Warning: Major spoilers You season 4 ahead.
Everything we were led to believe in the first part of season four was a lie. Joe did not, in fact, allow Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) to safely return to her daughter in Paris, Rhys Montrose was just some guy running for mayor, and Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) is still Joe Goldberg.
Now you know why showrunner Sera Gamble instructed viewers to rewatch the scenes between Joe and Rhys in her breakdown of part one. “What you find out when you get to the end of part one is that the first part of the season was a whodunit, and the second part of the season is going to be about the relationship between Joe and the killer that he’s discovered,” Gamble told Glamour back in February. “So that’s always going to be about what they have in common and what Joe thinks they don’t have in common.”
What Joe thinks they don't have in common indeed. Because in reality, Joe was not being stalked by a working-class megalomaniac but was actually in the throes of an intense psychotic break…well, another one. This time, though, Joe has completely lost the plot, imagining himself the reluctant hero as his very own Mr. Hyde goes on a murderous rampage and leaves Marienne locked away in a basement to starve.
For a show that doesn't typically rely on subterfuge to pack a meaningful punch, season four effectively delivered at least three heart-stopping twists that tricked even this seasoned television viewer. Believe me, if Marienne really died by suicide instead of conspiring with You's very own Nancy Drew, I don't think I'd be sticking around for season five.
Alas, Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman) is the latest pawn Joe has sent to prison, Marienne is finally safe from his clutches, and I am eagerly waiting to see what kind of havoc an obscenely rich version of Joe Goldberg can get up to in New York City. Below, Gamble breaks down the end of You season four and gives a few hints about what could come next in the potential fifth season.
Glamour: I have to start this interview the same way I started our chat about season three. Can you please tell me about putting Taylor Swift's “Anti-Hero” in the finale? Was Midnights even out yet when you were planning the episode?
Sera Gamble: Midnights had just come out, and we had already cut the episode. We'd already sent it through the notes process with the studio and with Netflix. I was watching the video and it was an example of, you know, “It wouldn't hurt to ask.” But it is a big deal to ask an artist for a song that is so fresh and new and that is getting so much attention. So it was a very exciting moment for me, to be honest.
Did you get to ask her personally this time?
We have a music supervisor who speaks to the person on her team who handles that sort of thing, but the truth is that I maybe also sent a little note making a personal appeal. Even getting to write a note like that was really fun, because I'm a genuine fan of that album and of her work. I feel like, in some way, she's part of the story of the series. We thought we needed a British song in that spot and had saved up for one more big song right there. Every now and then you should just take the big swing.
When we discussed the last season, you were already excited about the “big twist” you were planning for season four. Now that we’ve seen there were at least three big twists, I’m wondering: Which idea came first?
We have been talking about doing a fractured psyche story for Joe for a long time. We have a healthy respect for that kind of story—and by respect, I mean we've been intimidated by it because it can be done poorly pretty easily. You have to really justify a twist like that. But it would come up in conversation a lot, and I always really liked it. The more psychological the core of the story is the more I love it. The thing that Greg [Berlanti] and I always kept our eye on every season is that we made sure that Joe's mind was becoming more unhinged each season. If you'd go back and track him at his, to be glib, craziest: In season one he gets hit in the head, and by season three he has a fever and is actually seeing another version of himself. Though we didn't know if or when exactly we would deploy it, we wanted to make sure we had played fair with the audience. So we were talking about that every time we would write a particularly hallucinatory episode for Joe.
I can’t believe I actually thought Joe was changing for the better this season. I’m not usually tricked so easily.
When Penn and Greg and I sat down to just discuss the possibility of him playing Joe Goldberg, one of the things that he asked was “Are you going to redeem the character? Is that the ultimate arc? Is it a redemption arc?” I promised him we wouldn't and that we would feel no obligation to. And if that changed, it would be a conversation we all had together.
So the season is about the bullshit ways people talk about redemption when they've done horrible things, but they're not actually changing. So of course Joe thought he had, [that] he was now good, and he had done better, and he had, in some ways, balanced the karmic scales, but actually, he just has been lying to himself more cleverly.
Marienne talked Nadia out of going to the police and basically said, “If Joe knows I’m alive, he’ll never stop.” Is that true? Is there a world where Joe—who now seems happy with Kate (Charlotte Ritchie)—finds out Marienne is alive in Paris with her daughter and just lets her be?
He would have to be very distracted by another problem. I mean, don't you agree with her, based on what you know about Joe? It's very dangerous, and Nadia sacrificed a lot to help her truly disappear.
There’s now a club of people he’s sent to prison—and a lot of people who know the truth about him.
The idea is not really to let Joe off the hook. The fun of the show is to see him sort of, by the seat of his pants, slide through the crack every season to live to fight another day. But he has a lot of people out there who are very, very smart and know what he is now. Dr. Nicky (John Stamos), I wouldn't say is very, very smart, but Ellie (Jenna Ortega), Nadia, and Marienne totally have his number. But you know, the question is, what are you willing to risk for something like that? We definitely leave a lot of those dangling threads on purpose to threaten Joe with.
And now he’s back in NYC and speaking publicly.
The huge difference is that people know who he is now. He doesn't get to enjoy the anonymity of, you know, just a clean-cut, attractive guy walking through Brooklyn anymore. Now he's in a completely different situation.
How dangerous is a Joe Goldberg with money and resources considering the damage he’s caused without both?
I think he has a whole new superpower he didn't have before. It's always a double-edged sword because he's surrounded by people who have at least that much access, but I think it's also fundamentally true that though he judges these wealthy clueless people who have never cracked a book around him, he's also envious that they have resources and privilege that he thinks by rights should belong to him. Now he's getting what he wants. So we'll see what happens when he gets what he wants.
Does he have his son back? I wasn’t quite sure.
Because we don't have it in the scene, I want to be a little bit cagey about it…but he can fix a lot now. He can make whatever choice he thinks is best for Henry now.
You were able to bring back Love (Victoria Pedretti) and Beck (Elizabeth Lail) through Joe’s hallucinations. Who would you like to bring back next?
So fun to bring back Beck and Love—and Penn directed that episode, so it was especially fun to bring back these actors he knows so well to be able to direct them. But I miss Peach Salinger (Shay Mitchell), rest in peace.
We always have had more ideas for stories in our pocket about Ellie, and I'm absolutely thrilled to watch Jenna's star rise. She is 1,000 times busier—we couldn't even schedule her to return last season, but we miss her a lot. We have always felt that Ellie and Joe had a little bit more story left.
This would be the first time Joe enters a new season with a girlfriend he actually wants to be with—and she knows who he is deep down. What are you excited to explore with Kate and Joe’s relationship moving forward?
I wouldn't assume she knows everything just because he seemed so incredibly honest when we cut away. I think there's always something left out of the story. But you're right—they're in a great place at the beginning of the season. I think the fundamental question to ask is “Can Joe ever get what he's looking for outside of himself? Is there such thing as the perfect woman to perfectly satisfy Joe?” And I mean, the answer to that question is: Wow, that is really the wrong question. Will it work? Yeah, if Joe really changes.
You once said you’d keep You going for as many seasons as Netflix would allow you to, but I have to say when I thought Marienne was dead, I felt sick. How much longer do you think you can stomach writing Joe getting away with what he does to women? Is there a point where you’ll feel he has to get caught?
He had gone too far in act one of season one. It's an interesting question you're asking because I'm beyond exhausted by how much people like Joe get away with in real life. So I have a lot of practice with the temptation to be the angel of vengeance at the computer, who just gives him exactly what he deserves. That's sometimes very strong for Penn as well. Sometimes he's like, “Can we punish this guy?” I think it's part of why it's so enjoyable to watch the scenes where he gets beaten up a little bit. From the beginning, we've been exploring what you can get away with when you're someone like Joe, and the frustration is part of the matrix of the series.
You season 4 is available on Netflix. Emily Tannenbaum is an entertainment editor, critic, and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter @ectannenbaum.
