‘You’ Sets Up a Twisted Relationship in Season 4 Return (2025)

Joe Goldberg can never really change.

Despite four seasons of being presented with an opportunity to do so, You has made it clear where it lands on that theses relating to its starring serial killer, played by Penn Badgley.

And Badgley himself, along with the showrunner of the hit Netflix series Sera Gamble, each confirmed that in recent conversations with The Hollywood Reporter after the release of Part 1. “The reality of somebody who kills people is that it’s hard to change, because what you’re having is a response to this deep-grained belief that had to have started in early, early life,” said Badgley.

Gamble further explained, “There’s nothing he values over this feeling that he calls love, and it is incredibly difficult for him. He tears himself apart, trying to both be his version of a good man and then also get what he wants in terms of love and the kind of relationship he wants in his life.”

In the first look (below) at Part 2, Joe has some strong opinions about what he believes he is not and how he differentiates himself from season four’s other stalker and serial killer, who has been revealed to be Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers). In a twist for the hit series, the main relationship in the largely London-set fourth season has emerged to be one between the two killers. “You don’t get to tell me who I am. I am not some cold-blooded psycho,” Joe is vehemently heard saying in the trailer, presumably in conversation to Rhys. “We all have something bad in us.”

The fourth season moved Joe to London, where he adopted a new identity as a professor named Jonathan Moore. After murdering his wife Love (Victoria Pedretti), leaving their son behind and faking his own death, Joe went searching for his season three “love,” Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) in Paris. When she rejected his advances, and called him a murderer, he let her go and proceeded to fall into a new friend group of uber-wealthy socialites when settling in London. (The season filmed in London, Paris and L.A.)

But the show flipped the script to turn the serial killer and stalker into the one being stalked, as he finds himself framed and then blackmailed for a series of murders, dubbed the “Eat the Rich killings,” by Rhys. The author and instant friend to Joe revealed his true intentions in the Part 1 finale, setting up a serial killer showdown of sorts for Part 2.

For the first time, You was broken into two parts this season, with the remaining five episodes releasing March 9. Badgley praised the writers for reinventing the wheel of the serial killer saga to keep viewers on their toes. Making Joe and Rhys the central relationship — as opposed to a new female love for Joe to stalk and kill (since he seems to have better intentions this season with Kate, played by Charlotte Ritchie) — also likely aligned with Badgley’s request for less sex scenes this time around.

“The season divided very cleanly for us,” Gamble explained to THR. “The first half is the whodunnit. We leave you with ‘Here’s the killer.’ And so, Part 2 is about the relationship between Joe and Rhys. He solved the mysteries, and now, how does he actually solve the problem? Is the question. It’s really fun, and I can’t say enough about Ed Speleers’ performance. He obviously had the story for the whole season in his pocket when he started, but I think for people who like to go back and rewatch, there will be so much pleasure in watching his performance.”

The biggest aha-moment in the trailer, however, is the return of Pedretti’s Love — whether in a fantasy vision remains to be seen, given the twisty nature of the series. Love was introduced in season two and elevated her status as more than just a Joe Goldberg romance in three, when she became a serial killer alongside her husband.

Amid a voiceover of Joe talking about second chances, Love appears in the all-too-familiar basement cage where Joe (and Love) have taken their victims. Love is sitting calmly reading Rhys’ book: A Good Man in a Cruel World. “Hi, Joe,” she says, with a smile.

In his Part 1 chat with THR, Badgley’s take on his buzzy stalker-serial killer (a description that Badgley has consistently acknowledged speaks to society glorifying the wrong types of characters), helps to explain why Joe seems to have a lack of awareness about who he really is. Calling him “the most unreliable narrator, maybe in all of storytelling,” as Badgley described Joe, helps to understand how Joe continues to try to move on with his life even as his murder tally rises exponentially with each season.

This also applies to his season four romance with Kate, he says: “He’s drawn in because she seems like she wants to be good. She’s surrounded by bad people and wants to be good. And he feels the same way. But, that’s what he says. I don’t know if that’s true.”

That’s perhaps why Kate, and the women before her, continue to find the problematic protagonist so desirable. Gamble, in her conversation with THR’s Top 5 podcast, helped put the audience attraction to Joe in perspective amid the post-#MeToo climate. “We madeYouright as the #MeToo movement exploded,” she said. “By the time that the show was out, every woman was talking about #MeToo in this way that everyone was optimistic about it. The conversation had changed. And here we are several years later and we’re making a season about an objectively horrible man who is going to do what it takes to redeem himself. And every time I check the news, it’s like some other guy who faced a consequence, we’re now talking about what he needs to do to redeem himself.”

The Warner Bros. Television series is executive produced by Greg Berlanti, Gamble, Gina Girolamo, Leslie Morgenstein, Sarah Schechter and Michael Foley.

You returns with Part 2 March 9 on Netflix. Read more fromPenn BadgleyandSera Gambleon Part 1.