You Season 4 Part 1 Review: The Stalker Gets Stalked In Absurdly Fun Episodes

Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) has been around the block and, from the streets of Brooklyn to the suburbs of Northern California, he has left a trail of bodies in his wake. In You season 3, Joe may have been cleaning up his wife’s messes, but they were still bloody messes. Now, in You season 4, Netflix’s favorite stalker has hopped across the pond and entrenched himself in the high society of London. Fortunately, the snobbery still leaves room for absurdity, and You season 4 part 1 has plenty of it, crafting a murder mystery that is as comical as it is nail-biting while putting Joe in more danger than ever before.

After the You season 3 ending saw Joe kill Love, fake his death, and follow Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) to Paris, season 4 picks up in London. Joe (now going by Jonathan Moore) is a literature professor at a stuffy London college, put up in a posh apartment by one of his fellow professors, Malcolm (Stephen Hagan). Through Malcolm, Joe meets a clan of Oxford graduates who are as insufferable as they are obscenely rich. When someone starts picking them off one by one, attempting to frame Joe in the process, the hunter becomes the hunted, and Joe must figure out the identity of the Eat The Rich Killer to stay under the radar and protect his newest obsession.

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Given the nature of the show, You has reinvented itself alongside Joe Goldberg each season. Its third entry was its best yet — Joe and Love were perfectly insane sparring partners as they tore through the suburbs. With Love out of the picture, the show was going to have to make some drastic changes in order to top or at least match the pitch-perfect ridiculousness of season 3. Fortunately, London provides the perfect playground for Joe to do just that. Joe maintains his signature delusion, with his narration still a combination of sharp commentary and a lack of self-awareness that has become deceptively charming four seasons later. Everything else, however, is new territory.

You season 4 is like a London-sized game of Clue. Joe must parse through a group of borderline sociopaths to figure out who would want to murder them. The why is achingly obvious. There’s hardly a redeemable quality among the bunch of new characters, which include aristocrat socialites, a playboy ex-pat, a tech mogul, a princess, and a handful of influencers. Introducing so many people in such a quick manner leads to some thinly sketched characters, but the fact that many of them are dispatched just as quickly makes this a little bit easier to digest.

You season 4 part 1’s biggest weakness, though, hides behind its greatest strength. Joe seeking out the identity of the Eat The Rich killer to protect people he hates creates an interesting tension that carries part 1, but You season 4’s commentary on its uber-wealthy characters feels a bit tired at times. With so many shows and movies skewering the rich, it’s hard not to feel like one is being hit over the head with the message that rich people are bad. You has never been about subtlety, though, and with the contempt for the rich filtered through Joe’s disdain, it’s a bit more palatable and oftentimes hilarious.

Ultimately, You season 4 part 1 still has plenty of fun, and that’s all one can ask for from any time spent with Joe Goldberg. A Cardi B needle drop during a particularly gruesome scene will certainly elicit laughs. Some of the on-the-nose music choices and signature Joe Goldberg quips will make one groan just as much as it will make one chuckle. One Lukas Gage moment has the power to make even his much-discussed White Lotus rim job scene pale in comparison. What’s most surprising of all, though, is that part 1 manages to cram so much into its five-episode run.

You season 4 will be split into parts of 5 episodes each, a model Netflix used for last year’s release of Stranger Things season 4. In the case of Stranger Things, it felt more like a ploy to keep the show in the cultural conversation while avoiding a weekly release despite there being no real narrative justification for the split. You season 4 is the rare exception where splitting the season into two parts feels justified (if still not entirely necessary). Much of what is introduced in part 1 is wrapped up, and the fifth episode sets the stage for an even bigger part 2. Each season of You has succeeded because of its ability to flip the script and up the ante and season 4 part 1 follows through on that promise. While the ending is still up in the air, it’s a strong start that still remembers just how ludicrous it truly is. That self-awareness is You‘s saving grace and its secret weapon as it crafts another bonkers season and sets the stage for an unpredictable conclusion.

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All five episodes of You season 4 part 1 are streaming on Netflix. Part 2 releases on March 9.