Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley, Gossip Girl) once again proves himself as an unreliable narrator of the hit Netflix series You. The finale episode of part two of season four contains a shocking turn of events for Joe, revealing that he is in fact the villain of the story, via The Hollywood Reporter.
Throughout the season, Joe was made out to be the hunted and not the hunter as he starts his new life in London. Audiences followed him attempt to leave his serial killer past behind, but he was not able to start over as he originally planned to do since his new circle made up of London’s elite was setting him up to go down for a murder he claimed to not have committed. Then, one by one the circle gets smaller as they each get murdered.
Halfway through the midseason finale, the real killer was revealed to be one of Joe’s only friends in London: Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers, Downtown Abbey). Rhys was blackmailing Joe with information about his past life to scapegoat him for the murders. But as the season finale reveals, Joe doesn’t actually end up killing Rhys—instead he kills an innocent man he’s never met. Then it is revealed that Rhys does not exist and has been a figment of Joe’s imagination the whole time, and Joe has been behind all the murders.
The character of Joe grows more insane each season. This twist is something completely different for him though as he has always crazy, but never has not been aware of what he was doing until now. Since it was so unexpected showrunner Sera Gamble (The Magicians) explained part of the process of writing it in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
In the interview with The Hollywood Reporter she says that her and the other writers had the idea to do it “in mind for several seasons” but didn’t pull the trigger until deciding to go with a “whodunnit” approach to the murders this season. She also said that she chose to have Rhys be Joe’s obsession as well as a figment of his imagination because Rhys represents “an idealized, successful, admired version of Joe.” A version in which Joe “has earned all of the acclaim and status that he feels that he deserves, and he seems to have done it without selling out.”
Parts 1 and 2 of You season four are now streaming on Netflix.