“You” Peaks Interest with New Season Coming

You season four show poster  from IMDB.

“You” season four show poster from IMDB.

Sarah Phelps, News Editor

When the Netflix Original show, “You,” first aired in 2018, people flocked to watch the psychological thriller. As of 2022, the show has 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.7/10 rating on IMDb. I think it deserves the good rating that it received.

Warning: From this point on, if you have not watched the show, I would recommend watching it before reading this article as I recap what happens throughout the three seasons.

“You” follows a man, Joe Goldberg, who is living in New York, who finds an interest in a girl who enters his bookstore. It does not take long for his small interest to turn into an obsession that causes the death of more than two people.

One of the biggest attributes that gives the show its psychological factor, is the fact that the entire show is narrated through the main character’s, Joe Goldberg, point of view. Goldberg is someone who thinks that killing people is okay in certain situations because he is doing it for a “good reason,” such as helping the people he loves.

The first season starts with Goldberg working in a bookstore that has been in his life since he was a child. Goldberg did not have an easy up-bringing. When he was younger, his father was abusive and the first season shows us that Goldberg actually shot and killed his father during an altercation. After that, Goldberg was put in a group home and jumped around homes. One home lasted the longest, Mr. Mooney, and is where Goldberg inherited the bookstore.

One day, a girl walks into the store, and Goldberg finds himself intrigued. It started with a social media stalk, then turned into actual stalking until he finally inserted himself into her life.

The second season starts after the death of the girl, Guienvere Beck, that Goldberg obsessed over in the first season. When I watched the show for the first time, her death was the craziest thing ever. Even though I was still recovering from the first season, every new season marks a new obsession. In this season, Goldberg has moved and changed his name because a person from his past, an old girlfriend he tried to murder, came back. The return of the past girlfriend was expected from the mentions of her throughout the first season, but it was very disappointing and short-lived.

The obsession in season two was Love Quinn. At the beginning of the season, Goldberg swore to himself that what happened with Beck would never happen again, that he would never get in the cycle of obsessing with a new person. That goal was short-lived. He told himself that Love was different. An understatement is saying that Love was different than Beck. The second season ended with my favorite plot twist the show had done. Love Quinn, the innocent girl that Goldberg fell in love with, was as crazy as him. Goldberg was trapped in a soundproof cage by Love, alone with his murdered landlord. When he got the chance, he tried to kill Love, but she confessed to being pregnant with his child.

I think it needless to say that I was scared the second season would not be as good as the first, but by the end of the second season, I was the one who was obsessed. 

The third season of “You” was my favorite season out of them all. Goldberg found out that Love is pregnant, and so he pushed aside his newfound hatred for her and moved to the town of Madre Linda to raise their child, Henry. 

Much to our surprise (eye roll), there is no time to waste when it comes to finding someone new to obsess over. This is where I knew that Goldberg was for sure, no doubt about it, a sociopath. It is not just that he kills for the people he loves, it is that he moves on so quickly to someone else as soon as the first person does not work out.

Speaking of not working out, I think everyone was absolutely in shock when Love Quinn-Goldberg died at the end of season three. Love may have been a murderer, just like her spouse, but I think they are still two different types of people. Goldberg believes there is a method to his madness, Love believes she only does things when she is driven to do it.

The third season left the viewer with an endless amount of loose ends. The person who ended up being pinned for Beck’s murder, an old therapist, knows about Goldberg, his landlord from season two had a younger sister in season two who knows about Goldberg, and now there is Theo Engler, someone who suffered directly by the hands of Love and Joe during season three, who is still alive and being taken care of by his dad. 

If I were to make a guess as to how the fourth season will play out, I would say that Goldberg does not find what he is looking for. As a result of my love for every new season that comes out, I have extremely high hopes for the fourth season. 

Since Love Quinn died and the third season ended with Goldberg in a different country, I think things are going to come to a close in his story. There are so many people who know of what Goldberg has done, and his obsessions are chasing ghosts at this point. The writers have numerous loose ends that they can play around with for the new season, so I am hoping to see a past character return.