Summary
The season opens with Joe trying to keep a low profile and protect his new identity as a London academic. Despite his best attempts at staying out of trouble, dead bodies needing disposal seem to follow him everywhere, even in Europe.
We recap the Netflix series You Season 4 Episode 1, “Joe Takes a Holiday,” which contains spoilers.
Joe Goldberg (played by Penn Badgley), everyone’s favorite love-sick psychopath, has finally made his highly anticipated return to Netflix. After the events in season 3 left him happily widowed (Love’s death wasn’t exactly his fault, was it?), Joe decided a change of scenery was in order.
The last season ended with our anti-hero faking his own death and flying into France in search of Marriene (Tati Gabrielle). Sure, she tried putting a whole Ocean between them, but as we all know, nothing stands between Mr. Goldberg and his feelings.
In the season 4 opener, we find Joe living under a pseudonym in London and teaching a university short story course. We get brief snippets of how his search for Marriane went in the form of flashbacks and we also get to meet the high-society circle of Londoners Joe is hanging out with these days – all as annoying and unlikable as most of us imagine rich people to be. It’s a solid first episode, setting the scene for the ride ahead.
You Season 4 Episode 1 recap
The episode starts with Joe teaching a short story class at a university in London under the fake name of Jonathan Moore. While he still misses Marriene, Joe is enjoying his new job and the chance to lay low, lead a quiet existence and move on from previous dramas. One of his students, Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman), is very impressed with Professor Moore’s penchant for teaching authors like Ted Chiang instead of classics like Hemingway and gives him an autobiography by Rhys Monrose (Ed Speleers), famed author and the potential future mayor of London.
Joe meets his new social circle
When he’s not shaping up the minds of British youths, Joe likes watching his couple neighbors Malcolm (Stephen Hagan) and Kate (Charlotte Ritchie). Malcolm is a fellow university professor whom Joe despises for being a rich drunk, while Kate is a workaholic art gallery owner that Joe tries really really hard not to get obsessed with. After all, he was supposed to be lying low and taking a vacation from his stalky tendencies. Yet despite Joe’s best efforts to stay away from people, he inadvertently finds himself saving Kate from a group of muggers, which leads to him being invited out by Malcolm to the newly opened Sundry House, an “absurdly elitist” club where only the creme-de-la-creme get to hang out.
At the club, Joe is introduced to Malcolm and Kate’s aristocratic friend group:
- Lady Pheobe (Tilly Keeper) – sweet-natured but “toxicly aristocratic” and “quintessentially blonde”
- Blessing (Ozioma Whenu) – a Nigerian princess, runs several pyramid schemes
- Simon (Aidan Cheng) – son of a billionaire and allegedly a talented world-class artist.
- Sophie (Niccy Lin) – Simon’s sister, and influencer, swears a lot
- Roald (Ben Wiggins) – aristocrat, known for his “alarming knife collection”
- Gemma (Eve Austin) – rich socialite, hates “Americans, trans people, the poor, and Jews.”
- Connie (Dario Coates) – “a lunatic and owns horses”
- Adam (Lukas Gage) – American, comes from a rich family, Lady Pheobe’s boyfriend and the proud owner of Sundry House.
Exquisitely bored with this crowd of overly privileged people, Joe ends up drinking by himself in the corner. It’s there he meets Rhys Monrose, future mayor of London and author of the best autobiography book Joe’s ever had the pleasure of reading. Just like Joe, Rhys grew up raised by an unstable single mother before learning his father was a member of the nobility. Both men connect over their shared childhood trauma and internalized hate for the upper class.
Joe’s wild night of absinth leads to more than a hangover
As the night progresses, Joe drunkenly tells Malcolm about the woman he followed to Paris and who broke his heart. Ever the helpful friend, Malcolm advises Joe to forget about the “silly w***e” and move on with his life. After blacking out from far too many shots of absinthe, Joe wakes up back at his apartment with a hangover and a stabbed Malcolm in the kitchen. Someone murdered poor Malcolm and took one of his fingers as a trophy. While unsure if he’s responsible for the murder, Joe cleans up and disposes of the body by chopping it into little pieces and disposing of them around the Thames.
Where is Marriene?
Flashbacks reveal what happened when Joe managed to track down his one true love, Marriene, at a London art fair. To no one’s surprise but Joe’s, as soon as she laid eyes on him, she ran. He followed her into an abandoned building but she still refused to talk or listen to reason. After an emotionally charged conversation in which Marriene makes it clear how terrified she is of him, Joe makes the surprising decision to let her walk away, breaking his own heart in the process.
Back in the present, and after disposing of poor Malcolm, Joe catches up with Rhys at the Sundry House, where they have a deep and meaningful conversation about life and redemption.
You Season 4 Episode 1 Ending Explained
Another flashback shows how Joe Quinn Goldberg became Jonathan Moore. It turns out the Quinn family fixer, aka thug-for-hire, Elliot (Adam James), had tracked Joe down and was sent to exact revenge for Love’s death. Elliot instead decided to give Joe a new identity in exchange for all the money he stole from Love’s accounts. But Elliot did put one condition on the kind offer: He wanted Joe to take care of Marriene. Unable to murder the woman he loves, Joe stays strong in his resolve to let her go. He follows her to the train station, steals her locket, then watches her get on board the train back to Paris, before lying about it to Elliot.
At the university, Joe runs into Kate who invites him out for dinner at Lady Pheobe’s request. Kate makes her dislike of our lead very clear. But bigger complications are brewing for our beloved serial killer. As he’s about to walk into the dinner party, he gets a mysterious text from someone claiming to be Malcom’s actual killer. Joe is now sure one of his new friends is behind the murder. Can he figure out who it is before he ends up at the wrong end of a knife?
What did you think of You Season 4 Episode 1? Comment below.
