You season 4 spoilers follow – but only mild ones for part 1 (and you can read all about what to expect in part 2 here).
We have a complicated relationship with Joe Goldberg and his serial-killer cap.
Whether Netflix's hit show is a love or hate watch for you – and we've never really been shy in revealing which camp we sit in – there's a reason that we've all kept watching and are still tuning in four seasons on.
But the new batch of episodes faced a unique challenge: with his wife murdered and his son adopted (no doubt for the best), where does Joe go from here?
Well, London is the short geographical answer. But the rest of it is a little messier.
We're supposed to believe that Joe, now going by "Professor Jonathan Moore" and lecturing unsuspecting students at a British university, has turned over a new, less murderous leaf.
As he tells it, he is taking a European holiday and has no interest in falling back into his usual habits of obsessively stalking a woman to the point of her death. It's worth noting that Joe's destination of choice came about because he was tracking down Marienne, but then he's never really been very self aware.
There is someone new (Charlotte Ritchie's Kate, to be precise) who tickles his fancy as well, and Joe's new apartment just so happens to provide the perfect viewing spot to spy on her more intimate moments. But he's looking away, mostly, and trying to prove that he's a better person now.
Where we are really hit over the head with this idea is in Joe's decision to let Marienne go. She knows who he really is, what he's done (at least his most recent horrors, anyway), and yet – despite breaking his vow to an apparent hitman hired by the Quinn family – he watches her board a train rather than putting her in the ground.
Somehow we're supposed to forget how we got here and congratulate him for this sign of personal growth, which is one of the first indications that giving Joe any kind of redemption arc is neither narratively or ethically sound.
This seed was first sown in season three, which enabled Joe to paint himself as some sort of victim held captive by his obsessive and controlling wife (oh, the irony). Season four has doubled down on this idea further, now trying to frame Joe as being not much more than a puppet – the fall guy for an unknown killer (until the end of season four's part one, that is) who only murders or maims out of self defence.
When a dead body first shows up on Joe's kitchen table in London, he's unsure whether he'd done it. Joe had been very drunk, Absinthe drunk, and we know he's got the, ahem, skill set.
We have to listen to his whiney inner monologue relenting about how he "never wanted to touch a bloody knife again", but then watch as he springs right into action, disposing of the body in a particularly gruesome way. For Joe, apparently, it's just like riding a bike.
It's around about this time that we're given a flashback with Marienne, which shows that Joe's big decision to change his ways actually stemmed from an attempt to prove her wrong.
In this way, his redemption is disingenuous. Joe isn't changing because he's found remorse or had a moment of self-realisation, he's doing it as part of the same pattern of obsession, the continuous cycle, that he is forever trapped in.
Joe doesn't want to be seen as a murderer, in spite of the objective fact that he is one.
With Marienne now let off the hook, out of Joe's grasp and presumably living a safer life with her daughter in Paris, Joe's attentions seem to be shifting more and more onto his wealthy neighbour Kate. He just can't help himself.
Despite sleeping with her and opening up to her about how the "Eat The Rich" killer has been trying to frame him, Joe has rejected her further advances in an attempt to save her from his true nature.
He's doing his best to convince himself, and the viewer at home, that this is a new trajectory. He wants to leave his past behind him, and he wants us on board for the ride.
But what seems clear from season four, part one, is that the show has backed itself into a corner. After the events of season three it had to reinvent itself to some degree – there's only so many times we can watch Joe retrace his own steps – and yet, by going down the redemption path, Netflix's You has lost the lifeblood of its own story.
As much as we were always horrified by Joe's toxic narrative, we still found ourselves morbidly unable to tear our eyes away.
Now that he's trying to reinvent himself and curb his own instincts (even if this character arc so far lacks credibility) the show just doesn't have the same feel about it any more.
Will part two see You redeem itself? Only time will tell.
You seasons 1-3 and part 1 of season 4 are available on Netflix now. Season 4 part 2 premieres on March 9.
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