‘You’ Season 4: Release Date, Cast, Theories, and More
Good news for us, bad news for Joe Goldberg’s body count: You is returning for a fourth season on Netflix. Just days before the third season of the hit psychological thriller hit viewers’ queues in October 2021, the streaming giant announced that You would be back for season 4.
Show creators Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti celebrated the news in a statement to Deadline. “It’s been thrilling to watch Penn [Badgley] bring Joe to creepy yet compelling life. We’re deeply grateful that Netflix has shown You such monumental support, and that people around the world have enjoyed watching Joe really get it all very wrong over the past 3 seasons,” said Gamble, adding, “The whole You team is excited to explore new, dark facets of love in season 4.”
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Is there a trailer for You season 4?
We’re a long ways off from a trailer, but Netflix did drop a teaser for the fourth season, featuring old footage and tagged with the clever wordplay, “4 you.”
What will happen in You season 4?
Spoilers for You season 3. You is defined by its jaw-dropping, unbelievable, and often improbable twists and turns, so it’s a fool’s errand trying to predict what will be in store in season 4. (Though a solid guess is that Joe commits murder.) What we can consider is how season 3 ended: With Joe staging his own death (at the hands of his wife, Love Quinn, played by Victoria Pedretti); murdering his wife, Love; leaving his child, Henry, on a literal doorstep—albeit to be adopted by much better parents—and escaping to Paris in search of Marienne.
Will he finally be caught? Sera Gamble has hinted in interviews that yes, one day, Joe may face actual repercussions for his crimes. “[We] like thinking about the possibility that he’ll be punished,” she told E!. “We frequently end up spinning out just these theoretical conversations about what the most fitting one would be. Should he be killed? Oh no, that would be too easy. Should he be in jail?”
In an interview with Collider, Badgley said: “The next season could be quite different…I don’t know, but I think it might be more about Joe’s relationship with himself. Because this isn’t really a show about a murderer, this is a show about…I think it’s taking the mistakes that we make in relationships to the extreme for the sake of a good story. Like, we really need to lay down our swords and stop being competitive in relationships, but that’s very hard to do.”
In an interview with E!, Sera Gamble noted that in the fourth season, Joe will have to deal with the emotional repercussions of abandoning Henry. “I think it will shape him from this moment forward. And even his exact plan of when and if he would return for his son is something that [the writers] will…come together and talk about.”
Considering each season of the show has jumped locations—New York City (season 1), Los Angeles (season 2), Madre Linda (season 3)—it’s safe to assume a fourth season could follow our protagonist terrorizing the residents of the city of love. How do you say “run” in French?
Who has been cast in You season 4?
Neither Netflix nor the showrunners have confirmed any cast members for season 4, but the final moments of season 3 teased that Joe (Penn Badgley) was alive and well and therefore would live to kill another day. And since Love Quinn was, well, blown up by Joe in the season 3 finale, it’s likely she wont be returning for more episodes. Victoria Pedretti confirmed as much in an interview with Marie Claire, saying, “As far as I know, she’s dead.”
While Pedretti hasn’t spoken to the showrunners or writers about reprising the role in a flashback or any other capacity, she’s absolutely open to the idea. “I love the show and the people I work with. And this character is a blast—most of the time she’s a blast,” she told us. “So yeah, I would certainly be interested [in returning]. But I’m just here trying to come to terms with the fact that it’s over.”
As for Tati Gabrielle, who played artist/librarian and Joe’s season 3 object of obsession, Marienne, things are less conclusive. Season 3 ended with Marienne narrowly escaping Love’s violent tendencies yet heeding her advice to leave Madre Linda and never look back. In an interview with Marie Claire, Gabrielle could neither confirm nor deny if she’d been signed on for another season—”I don’t know if I can tell you that. So I’m gonna say you gotta ask Netflix.” But she did theorize that her character had managed to escape California with her daughter, Juliet, in tow.
“I do think that she is in France, like what she talks to Joe about,” she said. “I feel like she would be either like an art teacher or a fully commissioned artist…I would just want her to find the peace she’s been seeking. To do art and let her kid have the most free and lovely life and for them to be happy.”
The big question: Could Joe ever change? Speaking to TV Line, Badgley said: “I think Joe will remain the same. Someone this profoundly ill, disturbed, traumatized and violent has a serious hurdle before them if they’re ever going to heal and change. I don’t know if it’s possible for someone who’s that far gone.”
When will You season 4 come out?
The big question! To figure out the answer, let’s look back at previous seasons: The third season came out on October 15, 2021, and the second season came out almost two years earlier, on December 26, 2019. The first season came out just 15 months before that, on September 9, 2018. So you’d imagine that the fourth season will come out between a year and two years after the release of the third—perhaps longer if the show needs to film internationally (hello, France). Which would take us to between October 2022 and October 2023.
