*Spoilers ahead*
If you didn’t yet read the review of part 1, you can find it here.
This season took a different turn and followed the main character’s new and private (or so he thought) life in London. The main character Joe, played by Penn Badgley, was able to slip away from his messy, bloody life back in Madre Linda, which production called a city just outside of San Francisco. He killed his wife, Love, played by Victoria Pedretti, and framed it as a murder-suicide, which would leave their bodies unidentifiable after the fire.
In part 1 of this season, we see Joe, who now goes by Jonathan, struggle to come to terms that he has a stalker. He had let Marienne, his former lover, be free and he was ready to begin a new life. He thought he got too intoxicated and killed his new friend, meanwhile somebody set him up. This unknown person torments him with texts and souvenirs, like a finger in the freezer.
I did not reveal the stalker in the part 1 review, but I will now. It was Rhys Montrose, who viewers know as the friendly, outgoing, most seemingly normal character in the season. And, he happens to be running for mayor of London. When it was first revealed in episode 5 that Rhys was the stalker, it made sense. Rhys had grown up in poverty and was the only genuine person to Joe besides Kate, Joe’s lover.
Episode 6, titled, “Best of Friends,” entailed Rhys, who viewers now call the “Eat the Rich Killer,” dangling safety above Joe’s head by showing up in his apartment unannounced and giving him orders to find someone to blame for the murders of their rich friends. Later that night at a party, it is discovered that one of their friends also has a stalker. Joe takes the opportunity and puts the ear of a victim in the stalker’s bag. She is taken into custody because of the evidence. I found this a little too convenient for Joe, but it allowed for the story to continue seamlessly.
The most interesting part of this season is when Rhys convinces Joe to kill Kate’s father, Tom Lockwood, because he knows detrimental secrets about him. But… things start to get messy. Tom orders Joe to kill Rhys for political gain. The potential of Kate finding out the truth from her father about Joe’s past life and murdered lovers is the only reason he agrees. Joe has both Rhys and Tom making him kill the other person – this seems like it should get interesting, right? It definitely did.
The plot thickens when we see Joe kill Rhys because he was told Marienne has been locked in a cage somewhere unknown. Right when Joe kills Rhys, another “Rhys” shows up. It was slightly confusing at first, but the audience quickly learns that the villainous Rhys was a figment of his imagination all along. He killed an innocent man. Marienne is still locked up somewhere, but Joe can’t remember where.
One of my favorite aspects of part 2 was that Joe’s favorite student, Nadia, caught him. She broke into his apartment which led her to find Marienne locked in a glass cage. Marienne seemed stunned to see someone besides Joe in that basement and they came up with a plan, which worked in the end. Marienne was presumed dead by Joe after taking pills that slow your heart rate to dangerous levels, leading him to leave her on a public bench to be found after “overdosing.”
In the last episode, Joe is shown trying to take his own life, but is revived in the hospital. He admits *some* secrets to Kate, only to relieve his overwhelming guilt after killing her father to keep her safe. They agree to move back to New York, where they create their new life together as Joe rebrands himself as “the man who escaped his insane killer wife.” Marienne is shown safe and I expect her to come forward in season 5 to tell the truth about Joe. The end of season 4 of YOU has only created a need for season 5 as soon as possible.
