Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Netflix's You season 4!You is reaping the spoils of its formula restructure gambit, and this one Joe Goldberg detail switch helped make that happen. The Netflix psychological thriller series divides its fourth season into a two-part release with more twists and turns to keep audiences on their toes. While You season 4 part 1 ends with an underwhelming finale of Joe being back in London and awaiting Rhys Montrose’s next move (or kill), You season 4 part 2 boomerangs this narrative by revealing that Joe and Rhys are the same.
Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg finally realizes that Ed Speelers' Rhys Montrose isn’t the Eat the Rich killer, but only a hallucinated manifestation of his dark side in You season 4 part 2. With a renewed sense of ability, Joe goes to extreme lengths to do the last good thing he can: kill himself. As a culmination of Joe’s internal struggle between his guilt-ridden desire to be good and his depraved killer instincts, You season 4 tweaks its storyline delivery to ensure maximum shock value. Although audiences expected You season 4 to be different (correctly theorizing Joe Goldberg’s the killer), the show’s most conspicuous Joe change became the most unobvious.
You Season 4 Removed Joe's Constant Narration (To Hint At The Rhys Twist)
Throughout You seasons 1 to 3, audiences have been privy to Joe’s every thought. This includes his instinctual responses to everything that comes his way, his antics, his ticks, and his rationalization for his crimes, all spoken in that charming yet morbidly comedic tone. Joe’s constant narration of his every observation was a key feature of Netflix’s You, something that has been greatly diminished in You season 4 the moment Joe’s Rhys started to appear in the frame; retrospectively, a glaring red flag that he wasn’t real.
The absence of Joe’s head voice was thought to signal that he was getting better, growing out of his violent era and into one that was in control of himself. However, it soon became apparent that that wasn’t the case after he killed the actual Rhys Montrose in You season 4, episode 7. It finally dawns on Joe that he’s been talking to himself and murdering the rich all along. You season 4 uses Joe’s obsessive nature to create a Rhys Montrose to replace his stream-of-consciousness spiels, which was a genius misdirection for You’s take on the “whodunit” formula.
What You Season 4 Changing Joe's Narration Really Means
You season 4 essentially altered the presentation of Joe’s inner voice to throw off audiences from You season 4 part 2’s plot twist. Considering that Joe’s narration unveils too much of what’s happening, switching it up to introduce a corporeal representation of his dark side (Rhys) was inevitable. And now that Joe and his version of Rhys have seemingly become one again in You season 4, episode 10, it poses a big question on how You season 5 will execute Joe’s internal dialogues from there moving forward.
