You, Netflix, season 4 part 2 review: So boring I switched off
You, Netflix, review and star rating: ★★
Netflix’s You began as a sort of intellectual comment on the over-use of social media, a ponderous, gorgeously shot ode to how the internet just might – just might – be a little bit unhealthy. It had been done a hundred times before, but somehow, You came at it fresh.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 followed a familiar pattern: unconventionally hot leading man Joe Goldberg, who’s also a sociopathic murderer, meets a girl, kills the girl, thinks he’s done some holier-than-thou act of self-preservation.
It’s always been thrillingly silly, but season 4 really put its foot on the pedal. Released for the first time in two parts, part 1 went all meta, which was kind of fun, but an entirely different show that now poked fun at itself which never felt like the point, but whatever.
Unfortunately part 2 is a big explosion of ideas that don’t come to fruition. So much happens that nothing at all happens, and mostly, it’s just a confusingly disappointing set of plot twists that are so convoluted that they barely make sense, let alone interest you.
We’ll keep this spoiler-free, but the whole notion of part 1 is blown apart, and part 1 had a pretty interesting new thing going with the whole Joe’s being stalked, Joe’s being framed, rather than doing the murders, thing.
The big twist, then the next one, feel like a flatly ridiculous set of U-turns. I couldn’t even really remember what I’d watched for how messy it had all got. Goldberg’s villainous frenemy Rhys Montrose is at the centre of this, and to be fair, Ed Speelers does a great job of mimicking the creepiness of Goldberg. Penn Badgley is – as ever – amazingly good, and feels deadly committed to sustaining this role forever, it seems. The supporting cast are beyond caricatures, but at this point, who even cares?
Ironically, part 2 actually goes back to taking itself seriously again after the self-referential silliness of part 1. In theory, that should have been a good thing, but part 2 never survives from overthrowing everything that made part 1 passable.
There’s a quite interesting character study of Goldberg in the final episode, which is the strongest of the five new episodes, where Badgley reaches for his emotional ammunition. There’s an interesting idea in here somewhere, about the threads of morality hidden within a bad person, but that examination would require the backbone of a good story, and Netflix’s You, season 4 part 2 would rather try to be clever. It ends up feeling more like an exasperated soap opera.
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