You S4, Explained: Everything you need to know... so far

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00:00With Yu's fourth season, the stalker has become the stalked.

00:03The season has begun with a lot of the hallmarks of the previous three seasons,

00:07Joe Goldberg assuming a new identity and trying to hide in plain sight,

00:12while insisting he has left his murderous ways behind him.

00:15But this time, it feels like the target is on his back from the very start.

00:20And part of this is because this is one social group he can't blend into.

00:24It's one thing trying to be a Brooklyn hipster, or a clean-living L.A. type, or a suburban dad,

00:29but with the English upper class, if you're not born into it,

00:32you'll soon get found out.

00:34You've found someone new to bully, have you?

00:36Oh, come on. If he can't take it, he really is a worthless bag of mush.

00:40Here's our take on Yu's fourth season, how Joe's new European surroundings

00:45becomes its sharpest ever critique of class,

00:48and how the show keeps getting us to empathize with this serial killer.

00:52Spoilers for the first half of season four ahead.

00:54So where does the mid-season finale leave off?

01:01After Joe plays Sherlock for the first four episodes,

01:04the eat-the-rich killer unveils himself to be Rhys Montrose.

01:08It's an attempt to bring Joe onto his side and pin the murders on the masochistic Rold,

01:13who for a minute did look like he was about to murder Joe.

01:16Of course, because Joe doesn't take the bait and does escape from the burning building,

01:21now he's in a bigger bind than ever, with the real killer about to run for the mayor of London

01:25while simultaneously framing him.

01:28If you're clever enough to get yourself free,

01:30I'll see you back in London and we can revisit this.

01:32The choice of Rhys as the killer is significant,

01:34because he has experience of both elite privilege and a hardscrabble upbringing.

01:39At its core, Yu has always been about class.

01:42Joe Goldberg is the poor kid who's been able to use his obvious intellect

01:46as a way to blend in with people whose lives are very different to his.

01:50And for the most part, it's worked.

01:52But here, the gap is so wide that it's impossible for him to even attempt such a transformation.

01:57Where's your family from?

01:59All over.

02:00Loving the whole off-the-rack vibe.

02:02And this dividing line is played out in reactions to the season's murders themselves.

02:07The eat-the-rich killer moniker is coupled with the scenes of young students

02:11holding placards and marching through the streets.

02:13All of a sudden, there's a spirit of vigilantism being stirred up,

02:17with scenes evoking films like V for Vendetta,

02:19all of which is buoyed by the fact that each of the rich elites

02:22Joe finds himself mixed up with is uniquely awful,

02:26completely divorced from reality,

02:27and in the case of American expat Adam Pratt,

02:30deriving fetishistic pleasure from the gulf in class.

02:34It's about the person being beneath me,

02:37but then at this moment...

02:41Above you.

02:42With season four's focus on the rich elite,

02:44it carries on from where the previous seasons left off,

02:47and it also builds on a bigger discussion we're seeing in much of today's most thought-provoking

02:52film and TV.

02:53From eat-the-rich satires like The Menu and Triangle of Sadness,

02:57to shows that give us a glimpse into rich people's dirty business,

03:00like Succession and White Lotus,

03:02to mysteries that turn the tables on the rich,

03:05like Glass Onion in the first, Knives Out.

03:07This rich people shit is weird.

03:09In the middle of Yu's take on this anti-elite discussion is Kate Galvin,

03:13and really, it's through her that you get one of the biggest indictments of that class,

03:17where all the other rich characters are pretty unlikable,

03:20with perhaps the exception of Lady Phoebe, who just seems kinda naive.

03:24Kate is presented as more complex.

03:26She's the only one we see who feels uncomfortable with her privilege and scathing of the place it comes from.

03:31My father is the worst man alive, and I am his favorite daughter.

03:37And through her, we also see the sometimes damaging effect

03:40that being born into this class can have on who you become.

03:44Everyone else's empathy deficit manifests in spoiled entitlement,

03:48and the belittlement of anyone around them who isn't at their social level.

03:51For Kate, it manifests in a deep disconnect from herself,

03:54and not a belittlement of others, but an innate suspicion of them and of their motives.

03:59Why would you even care?

04:01What if I just do?

04:02It's an important trick, because not only does it support

04:05the show's central critique of the upper class,

04:07but it also shows how even its own members can be victims.

04:11Kate is steely, stoic, and tough, but ironically,

04:14this is what makes her vulnerable, because she's aware of it.

04:17Her upbringing may have been privileged, but it was also traumatic,

04:20and she's still working through that.

04:22When I was young, my mother forbade me from crying.

04:28Hide. All feeling. It's became default.

04:31So how does the killer Rhys Montrose fit into all this?

04:35Is his grab for power at the end of the fifth episode

04:37signaling that he's going to try and upend society

04:40and take the rich down once and for all?

04:43Or has that power already begun to corrupt him?

04:45And now that Joe knows who the killer is,

04:48does that put an even bigger target on his back?

04:50The biggest shift in this season of You is its move into whodunit territory.

04:58And given the location, this kind of makes sense.

05:00All of a sudden, Joe is bolt-holed in a bougie London apartment,

05:04not too dissimilar or too far away from 221B Baker Street.

05:08He's grown his hair to a Benedict Cumberbatch-esque level,

05:11and is studying the works of Agatha Christie to try and get himself an edge

05:15on who the killer is and why he wants to frame him.

05:18It is a formula, but the formula is fun.

05:21It draws you in. It hides the social commentary under the puzzle.

05:24So beyond class, what is the other social commentary that You is hiding?

05:28The show has always engaged with the contemporary explosion

05:32of the true crime genre.

05:33When it first came out, Penn Badgley was all over Twitter,

05:36insisting people stop thirsting over his psychopathic stalker.

05:40But that in itself acted as a commentary on the fascination people had,

05:44and still have with serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy,

05:47who are often presented by true crime as these brooding,

05:50tortured, charismatic individuals.

05:53I find it absurd to ask for mercy for something that I did not do.

05:58But here, You is coming at the genre from a different angle

06:01and offering an important critique.

06:03True crime has turned us all into amateur sleuths,

06:06and arguably is one of the contributing factors in the revival of the murder mystery.

06:10Genre films like Knives Out and Glass Onion,

06:12remakes of Christie classics like Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express,

06:16as well as series like The After Party and Search Party,

06:19all follow a formula that Joe is trying to get underneath the hood of here.

06:23But despite him having all the tools,

06:25he keeps going down blind alleys and taking us with him as he fails.

06:30Nadia was right.

06:31The first suspect is usually the second victim.

06:35So much for my one-off murder theory.

06:37So the season is performing a delicate, skillful balancing act.

06:40On the one hand, it's playing with all the conventions of the whodunit genre,

06:44even sending all the suspects off to a big secluded mansion in the woods

06:48where you know something bad is going to happen.

06:50On the other, it's showing the problem of trying to apply

06:53these literary tropes to real-life situations,

06:56as we are so often guilty of doing when watching unsolved murder documentaries.

07:00Joe doesn't figure out that Reese is the killer.

07:03Reese reveals it himself.

07:04No, Joe.

07:05And since Reese is made into an ally of sorts for Joe,

07:08a fellow outsider, fellow literary enthusiast,

07:11and potentially a fellow psychopath,

07:13for the first time in the show, we aren't sure who is controlling the narrative.

07:17Joe might be the one telling the story, but whose story is he telling?

07:21You want?

07:22You want me?

07:23To kill Rold, yes.

07:25So you kill him, and I'll take care of all the other touches

07:28that will make the story sing.

07:28One thing that maybe goes unmentioned about Joe's serial killer tendencies in You

07:36is the fact that, well, he's not that good at it.

07:39He's sloppy.

07:40He leads trails behind him.

07:42And for all his talk about his skills as someone who watches and observes,

07:45he's not a great planner.

07:47And here, all those loose ends are still hanging over him.

07:50It was tough, but I did it.

07:53Hello, Joe.

07:55The biggest one is the reason he's in Europe in the first place, Marianne.

07:59It was Marianne who took him first to Paris and then to London,

08:02as he tried to find her and carry on the relationship

08:05they had begun in Madreline.

08:06He talks about wanting to leave that version of himself behind,

08:09but at the same time, when Marianne backs him into a corner,

08:13he's quick to lash out against her.

08:15I'm not gonna hurt you.

08:16You're right, you're not.

08:18I will use this.

08:19Of course, he's put in a difficult position in regard to her.

08:22The Quinn family's hitman is the one who gives him his new identity

08:26and allows him to start a new life in London,

08:28but it's on the condition that Marianne,

08:30the only one who still knows Joe is alive, is taken care of.

08:33Still, Joe can't.

08:35He lets her back on the train to Paris in what he imagines

08:38to be a final act of love.

08:39I let you go.

08:42To show you.

08:44I'm not what you think.

08:46I'm not a killer.

08:47But for us watching, it all seems too neat.

08:50Surely Marianne is going to return at some point in the second half

08:53of the series, and surely the trick Joe tried to play on the man

08:56sent to kill him will come back to haunt him.

08:59And maybe this theme is one that will be revisited with Rhys, too,

09:02because like Joe, the only thing we know about him

09:05is his own self-narrative, which he's already admitted

09:07to not being 100% accurate.

09:10Would it help you to know that that part of the book is a lie?

09:12He sold himself to the public as a poor boy done good,

09:15who had an epiphany in prison.

09:17But we know he's violent, cunning, and psychopathic.

09:20So how much else from his origin story is he leaving out?

09:23His relationship to a duke is an offhand side,

09:25but could he be the real power behind the throne?

09:28As far as cliffhangers go, the first half of season fours

09:31feels pretty treacherous.

09:33As we go into the second half,

09:34there is no character who isn't under threat.

09:37I beg to differ with a murderer on the loose.

09:39Joe could have his identity revealed at any minute.

09:42Marianne could be found out by an American hitman,

09:44Kate and her remaining rich friends are still targets for Rhys,

09:47and Rhys is surely a target for Joe.

09:50So even though the murder mystery has been solved,

09:52there remains a lot of mess,

09:53and no real way of knowing how it's all going to be cleaned up.

09:56We retire to the drawing room at once

09:58to discuss how we might find her killer.

10:00You've got to be f***ing kidding me.

10:12you've got to be friends.

10:14You've got to be found,

10:15you've got to keep the

10:23other hand in the wrong way of fixing them.

10:26So I am going to find them.

10:27I'm going to find a place.

10:27I am going to find a place.

10:29You've got to be a 2050-200,

10:29and I am going to find a place,

10:31and you've got to find a place.

10:32And I have to find the place.

10:32But I'm going to be looking to....

10:34I know that you can do it.

10:34And you can do it.

10:36I know that you can do it.

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