Top 10 Things to Remember Before Watching You Season 4

Season 3 of “You” picked up where the end of season 2 left off, with Joe creeping on a woman through the fence. We later find out this is Natalie, his newest obsession and conveniently his next-door neighbor. But after Love picked up on her husband’s poorly hidden interest in another woman, Natalie met a gruesome end. With Joe being Joe, it didn’t take long for him to lock in on another unwitting object of his affection. Cue librarian Marienne Bellamy, Joe’s boss, and literature-loving dream girl. She was a bit icy to him at first but after connecting over similar childhoods, she eventually warmed up to him.

Other than being, you know, a married man, one of the obstacles keeping Joe from being with Marienne is her controlling ex-husband. Together, Ryan and Marienne have a daughter Juliet. Her history with substance abuse disorder gives Ryan the legal upper hand in the custody battle. After a court hearing, he leaks private photos of Marienne. Deciding to be her savior, Joe stalks, attacks, and kills Ryan, making way for him and her to run away together, though things don’t go as planned. Surprisingly, this is Joe’s only kill that season. Someone else had a rising body count, though.

Love is the primary killer in season 3, leaving Joe to clean up her murderous messes. First, she killed Natalie because she was a threat to their marriage. Then she attacked and imprisoned Gil after he admitted to exposing Henry to measles. During their swinger night, Cary and Sherry overhear Love yell that she killed Natalie, prompting the Quinn-Goldbergs to tussle with Madre Linda’s power couple and lock them in a plexiglass prison. She even tries to kill Theo, who fortunately survives. When she realized her husband was obsessed with Marienne, she planned to kill her. But after seeing Marienne’s daughter Juliet, Love had a change of heart and let the single mother go.

Before Marienne arrived at the house, Love drugged Joe with aconite, paralyzing him. After her enlightening encounter with the woman her husband planned to leave her for, Love decided to kill him. But thinking ahead, Joe took adrenaline to counteract the paralytic, and it took effect just in time for him to murder his wife. Since the big reveal in Season 2, Love seemed like the perfect match for Joe. She accepted and even embraced his dark side because she had one, too. But Joe hates that side of himself and in turn couldn’t love Love. A happy ending just isn’t in the cards for him. Could he find true love in Season 4, or will he continue being his stalker self?

To officially end his tenure in suburbia, Joe made sure there was nothing left of his life as a husband and father. He tied up loose ends by framing Love for all the murders, including his own. That’s right. We can’t get into too much detail, but let’s just say that Joe went insofar as to leave some…“evidence” in order to fake his own death. He also planted other pieces of supposed evidence that would point to Love as the serial killer preying on the people of Madre Linda. After emailing a typed confession, he set the house ablaze and limped away to start a new life.

In order to truly begin again somewhere else, Joe had to leave baby Henry behind. As someone still dealing with his own serious abandonment issues, this was probably the hardest decision he had to make. But he made the right choice protecting his son from the crime-ridden legacy of the Quinn-Goldbergs. Joe left him on the doorstep of his former library coworker Dante and his husband Lansing who previously babysat Henry. At the end, we see a slightly older Henry happily playing with his new dads. Joe also left a letter for his son to read for when he’s older, but will he come back for Henry before he reads it? Evidently, becoming a father surely changed him, which is something likely to be explored in Season 4.

The final scene of the season 3 finale sees Joe in Paris, France, Marienne’s birthplace and the city she said she’d flee to with Juliet. Yes, he’s still very much hung up on the beautiful librarian and traveled to the City of Lights hoping to reunite. But Love told Marienne that Joe was a murderer, so the chance of her taking him back is slimmer than slim. Plus, following her overseas is more than a little creepy. The Season 4 trailer shows Joe approaching a visibly unsettled Marienne in a market, seemingly chasing after her, and having a brief but heated confrontation.

Every season of “You” has been set in different locations – New York, Los Angeles, the California suburbs, and now Europe. Though we ended with Joe, or “Nick”, in Paris, Season 4 places him in London under another identity – Jonathan Moore. In the trailer, the scenes with Marienne have a muted tone, suggesting their interaction may be presented in flashbacks. It’s possible that Joe caught up to her in Paris where she rightfully rejected him and he went searching for love elsewhere. We’re not sure why he’s in London but it looks like he’s putting his literary knowledge to good use as a Professor, likely teaching English Literature.

With a new setting comes a slew of new faces and Season 4 sure has a lot of them. In every season, Joe is forced to interact with a friend group of entitled socialites, influencers, entrepreneurs, and generally snobby people. Season 4’s “Gossip Girl”-esque cast includes all of the above along with college students, royals, artists, authors, and a murderer who earned the moniker the “Eat the Rich Killer.” Naturally, Joe finds another woman to obsess over, stalk, and spy on through windows. This season it’s Kate, an art gallery director who is immediately suspicious of this “Professor Moore.”

Other than Joe, Marienne is the only character returning from season 3…or is she? Since he faked his death, the survivors in Madre Linda won’t be looking for Joe but he told Henry [“This isn’t forever.”] likely implying he plans to go back for him. It’s highly unlikely Love escaped the burning house, though she could make a ghostly appearance like Joe’s previous victim Beck. Then there’s the mystery surrounding Ellie who was briefly mentioned in season 3. Will Joe still send her money from London? In a flashback, we see when young Joe tracked down his mom and learned that she had another kid, his half brother. Could he come looking for Joe or vice versa? In the world of “You” almost anything is possible.