TV Show Review - You (Season 4)

Season: 4
Genre: Thriller/ Drama
Number of episodes: 10
Year: 2023
Starring: Pen Badgley, Tati Gabrielle, Charlotte Ritchie, Ed Speleers, Tilly Keeper, Amy-Leigh Hickman, Lukas Gage, Greg Kinnear

Description: A dangerously charming, intenstly obsessive young man (Penn Badgley) goes to extreme measures to insert himself into lives of those he is transfixed by.

Review: It’s always commendable when creators of a film series and television series throw in some good variety and don’t follow the same pattern over and over again. “You” did it, but eventually managed to ruin it.
 
WARNING! THIS REVIEW MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!
 
It is refreshing that season 4 is done differently. Not only because the battleground had moved from the United States to London’s upper class, but also because for once it is Joe himself who must fear his safety. This is because someone is trying to frame him for murder. The plot creates a new dynamic, although Joe must cope amid a group of very annoying snobs.
 
After the previous season, in which Joe toppled his “partner in crime” and great love Love Quinn, he has assumed a different identity in London. He now is Jonathan Moore, a literature professor, who managed to spin things so that Love was the evil mastermind behind the events and Joe did not survive. He just wants to lead a quiet life now. Mingling amongst the high society of spoiled influencers, uppity artists, annoying rich kids an snobby gallery owners is not really my idea of living a quiet life, but Joe somehow ends up there. And every single character Joe meets is unlikeable, annoying and slap-worthy. Cleverly done by the creators, but also a bit transparent, as this leaves the empathy entirely with Joe. Especially when it turns out that after a night out he is blamed for a murder.
 
Text messages are used to extort the former bookseller and newfound teacher: the culprit knows his true identity and apparently h is not the only one who knows more about Joe.
 
For the first time, a season of “You” has been divided into two chapters dropped on Netflix. The writers did take this new strategy quite literally. There is a clear cut in plot and approach between the first five and the second five episodes. Complete with a sort of interim wrap-up. The writers could have filled the entire season just with the question of who is pressuring Joe so much, more importantly, what the motives are for doing so. But in the second half, the perspective is completely thrown overboard and the course is changed decisively. Except for a few, the many irritating side characters hardly have any function. Moreover, the writers throw it entirely on Joe’s mental state, which is in stark contrast to the man who for seasons has been portrayed as admittedly quite disturbed, but also calculating, cunning and opportunistic. The main character is left reeling and things don’t really work out. With that, I kind of predicted the whole Rhys storyline and that it was eventually Joe himself.  
 
Moreover, more than before, characters from other seasons are revisited. Then the realization dawns that despite the change of environment and tone, “You” is starting to become formulaic.
 
Season 4 of this successful Netflix series is what I would call a “mixed bag”. It starts strong, but loses itself in contrived plot twists and futile attempts to change its ways.