Like its lead character,Youis a master of reinvention.
Season 1 was all New York intellectualism and rain-washed streets.
Season 2 hopped coasts to darken that sunny California vibe.
Penn Badgley.Netflix
Season 3 found Joe barely surviving the exquisitely manicured suburbs.
Episode 1: Joe Takes a Holiday
Meet Professor Jonathan Moore.
In his mind, the wealthy are the real victims, preyed upon by the scum-by-birth beneath them.
Penn Badgley, Charlotte Ritchie.Netflix
Joe’s night quickly turns into a alcohol-soaked nightmare.
Malcolm wins by saying crude and demeaning things about Marienne, the one who got away in season 3.
Then again, Joemight actually kill that guy, which is where the similarities end.
Ozioma Whenu, Ben Wiggins, Dario Coates, Lukas Gage, Tilly Keeper, Charlotte Ritchie, Niccy Lin.Netflix
And oops, that seems to be what happens.
So yeah, Marienne’s (Tati Gabrielle) still a sore spot.
He chases her into an empty building, and she pulls a knife on him, clearly terrified.
Penn Badgley.Netflix
But she’s brave (or foolish?)
He’s a murderer.
Joe’s shaken by this accusation and attempts to prove her wrong by letting her go unharmed.
Charlotte Ritchie, Penn Badgley.Netflix
Although Love’s dad wants Joe dead, Elliot would rather retire.
But Joe can’t bring himself to kill her and instead swipes her locket as proof of death.
and finds Rhys there drinking alone.
She grudgingly invites him to a dinner at Phoebe’s insistence.
It reads, “Hello, you.
You surprised me, handling Malcolm like that.”
So he heads inside to sit down for dinner with a murderer.
Well, a fellow murderer.
New places, new players, and a newyouto obsess over.
Unlike Joe, death will not be taking a holiday this season.
When Joe lies that he’s working on his own crime thriller, she tells him that whodunits arefun.
They require no coincidences, and motives usually range from sex to money to revenge.
Also, the first suspect is usually the second victim.
To be fair, though, brown’s a pretty safe guess.
From there, Joe is summoned to Phoebe’s place.
He made quite the impression on her during their conversation when he was out of his mind on absinthe.
There he finds himself the object of scorn from the rest of Phoebe’s group.
“I’m in a West End revival ofMean Girls,” he gripes.
He also can’t help but notice that Kate seems to be the only person with an actual job.
Joe realizes he has one of those: “I’m… That… was not on my bingo card forYouseason 4.
Same for Joe, apparently, who’s still processing what he saw when Vic grabs him.
Time for the gallery opening!
To avoid the paparazzi, Joe slips in through the back with a woman who knows the door code.
Once inside, he focuses on Adam.
Um, it better be a replacement 70,000 for the bundle I just dropped on that egg.
He’s back to square one.
Also, Adam buys the egg.
But hey, there’s actual art here too.
Joe finds himself gripped by Simon’s oversized paintings of hairless cats.
Rhys says they were kind to him when he needed it.
There they find Blue Cahill, who saysshepainted those canvases, not Simon.
Enter a new suspect!
Er, new victim.
Simon almost immediately turns up with a knife in his chest and a missing ear.
Episode 3: Eat the Rich
Boy does Joe not like being stalked.
Joe angrily complies, texting, “If I’d done it, I had no other options.”
Next he has to deal with the police offers Kate sent his way.
He lies and says Malcolm told him about blackmailing Simon, offering up Blue’s name and whereabouts.
Vic is loyal to Lady Phoebe.
Another text fromyouhas Joe worried about Kate’s safety, so he follows her to a pub.
Listen, the woman’s making plans to bury her philandering boyfriend’s finger.
Let her drink in peace!
Joe suggests that burning something of Malcolm’s could help.
I mean, it worked for him with the Madre Linda house.
Vic watches them from a distance.
He angrily rejects that, adamant that he’s agood man,not someone who gets off on murder.
Joe follows Kate to the crypt where they’ll inter Malcolm, and there he’s confronted by Vic.
Vic starts to dial the police, so Joe brains him with a mausoleum vase.
Joe eventually strangles Vic with his own tie and buries him with Simon and his gold-plated coffin.
And no, he didn’t enjoy that murder: “My dick’s never been softer.
Oh, Penn, your voiceover work is better than ever this season.
Joe arrives home dejected at blowing his “I mean it this time,no more murders” vow.
And it’s an interesting question, isn’t it?
Could he have cleaned up his life if Malcolm’s murderer hadn’t come along?
Then again, Joe’s proven over and over that a serial murderer can’t change his spots.
She meets Joe’s gaze across the distance as she burns the big portrait of Malcolm.
What a terrible boyfriend.
And also RIP or whatever.
Joe’s pulled away when Nadia shows up to retrieve her letter.
Nadia’s the best.
Joe better not harm a hair on her smart little head.
Also, his earlier gambit pays off, andyoutexts to ask for a meetup.
Joe pumps his fist in victory, then tellsyouto leave Kate alone.
“She’s mine.”
Bad things are going to happen at this party.
Hampsie, as Phoebe calls it, turns out to be an eye-poppingly massive home.
Never leave home without it.
He arrives to find Phoebe in full seduction mode.
I’m a ten.”
The self-confidence of a queen right there!
This satisfies Phoebe, and she sends him on his way.
Kate heads inside in disgust.
Nope, he wants to talk about marriage.
He loves Phoebe, but he doesn’t want to give up the secrets that make him feel alive.
Then again, he’s having financial troubles and Phoebe’s rich.
Shouldn’t have bought that egg, my guy!
In the end, Adam decides to follow the money.
Also, Adam lets it slip that Roald’s the one who wanted to invite Joe.
Then she asks for Joe’s help untangling her necklaces, which naturally leads to undressing.
All that porcelain skin!
Who can blame him?
But they stop themselves from going any further just as Roald knocks to ask Kate for a pre-dinner swim.
Are we calling Roald’s psychotic jackass bullying “hard”?
What Joe can’t figure out is why Roald isn’t that way with Kate.
She isn’t heir to any fortunes!
She’s basically living impoverished compared to her friends.
Joe finds the answer in Roald’s room: he’s obsessively in love with Kate.
So Roald loves Kate.
Malcolm cheats on Kate and ends up dead.
Simon threatens Kate’s career and ends up dead.
Also, watch out, Joe.
Roald’s not going to like some nobody professor touching Kate’s neck.
She also catches Joe watching Adam and asks if they both know what the other knows.
Does Kate also know about the piss-play, then?
A frustrated Roald goads Joe into going hunting with him.
Don’t do it, Joe!
Joe’s such a good progressive about everything not murder-related.
(Sidenote: really?
AndKatie??).
He’s never approved of Kate’s male companions.
Kate saves the day by popping up to shoot a pheasant and walk with Roald back to the house.
So, um, he was just trying to scare Joe here, right?
Or was he actually going to plug him in the woods?
Roald tells Kate to quit playing with boys and to claim her place in the world.
But Kate wants no part of it and insists that she’s not like Roald and the rest.
Joe realizes he’s starting to have feelings for Kate.
This never ends well.
And like that, Joe falls a little further.
After all, he understands wanting to escape your past but backsliding with every little slip.
With that thawing of the ice, we barrel toward the end of the episode.
First, Phoebe catches Adam in an intimate conversation with one of the staffers.
Then Roald finds Joe searching his room for more evidence andtosses him out the damn window.
Thankfully, it’s a short fall, and Joe’s okay-ish.
He limps back into the house, picking up his pace when he hears a blood-curdling scream.
Episode 5: The Fox and the Hound
Seeing and being seen.
That’s what the first half of this season’s been about.
Yes, it means showing up at paparazzi-mobbed events and talking about who you’re wearing.
But it’s also about whoseesyou, whoknowsyou.
And sometimes the people who truly see you aren’t the ones you want or expect.
Malcolm saw his friends and punished them for it.
Phoebe thinks Joe saw her truths through a haze of absinth.
But Joe doesn’t quite see Kate yet.
She refuses to let her father clean this all up for her Understandable!
She wants to stay out from under his thumb!
Then we come to the funniest stretch of these five episodes.
Joe encourages her to go talk to Adam about what he’s hiding.
Is it a convincing act or is it as real as anything can be for Joe?
Either way, it’s an exquisite performance from Penn Badgley.
While Joe and Kate have been dealing with Gemma, Phoebe and Adam have been breaking up.
At first, Adam’s confused about why Jonathan would encourage Phoebe to ask about his kink.
He admits that his kink is about the shower provider being beneath him socially yet having power over him.
Afterward she makes a beeline to Kate’s room and finds a crime scene.
At this point, Kate has no choice but to fill her in.
God, that woman was awful.
post-breakup Adam reminded him that Jonathan’s sleeping with Kate.
He marches Joe inside at rifle-point to face justice.
It’sThe Crownby way ofGuy Ritchie, and Roald’s enjoying it to a disturbing degree.
Joe hides behind a tree and leaps onto Roald, bashing his head into the ground.
It is, as I feared, Rhys.
He conks Joe in the head with a rifle, and Joe wakes up chained in Hampsie’s dungeon.
After all, Joe’s been the inspiration for Rhys' project.
Rhys realizes Joe’s putting on an act, just like he did after killing Vic.
He tells Joe he’s in denial about who he really is, which… yes.
One hundred percent he is.
It’s what Marienne tried to tell him too, but Joe refused to hear it.
He kicks over a lantern, setting the flammables in the dungeon on fire.
If Joe can escape, they can revisit the conversation back in London.
If not, well, looks like his “frame the American” plan is back on track.
Side note: Rhys' accent has slipped here, right?
It’s not as posh, like he’s sliding back to his childhood cadences?
Upstairs, Kate and Phoebe are shocked to find their high-as-balls friends all armed with medieval-throw in weapons.
Kate eventually tires of waiting, grabs an axe, and marches off to sort things out.
Awww, are they this season’sSherry and Cary?
I hope they can make things work!
Then smoke starts to fill the house, and the rich folk flee.
In the dungeon, Roald wakes up, and he and Joe start frantically pulling at their chains.
Joe manages to get loose and hesitates who can blame him?
before setting Roald free too.
Then all three of them back away as the house burns.
I mean yes, absolutely, eat the rich, but this is hard to watch.
Safely back in his flat, Joe watches news reports about the fire and Gemma’s murder.
She storms away mad and hurt.
But the truth is, Joe’s already in a relationship withyou.
Joe’s got a promise too: “I’m coming for you.”
Kate runs from it.
Rhys keeps it hidden.
And Joe shoves it away with both hands.
“If something doesn’t grow, it rots,” Kate says of Gemma.
For most of that pack of feral elite, this statement is true.
But what is Rhys growing into?
And where will Joe be by the end of season 4?
I can’t wait to find out.
See you in a month for the back half of the season!
