‘You’ loses steam in fourth season

The hit Netflix series “You” released the first part of its fourth season last Thursday, Feb. 9. Viewers were skeptical about this season, because where could we possibly go from here without our beloved Love Quinn, played by the amazing Victoria Pedretti.

This season, we follow Jonathan Moore, an alias of the dear lead Joe Goldberg. This time, though, he takes on London in search of love interest Marienne Bellamy, who had a huge role in his life last season.

Joe becomes an English professor at a college in London, teaching his students about love throughout literature, believe it or not. Similar to previous seasons, Joe speaks to Marienne through his monologue like he did with his past romantic interests.

I do commend the writers of the show for always following through and leaving no stone unturned, because a lot of people were definitely wondering how he gets these kinds of jobs without having to do some sort of background check. They thankfully explain everything.

This season was very different from the ones we all know and love. Although Joe did follow Marienne to Europe, this season he is not actually obsessed with anyone. There is not nearly as much stalking or murder, something that made the show so popular and different from others.

At one point, he confesses that he does not want to get involved with anyone, looking to disassociate from his past and become a better person, unlike the Joe we all know and hate to love. We do see quite a bit of stalking still, but not nearly as much as we used to.

The change of setting is huge for this season as well, because we are so used to Joe escaping the law within the fast-paced cities of New York and Los Angeles. He claims to be in London to focus on himself and have a holiday, but within the first episode admits, “I miss having someone out there… someone worth watching… a puzzle worth solving.”

He argues with himself a lot over this, and the internal monologue is so interesting. Having the main character be someone so unreliable and unhinged is definitely what makes this show so binge-worthy.

Luckily for him though, a problem to solve arises almost immediately, but instead of being focused on romance, it is on being caught. The first part of the series consists of five 45-minute episodes in which we observe Joe try to figure out who is hunting him, rather than who he is hunting.

This season was very different from the ones we all know and love. 

While of course it is good to do different things than previous seasons, this one felt more like a game of “Clue” than a season of the show I used to not be able to stop watching.

The first three seasons were impossible to turn away from, and I honestly felt myself getting bored throughout this first half of the fourth. The second half is being released on Mar. 9, and I really don’t think there is going to be a lot of anticipation leading up to it.

We were not left with much of a cliffhanger, but there were aspects that were left unexplained that are definitely going to be covered in the second half. They were not insane plot points though, and probably will go unnoticed by a lot of viewers.

I would give the show an overall three out of five stars, and one of those is purely just because of Penn Badgley’s performance. He truly is a great actor, and he knows how to portray a psychopath very well. I do wish we saw more of his psychotic side this season, because again, that was the premise of the whole show.

Without a true “You,” the fourth season was a bit of a letdown, and I do not have very high hopes for the second half.

 

3/5 Stars

 

ajones11@ramapo.edu

Featured photo courtesy of Canmark, Flickr