Simon (Aidan Cheng) and Sophie (Niccy Lin), rich siblings who prove a trust fund can buy both an art career and a social media following.
If you thought the slew of cartoonish characters ends there, think again, because we also have Gemma (Eve Austin), Roald (Ben Wiggins), Blessing (Ozioma Whenu), and Connie (Dario Coates) as aristocratic archetypes to add to the playing field. Moving among them all is Joe, playing the role of main detective, trying to roll his dice to get just enough moves to find the murder weapon hiding in the library. What ensues is a whirlwind whodunit that'll take you across London, with clues sprinkled all throughout. So if you consider yourself an Agatha Christie connoisseur, you may catch on to this season's plot twists if you keep your eyes out.
This season's new formula eventually becomes tiring.
While mysteries are usually good fun, Part 1 of You Season 4 begins to drag fairly quickly because, believe it or not, Joe is the most likable character this season. Which is pretty awkward! Normally, we would have already wagged our fingers at Joe for killing an ex-boyfriend or stealing someone's dental records, but instead Part 1 spends most of its time introducing you to new characters that you don't really want to get to know.
Joe's new crew of nepo-baby socialites are entirely boring and so exaggeratedly out-of-touch that it's impossible to care that they're being killed off one by one; given that their convoluted monologues about the woes of caviar or their school years at Oxford earn them more screen time than any other characters, this is a problem. The redeeming factor in all of this, surprisingly enough, is Joe, whose voiceovers this season are hilariously catty and offer the audience an outlet for our frustrations as he lashes out — internally, at least — against these entirely unlikable characters. Joe's one-liners, like when he declares he feels like he's in a "West End revival of Mean Girls," save the show's pacing but also positions Joe as a relatable protagonist when he's notoriously anything but.
This makes You the latest media to wrestle with the idea of ostentatious wealth, with mixed results. While we're not actually supposed to like all these rich folks, they are the target of this season's mystery, and the lack of incentive to empathize with them makes Part 1 a tedious watch. We've seen other whodunits centered around extremely wealthy characters, like Rian Johnson's Knives Out and Glass Onion, where character likability was never an issue; those characters were as wildly charismatic (or at least as interesting) as they were rich. You's new cast of characters may be perfect props for its murder mystery game, but they're boring and lack the certain callous chaos that makes the genre fun.
You is a great pop-culture time capsule.
Despite Part 1 eventually slowing down, it still maintains You's status as an underrated pop-culture mediator in television. In past seasons of You, we've seen the hot topics of that year reflected onscreen, like the generational divide between millennials and Gen Z, the myths of suburban "self-made" America, and modern-day New York and Los Angeles in their full social media prime. Season 4 is no anomaly and leans hard into the zeitgeist's biggest trending topics: eating the rich, nepo babies, and rolling it all out as a whodunit (a genre we're increasingly seeing the return of).
Sure, this season hits the nail on its head by calling its antagonist "the eat-the-rich killer," but it's still interesting to watch the writers tackle that sentiment. While the meta function of Hollywood criticizing the echelons it simultaneously fosters is up for debate, I don't think You was ever a show about serious commentary as much as it is just a portrait of where modern discourse is at. You's always been good at bringing your Twitter feed to life, and this season particularly emboldens the voice of the internet through its anti-capitalism motif and through even more campy decisions with its soundtrack (a certain Cardi B moment will have stans reeling).
So, rather than treating this season of You as serious commentary or an extension of the past three seasons, enjoy it for the novelty and fun it tries to offer instead. You can count on some creepy Joe scenes, along with his many hot takes against the world via voiceover, but play along with this season of You like the Cluedo game it intends to be. And with Part 2 dropping in March, there are a lot more tricks up Joe's sleeve just waiting to unravel.
You Season 4 Part 1 is streaming on Netflix.
