As published in Correio do Estado

The series You has been one of Netflix’s greatest hits since it debuted in 2018. Considering the wave of content cancellations that is somewhat of a trend on platforms, the series’ permanence in the collection is something that deserves to be highlighted.

Inspired by Caroline Kepnes‘ books that show the life of Joe Goldberg, a boy who is apparently harmless, and perfect on paper, but a dangerous stalker and serial killer, we follow a perfect performance by Penn Badgley, until then better known to us as Dan Humphrey by Gossip Girl. I even commented here two years ago that after Joe, Dan started to have another profile for me.

For the series travels in territory and imagination, as fans know. We start in New York, where Joe Goldberg, a bookstore manager, and serial killer falls in love and develops an extreme obsession with an aspiring actress who ends up “disappearing”. To escape the police, in the second season, in 2019, Joe is in Los Angeles where he falls in love with heiress and chef Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), his soulmate in every way. It worked so well that in 2021 we returned for a third part of the story, dealing with the bizarre marriage of two psychopaths and the paternity/motherhood dramas. Unfortunately, Love got the worst of it and Joe needed to move once again to survive. He crossed the ocean and in season 4 we find him again as a teacher in London.

That’s right, the series demands a lot of “suspension of disbelief” from us or simply going with the tide without paying attention to impossible realities because what matters is the suspense they build. The renewal of You, announced in October 2021, may still be the last part of the story and the fact that they are splitting the season into two parts kind of fuels the suspicion. This week we resume the first part and the second comes in a month, on March 9th.

The story will start right after the events of the previous one, where Joe wants to distance himself from his “confused” past with his new identity, and country and trying not to fall in love because he doesn’t differ an obsession with love. His new persona will be a professor named Jonathan Moore, teaching a group of privileged and very suspicious British people. Obviously, Joe bumps into people from his past and worse, he soon realizes that he may not be the only murderer roaming the streets of London, which is very close to what happened in California, agree? So now Joe/Jonathan needs to identify “the competition” and try to stop whoever is targeting his new group of friends/students from exposing him to Interpol.

In times of so many series of real people, even more, of psychopaths, Joe’s differential is his acidic humor, in a precise performance by Penn Badgley, and also how You (You) addresses relevant and current issues. From the dangers of stalking and social media culture, with an emphasis on the lack of digital privacy, to deconstructing romantic comedy clichés. This is perhaps the main goal of the series, to show how a protagonist with a sweet appearance can actually be a violent stalker and serial killer, hiding his predatory side in the prototype of the “good guy” where he blames the victims to justify and rationalize your crimes. Joe Goldberg may look like a hero, but he is the series’ great villain. Charismatic, but dangerous. It is worth taking advantage of the weekend and reviewing history so that we can enjoy your return even more, which may be the farewell…