Warning: This article will contain spoilers for the Netflix series You.
The first three seasons of You followed a pattern, which season four has veered from, leaving viewers with a lot of questions. With questions come theories, and sometimes, those theories are even better than what happens on the screen.
In season one, Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) meets Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lai). While all seems normal at first sight, the monster hidden beneath the facade that is Joe’s cute, boy-next-door, bookstore clerk is revealed to be an obsessive stalker who frankly has no trouble getting rid of people he believes threaten his happiness. When Joe’s lies and murders become too much to conceal, he kills Beck.
Season two kicked off with Joe having moved to Los Angeles for a fresh start. He soon meets Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), a recently widowed chef who works at her family’s business. It’s quickly revealed that Joe has a new obsession, but the tables are turned on him when he discovers that Love is just as insane — if not more so — than he is and has been killing people right and left throughout the season. The season ends with Love revealing they are expecting a baby.
As season three rolls around, Joe, Love and baby Henry are living in the suburbs, with Joe terrified of his new wife, but is trying to make the best of the situation. Joe has a small crush on his beautiful neighbor, who Love quickly murders and forces Joe to clean up her mess. He then falls in love with a lady named Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) and wants to divorce Love. By the end of the season, Joe and Love are fighting to kill one another until Joe finally gets the upper hand, killing her and chopping off one of his fingers and staging it to look like a murder suicide when the house goes up in flames.
During the first three seasons, Joe became obsessed with a beautiful woman, stalked her and killed a lot of people on his journey to happiness. The problem is Joe has his vision of the “perfect” woman engrained in his mind, and when the woman inevitably falls from grace — unable to live up to Joe’s standards — he kills her. Season four, however, has not set up that plot, leaving viewers with a lot of questions. While Joe followed Marienne to Paris and then London, he seemingly let her go. He has developed feelings for his neighbor Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), but he is not obsessed with her. So, with all that in mind, what is happening? Here’s a dive into some of the craziest fan theories to contemplate until the second half of season four comes to Netflix on March 9. Until then, binge-watch You and decide for yourself if any of these theories line up.
10. Phoebe is the killer
Lady Phoebe (Tilly Keeper) is possibly the sweetest character to ever appear on this insane show. She is written as the only likeable person (other than Rhys) amongst the high-society British elite in season four, which makes viewers even more suspicious of her perfect persona. Phoebe could be working with Rhys (Ed Speleers) to get rid of anyone who could tarnish their perfect reputations.
9. Joe will kill the paparazzo
This theory is probably a given. There has been a middle-aged paparazzo who seems to recognize Joe and has been actively trying to take photos of him. If she comes to him with proof that she knows he is Joe Goldberg, he will likely kill her to protect his faux identity.
8. Kate is helping Rhys with the murders
Rhys was revealed to be the Eat the Rich killer at the end of episode four, but this theory suggests Kate is helping Rhys with the murders. Rhys killed Malcolm (Stephen Hagan) and Simon (Aidan Cheng), while Kate killed Gemma (Eve Austin). Gemma’s murder was different from the other two (no body parts were cut off), meaning it was probably a different killer. Instead of calling the police like any normal person would, Kate talked Joe into helping her hide the body, then framed him by leaving her bracelet on the body and having Joe retrieve it, with him getting caught in the process.
7. Love Quinn is still alive
In the crazy chaotic finale of season three, Love attempts to kill Joe with aconite (wolfsbane), the same way she killed her first husband, but Joe had taken adrenaline beforehand, which kept him alive. As Love attempted to slit Joe’s throat, he injected her with a dose of aconite, which killed her. The fan theory suggests that Love also took adrenaline in the event the tables turned on her and as the fire consumed their house, she was able to escape.
In episode three, it shows someone following Joe and Kate. While Phoebe’s security guard Vic (Sean Pertwee) is definitely following them, someone with long hair is also shown. As Kate lures Joe into her secret spot, that same person is shown to be watching them on the right side of the screen. The other characters were busy at the after-party for Simon’s funeral, so that either means Love is alive or it was a production error.
6. Murderer is killing “fake” people
The murderer isn’t killing fake people as in they’re not real, but the personas they create for the public are “fake.” Malcom thinks of himself as the center of his elitist friend circle and always shows off his Oxford ring, proclaiming that the country was built by hard-working people like him. Malcolm could be considered a “fake” friend and just as fake of a hard-working gentleman. The killer chopped off Malcom’s Oxford ring. Meanwhile, Simon is a world-famous artist who is revealed to be a “fake” after the artist who really painted his masterpieces comes forward. The killer chopped off Simon’s ear, à la Vincent Van Gogh. Gemma is a self-centered socialite who hangs out with the group despite everyone’s obvious hatred for her. They pretend she is their friend, but she is really their “fake” friend. Unlike the other murders, Gemma didn’t have a body part removed, meaning Kate walked in before the murderer could cut something off or… Kate killed Gemma. If the murderer is killing “fake” people, then Adam Pratt (Lukas Gage) is likely the next victim. He pretends to be wealthy, even though he’s completely broke and “faking” it to everyone.
5. Classic whodunit
This season has been all about Agatha Christie whodunit mysteries, with Joe playing detective to try to figure it all out. The first part of season four set up the mystery and revealed the killer to the detective, so the second part of the season will be focused on Joe trying to prove to everyone that the man running for mayor of London is a psychopath. Expect a lot of naysayers as Joe attempts to piece it all together.
4. It’s Joe’s imagination
There are different versions of how this season is all in Joe’s imagination. We have seen in the past seasons that Joe has a vivid imagination and starts to lose a grip on reality. This season could all be about Joe’s complete break from reality. Although Kate hasn’t become Joe’s obsession yet, she seems to be the perfect combination of Beck and Love — intelligent, promiscuous and a bit psycho.
One version posits that after killing Love at the end of season three, Joe was arrested and is currently locked up in a mental institution while he attempts to come to term with all the murders he has committed.
A second theory suggests that when Love poisoned Joe at the end of the second season, she dragged him to the cage and is keeping him sedated with wolfbane. She could be reading books to him, such as Agatha Christie novels and Rhys Montrose’s memoir. In Joe’s imagination, he has created a murder mystery based on Agatha Christie’s famous whodunits and cast Rhys as the killer in his warped mind.
3. Joe killed Marienne
When Joe develops an obsession for a woman, he becomes completely obsessed to the point of murder, but Marienne has been different. While she was a more mature love interest for Joe, it’s very unlike him to just let her go. This theory suggests that when viewers saw Joe stealing Marienne’s necklace before allowing her to get on the train to Paris, he actually killed her and kept her necklace as a keepsake.
2. Joe is writing a murder mystery
This theory suggests that Joe really is writing a murder mystery and carrying out murders to provide himself an alibi for the killings and slyly point the finger at other suspects. He has wanted to write a book before, and with him being a serial killer, a murder mystery is the obvious choice of genre.
1. Joe has a split personality
The most popular theory at the moment is that Joe has completely lost his mind is has developed a split personality. The Fight Club-esque scenario suggests that although Joe believes in his mind that Rhys is the killer — even having conversations with him — Joe is actually the one doing the killing. Some people believe Rhys doesn’t exist at all and is completely a figment of Joe’s warped psyche, others believe Joe became obsessed with the real Rhys after reading his memoir. Joe sees himself in Rhys and has projected Rhys as the killer within him, while the “real” Joe is innocent in these murders. Further supporting this theory is the fact that Rhys seemingly found out all about Joe’s past with no information to go on. He has also only been shown to have conversations with Joe.
