Warning: Spoilers for You seasons 1-3Netflix's hit psychological thriller series You follows an attractive yet troublesome Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), as the archival book maven becomes increasingly fascinated and obsessed with his string of female love interests. Throughout season one, he meets Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Dean Lail), an aspiring writer who visits the local bookstore, where he also works. As the two grow closer, Joe's fixation on stalking Beck turns menacing once he attempts to control every point of her daily life.
Based on Caroline Kepnes' novel You, the first season of the series premiered on the Lifetime network, promptly being canceled after season one due to a low viewer engagement. Netflix then picked up the show for season two, acquiring international and domestic rights, after the Lifetime executive team backed out of negotiations. The series has found great achievement with the powerhouse streaming platform, reeling in the 18 to 34-year-old base and toeing the lines between a new aged dark romance and a vengeful true-crime narrative.
Though the storyline of You has become popular among Netflix subscription holders (deemed as the most-watched original series for a streaming network and watched by an estimated forty million households in its first month), the plot does sensationalize stalking, narcissistic, and sociopathic tendencies. However, it allows viewers to make the distinction for themselves, pertaining to how mentally unstable Joe actually is through his erratic behavior.
With all the thrills and excessive pivots in season three, viewers are most definitely excited to see what's to come for the fourth season. It is revealed that Joe travels to Paris during the final seconds of the finale in his pursuit of Marienne. Possibly set in the City of Love, what can viewers expect to see in season four of the hit show. We've gone through a few predictions that could most likely be incorporated in the upcoming season.
Are Love and Joe Far From Over?
In Season three of You, Joe and Love (Victoria Pedretti) are married and raising their newborn son Henry in Madre Linda, California. While experiencing more than the average share of marital issues, Joe and Love both play a part in fatal infidelities. Joe with his next-door neighbor Natalie Engler (Michaela McManus) and librarian Marienne (Tatiana Gabrielle Hobson) while Love intimately engages with Natalie's stepson Theo. Things turn deadly once Love and Joe learn about the other's affairs, leading to a series of murders, more stalking, and Henry becoming motherless by the end of season three's finale (once Joe is believed to have killed her). But is Love really dead?
After meeting the character of Love in season two, the similarities between her and Joe are immediately visible. Despite Joe constantly being on guard due to her behavior, the fact of the matter is that both are psychopathic killers who commit their acts of aggression to protect the ones they love. Love kills Delilah (the same Delilah who briefly locks Joe in a glass box in season one) and Candace (who Love hits in the head with a glass bottle) in order to protect his secrets. Not to mention, she's also pregnant with his child.
The dynamic between Love and Joe could potentially be far from over. Yes, Love's dead, but that doesn't mean she can never come back (as a ghost, that is). As everyone knows, Joe has a pretty odd mindset, so why can't Love pop in every once in a while to psychologically taunt him. It wouldn't be far-fetched to watch Joe go ballistic as Love calmly reiterates how terrible a person he is, even though he's actually in a quiet room alone.
Could Peach Rise From the Dead?
The speculation around Peach still being alive has always roamed around the internet. Although, it's evident that many viewers didn't like Peach to begin with. For most of season one, she came off as privileged, rude, and just as obsessed with Beck as Joe was. Peach Salinger (Shay Mitchell), Beck's longtime best friend, becomes concerned with the relationship between the two and even more skeptical with Joe's calculating intentions.
Regardless, it is a popular theory that Peach would return for season four, possibly because viewers didn't actually watch her die. In Peach's final scene with Joe, the two are outside, on the ground, desperately trying to retrieve her gun. The camera tilts upward towards the sky as we unexpectedly hear a loud gunshot in the background. Ultimately, we see a corners van loading, what is presumed to be Peach's lifeless body.
Despite the fact that we see detectives and cops around her home (labeling the estate as a crime scene), also remember that Peach is the wealthiest of the wealthy. If she wanted to make someone believe that she was dead, she has the financial and social resources to do so. Joe could have possibly grazed her, and Peach could have very well pretended to be dead until he walked away. Don't forget, this is the same Peach that had an obsessed infatuation with Beck since university and also tried to control her life. Master manipulation at its finest.
As we anxiously await for the release of You season four, possibly by fall or early winter of 2022, we hope that Joe utilizes his rational thinking (which he never does). One thing is for sure, Joe will absolutely, positively, find a justification for stalking prospective love interests.