You season 4 review: Joe Goldberg finally loses the plot (And we’re all here for it)

If you thought Joe's obsession was deadly before, wait until he fully commits to it this time.

In case you thought Joe Goldberg couldn't get more unhinged, he is back this time with a tweed jacket and a British accent for Season 4 of You. Set in an overpriced and tea-sodden London, this season turns the tables on our favorite stalker-turned-serial killer, replacing the classic “boy meets girl, boy locks girl in glass cage” with a psychological self-whodunit.

Yes, You went full-on murder mystery, and surprise, surprise, the killer was Joe all along.

Shocking? Yes.

Predictable? Of course.

Entertaining? Oh, absolutely.

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From Meet-Cute to Meat Grinder

After the initial stages of the season, viewers may find themselves experiencing the manic masking of a cabin fever that has yet to be diagnosed. The primary bit feels like a Gothic romantic comedy mashup of knives out.

Jonathan Moore, a brooding literature professor known for his troubled past and a rather fetching beard, joins a new acquaintance group that happens to be loaded, only to be thrown into a new, dying one each episode. Somehow, Joe, our sweet deluded Joe, assumes that the true killer is someone else.

Now, meet Joe's fantasy character Rhys Montrose: a perfigment of Joe’s shattered psyche alongside figurative labels like mayoral candidate and memoirist. Major spoiler: he finds out that Rhys is not real and, therefore, instead, the shadows of Joe’s psyche that responds to all behind him, claim that he does.

Whole season. Surreal, isn't it? It's like being haggled in a disguised version of hide-and-seek with multiple corpses in your mind.

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The Cage Is Back (And So Is Joe's Ego)

For our viewing pleasure, Season 4's flashback dedicated to Marienne remains one of the most deliciously twisted episodes. The reveal, however, is something troubling as to Joe’s character: he didn’t let her go.

Nope, she’s been trapped in his signature glass cage, aka the IKEA of serial killer décor. While he dissociates harder than a millennial trying to meditate, she’s been held captive by Joe... It’s both tragic and deeply on-brand.

The season also leans deep into the unreliable narration that Joe provides us with. This time, he’s outside his own head, and we watch him beginning to crack like an overbaked crème brûlée. Penn Badgley plays this unraveling with the charm of a man who knows he’s at war with himself—both the protagonist and the villain—and finally done pretending.

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London, Blood, and the Death of Denial

The supporting characters contribute a cossetting splash of dark humor as Lady Phoebe epitomizes British royalty gone wildly wrong but is somehow endearing. And Kate, Joe's latest aspiration, essentially ‘the final boss of damaged women', is far too alluring — knowing that Joe has ill intentions, and being equally flawed makes it either seductive — or perhaps inevitable.

In the episode's finale, Joe goes off the rails with a dramatic spiral and full-fledged insanity. He murders Kate's father, attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge (he truly jumps, believe it or not), survives, and then makes his way to NYC like some deranged phoenix cloaked in cashmere.

Devoid of a moral compass and embracing his darker nature, Joe's no longer concealing psychotic tendencies behind warped ethics. He is now wealthy, powerful... and heartbreakingly self-aware.

The worlds of chaos and sham humanity have zero sympathy.

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Final Verdict: You’re Gonna Want to Watch This

I'll give this season 9/10⭐

You Season 4 is perhaps the franchise’s most ambitious and self-referential installment – and morally bankrupt - and that's quite something. The seductive romance themes of prior seasons have been completely abandoned, replaced with self-reflective, introspective horror and frenetic hallucinations. Sure.

The pacing in Part 1 is all over the place, and some plot twists are delivered with all the finesse of a sledgehammer, but that’s the beauty of it.