You Season 4 Part 1 Review: Manages to Break The Rhythm Of The Narrative Sustained
Cast: Penn Badgley, Tati Gabrielle, Lukas Gage, Charlotte Ritchie, Tilly Keeper, Amy-Leigh Hickman, Ed Speleers
Creator: Greg Berlanti, Sera Gamble
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Today one of the most successful series on the platform is back on Netflix: You Season 4 Part 1, the criminal and romantic thriller in which its protagonist, Joe Goldberg, goes to the wildest extremes to conquer the love of the object of his obsession. After three seasons in which Joe, played by Penn Badgley, has lived through it all, circumstances have seen the character change gears, once again, to get away from the events of the season 3 finale. The first part of the fourth season of You is already on Netflix, with the first five episodes. On March 9, the second part will arrive in the original catalog of the platform. After living under his obsessions, Joe Goldberg has moved to London to try to start over, which means losing that bad habit of ending up killing people.
In reality, the series, based on the novels by Caroline Kepnes, proves that it still has a lot to say, above all thanks to a protagonist who, in an eternal dialogue with himself, his intuitive abilities and a sort of maniacal personality manages to send back an image which, despite the most extreme aspects, produces an incredible charm. Added to this, then, is the decision to divide the fourth season into two parts, scheduling the release of the second in exactly one month, i.e. on February 9th. Just to add to the suspense. While waiting for the conclusion, however, let’s try to enter Joe’s new world with our review of You Season 4.
You Season 4 Part 1 Review: The Story
In this fourth season of You, Joe has adopted a new alter-ego. He now poses as a university professor named Jonathan Moore who lives in London. Here he meets faces new and old, joins the social circle of London’s rich and privileged, and also meets Marienne. As Joe tries to live his new life, his old “habits” begin to surface, though he tries to keep them bottled up… However, as is always the case with Joe, his past soon catches up with him, leading to a series of twisted events that test his ability to keep his secrets hidden. Along the way, he meets a new love interest, Love Quinn (played by Victoria Pedretti), but as with all of Joe’s relationships, things are not quite what they seem.
Joe Goldberg is back but this time in a different setting and mood. After the events that led him to lead a normal life with his wife Love and their son in a quiet provincial town, he decides to send everything up in smoke. And not only from a symbolic point of view. So, after killing Love, cutting off two toes to pretend he’s dead too, he sets fire to their house. The only way to start over was to flee the United States towards Europe. To welcome him for a new life in London, where he finds work as a teacher of American literature. His daily life seems to be marked by important appointments and absolute solitude. In addition to a substantial lack of interest in the people around him. Two essential factors to keep away from complications and, above all, not to give voice to the most disturbing and dangerous part of his nature. But can you escape from yourself?
Joe will find out when he enters, thanks or because of a colleague, in a small circle of rich and spoiled scions of the English aristocracy. The occasion is a series of killings for which he, however, is not responsible. Indeed, in this completely unexpected situation, Joe finds himself having to use his stalker skills to discover the killer. “Joe Goldberg is dead” At least formally and, above all, in the United States. In his place comes Professor Jonathan Moore, a teacher of American literature at a London college. The quiet life, low profile and the attitude of a man who doesn’t want to be in trouble anymore. As? Keeping one’s nature under control, and not listening to that curiosity towards others leads to pathological attitudes. And above all, keep out any kind of sentimental complication.
Because, in the end, the source of all excess has always been this. So, therefore, Joe decides to build a whole new life for himself, fully enjoying the anonymity that a city like London can offer him. His daily life is very simple but ultimately quite rewarding. He manages to live thanks to the greatest love of his life, books. And you have the opportunity to immerse yourself in discussions and analysis with the students every day. He words that his mind never ceases to feed on and in which, very often, he tries to find answers even for himself. At the end of the day, then, he returns to his cozy apartment, full of books, with a lit fireplace and upholstered armchairs. A set that reproduces a perfect British atmosphere within which it has structured its limbo. That is until Malcolm, a colleague he has always avoided and who lives across the street from him convinces him to spend an evening at an exclusive club in the company of his equally small circle.
Here he is in contact with a series of characters from the London jet set. All share similar characteristics: they are rich, bored, and tend to be superficial. Only two of them seem to stand out: the icy Kate, a workaholic at work, and Rhys Montrose, who has freed himself from his humble origins through his studies at Oxford and the success of his books. A climb that points directly to the seat of the Mayor of London. An evening destined to become a unique occasion not to be repeated if, the following morning, Joe did not find Malcolm’s body on the table in his apartment. This time, however, he is not responsible. So, after having made the body disappear by giving all of his experience to the end, he will begin a hunt for the killer that will take him to an Agatha Christie-esque setting where the victims continue to grow.
You Season 4 Part 1 Review and Analysis
One of the standout elements of You Season 4 is its gripping storyline. Despite the over-the-top nature of the plot, the show manages to keep viewers on the edge of their seats with its unpredictable twists and turns. Additionally, the cast delivers powerful performances, particularly Badgley and Pedretti, who bring their characters to life in a way that is both captivating and creepy. While You Season 4 has plenty of suspenseful moments, it also falls victim to some of the same problems that have plagued the previous seasons. The show’s convoluted plot can be difficult to follow at times, and it often relies on cheap shock tactics instead of genuine suspense. Additionally, some of the supporting characters lack depth and seem to serve no purpose other than to advance the plot.
Your Season 4 is a mixed bag, offering both thrilling and flawed elements. On the one hand, its engaging storyline and top-notch performances make it a must-watch for fans of the show. On the other hand, its convoluted plot and reliance on cheap shock tactics detract from the overall experience. Whether you’ll love it or hate it will largely depend on your tolerance for over-the-top thrills and suspense. In conclusion, You season four is both awful and entertaining at the same time. While it may not be the best installment in the series, it still offers plenty of thrills and suspense that are sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. Whether you’re a fan of the show or just looking for a new binge-worthy series, You season four is worth checking out.
However, this feeling does not last long, since the creators Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti move away from their formula to place Joe in a position which, although it is not exactly unprecedented -remember that Love was equal to or worse than him- Yes, it is much more mysterious and playful. There’s no overblown Joe obsession with finding love here. On this occasion, our protagonist finds himself in the middle of an Agatha Christie ‘whodunit’ in which everyone wonders who he is, while he wonders whom the murderer is trying to torment him. Thus, Joe goes into Sherlock Holmes mode not to harass his new acquaintances -well yes, a little too- but to find this mysterious assassin who threatens to blow up his new London life. So, for once, that You that has haunted him so much has become someone he can’t see, touch, or track. However, these new and obnoxious characters, as well as Joe’s attitude to goodness during this first half of the season, could drive more than one of them crazy, which could lead us to want to see him a little more… let’s say unleashed.
At what point have we viewers become more Joe than Joe himself? I don’t know, but without a doubt, it is a great achievement both by Gamble and Berlanti and by Penn Badgley who continues here just as full and abundant as ever. The worst thing is that the writers have managed to make the secondary characters even more despicable with the passing of the seasons, and the truth is that in this new installment, they have far exceeded themselves in this regard. Is there anything more annoying than a bunch of spoiled rich? Well, yes: a bunch of rich spoiled millennials. And see that Joe’s mind continues to expel huge amounts of poison against all forms of life contrary to his, but this time we may even agree with him on more things than we would like. So, these satires of rich young men with legs swarm around Joe as if he’s one of those projects you jump into because you’re too bored and can afford it. A pity that they are all so empty that none manages to fill the huge gap left by Victoria Pedretti. Even a fantastic Charlotte Ritchie doesn’t get it, since the script doesn’t care to develop them to have some sympathy for them.
In any case, do not forget that these have only been the first five episodes of the season, so you still have time to correct your mistakes. And the truth is that, for the moment, this new installment of You is a breath of fresh air, not to say that it feels like an almost radical change if we compare it with what we were used to until now. It is a welcome mix between Joe’s habits and British fiction -with its very English, very English situations- that, although it forces us to disconnect our brains more than ever, it is curious and entertaining, to say the least.
That yes, as it happens with Joe, within the novelty that the narrative of this season supposes certain patterns repeat themselves: the young figure who must be protected to believe himself a good person, the woman who attracts his attention overall, having to deal with his friends, etc. It is the way for the series to reinvent itself without losing all its essence, but it is also true that the change, in general, is impressive. He needed it because, in his previous installment, he was beginning to show alarming symptoms of exhaustion, and the fact that the one who makes Joe fall into the same mistakes as always is someone else and not himself is refreshing in itself.
And while the presence of Pedretti and his unforgettable Love is sorely missed, at least the chemistry between Badgley and Ritchie’s Kate is explosive. Their relationship works and evolves differently than the previous ones, which over the course of these first five episodes leaves us with another addictive guilty pleasure that fluctuates between murders, investigations, rich people’s eccentricities and moments that pay homage to the “Agatha Christian”. Without further ado, after writing this trying not to spoil anything at all, we will have to see what the second part of the season has in store for us. At the moment he is on the right track.
Building a story or a television series around an ambiguous character who, indeed, shows clear signs of danger, is certainly nothing new. Dexter is a perfect example of this. On the other hand, there is nothing that fascinates me more than a personality capable of moving with a perfect attitude between right and wrong following a proper code of ethics. A scheme that has also been applied to perfection to build the character of Joe Goldberg, adding, however, the variable of a sharp mind, quick and, at the same time, perverse intelligence. For this reason, therefore, the viewer was enthralled for three seasons by the logic, the use of the word, and, above all, by the speed of thought of this truly sui generis character. Quality that, despite the constant repetition of a narrative scheme, has kept the attention high on him, not making him feel the need to reach a definitive conclusion.
To all this, however, the first part of the fourth season adds an extra element, taking the character into new terrain. And not just geographically. The narrative scheme is always the same. That is, the one aimed at recreating a journey into the protagonist’s mind by becoming the exclusive listeners of his reflections. This time, however, Joe doesn’t open up a new level of his personality by showing the viewer an awareness of himself and his danger. Added to this is ever-high attention not to allow certain mental and psychotic reflexes to take over. Not so much for the welfare of others as for himself. At the beginning of the series, therefore, we are faced with a character in remission, a protagonist who takes refuge in the invisibility that is familiar behind the new and reassuring identity of Professor Moore.
An interesting perspective that Joe refers to is a kind of European vacation, a sabbatical year for himself that he probably intends to extend as long as possible. The question, however, in this case, is: exactly when will he manage not to lose control? The question hovers like a sort of threat over his fate from the very first images. Contributing to this sensation is the narrative structure itself which, indulging in a sort of emotional limbo, puts the viewer in anticipation of the next and inevitable explosion. And this is not long in coming but in a completely unexpected form. Just like Joe’s mind. Thus, in an unpredictable plot twist, the obsessive and potentially killer protagonist becomes a detective, finding himself at the center of a tight game of chess with a murderer he cannot identify. A confrontation that he is called upon to support using that acute and at the same time crazy intelligence he has shown up to this point. In a perverse game, therefore, the murderer is transformed into a potential victim destined, however, to predict the movements of whoever is threatening him.
A narrative structure that plays with a continuous doubling of self in which the old Joe and the new Professor Moore try to work together to return to their European interlude. For the previous three seasons, You Netflix has unraveled its narrative evolution through the structure of a thriller with splatter notes. Now, however, the registry has changed. The British setting, in fact, also affects the structure of the story which veers decidedly toward yellow. It is as if you had gone from a novel by Stephen King to one by Agata Christie. Be warned though, this is by no means diminished. Rather it is a seamless and even natural transition that matches the setting in which the story unfolds.
It is therefore not surprising that the story draws inspiration from the typical architecture of the genre. Rules dictated by the absolute lady of yellow and which, for the occasion, are set out by a passionate student of the literature course held by the new and immaculate Professor Moore. So here we are faced with the first victim, strategically positioned to frame or bring the ambiguous character par excellence into a perverse game. A feature, however, that makes it perfect for revealing all the mystery. On the other hand, who is better than a man with the propensity of a killer to unmask another?
To make everything more interesting, then, there is also the fragility of this improvised detective, represented by a past that, at any moment, can come back to haunt him. In such a plot, therefore, Joe takes on the role of a truly atypical Poirot. In this case, the famous “little gray cells” of the Belgian detective could show unexpected secondary effects if applied to a tendentially disturbed personality. Despite this, however, losing control would not be productive for the evolution of the story. At least not right now, given the exponential growth of victims. All traceable in the same circle of “friends”. Thus, following some tracks, Joe learns to manage the secrets of this literary genre that he doesn’t particularly like, but of which he is the protagonist. All these aspects are sublimated in a momentarily decisive fifth episode. Because if it is true that the killer’s name is revealed to the viewer thanks to the exclusive attendance of Joe’s thoughts, it is quite another matter to stop him. The next step, perhaps, will take place through another change of narrative genre. To find out, however, we have to know how to wait.
You Season 4 Part 1 Review: The Last Words
Your Season 4 Part 1 manages to break the rhythm of the narrative sustained up to this moment, taking the protagonist and the spectators toward the new ground. Thus, inserting him within the structure of a classic thriller, he is entrusted with the new role of detective to unmask the person responsible who, for the first time, is not him. In this way, however, he cannot continue to escape from the most ambiguous part of himself. On the contrary, he must refer to this to try to anticipate the other’s moves, keeping his excesses under control. In a game of delicate balances and personal tensions, the mind of this character continues to be the center of a narrative that does not disappoint.
