Does You Season 4 Remind Anybody Else of This Film?

“You” season 4 styled itself after a homicide thriller from its very first episode. Planting our antihero Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) in London — this time with solely a beard and a pretend identify as his disguise — the present follows Joe as he tries to resolve a collection of murders dedicated, for as soon as, by somebody apart from himself.

Nevertheless it seems that “You” season 4 was by no means a homicide thriller. As an alternative, it was channeling one other story your entire time. (A phrase of warning: If you have not seen the present, that is the purpose the place you need to undoubtedly cease studying, lest you lose out on the season’s largest twist.)

It appears “You” season 4 was nothing greater than a knockoff of “Struggle Membership.” Sure, it is true: the present appears to have copied its most important twist straight from David Fincher’s basic 1999 ode to angst and ennui. Simply as “Struggle Membership”‘s narrator (Edward Norton) believes he is been following the charismatic Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) when he is actually simply been Durden the entire time, the individual Joe thinks is the assassin has simply been him all alongside.

Within the first episode of “You,” Joe meets Rhys Montrose (Ed Speelers), an bold but humble politician with a previous filled with unnamed traumas. Rhys is the one different working-class individual within the group of wealthy British socialites Joe falls into, and like Joe, whereas he appears disgusted by his mates’ absurd wealth, he is oddly incapable of extricating himself from the group. Then the wealthy mates begin dying, one after the other, by the hands of a serial killer the press nicknames the Eat the Wealthy Killer. On the similar time, Joe finds himself being taunted and blackmailed by an unknown one who sends him ominous texts that disappear into puffs of digital smoke.

On the finish of season 4, half one, Rhys reveals that he is been the killer and the individual harassing Joe by way of textual content this complete time. Solely on the finish of the second half, which premiered on March 9, can we understand that Joe and Rhys are one and the identical. Joe has been absolutely dissociating from his murderous tendencies by attributing them as a wholly separate individual.

It is a just about precise duplicate of the twist on the coronary heart of “Struggle Membership,” which follows an unfulfilled, unnamed insomniac (Norton) who attends help teams for enjoyable. The narrator resembles Joe in that he sees himself as a passive observer, swept alongside by the folks round him and by forces past his management.

All the pieces adjustments for the narrator, although, when he meets Tyler Durden, a cleaning soap salesman who presents him a approach out of the capitalistic entice he is caught in. The narrator and Tyler shortly begin an underground struggle membership collectively, transfer into an deserted outdated home, and finally launch a nebulous plot known as Challenge Mayhem that culminates within the destruction of a constructing filled with bank card data. In fact, every little thing adjustments when the narrator discovers that Tyler — the embodiment of masculinity, chaos, rise up, and every little thing else the narrator has all the time wished to be however suppressed — has been him all alongside.

Not like Tyler Durden, who’s fully a hallucination, there’s a actual individual named Rhys Montrose within the “You” universe. He’s an bold younger politician, however he is not a member of Joe’s pal group and is not accountable for any murders. In fact, earlier than realizing he is been imagining a murderous model of Rhys, Joe kills the true Rhys anyway in one of many present’s most brutal sequences.

“You” has all the time been bloody and darkly humorous, however by the point it reaches its “Struggle Membership” twist in season 4, it is taken a flip for the completely absurd. The present’s determination to reuse the “Struggle Membership” twist is presumably the season’s most genuinely attention-grabbing second, which isn’t precisely saying a lot. At this level, Joe’s schtick has gotten predictable. We all know that he will change into obsessive about a girl, kill lots of people, entice somebody in a cage, and get off scot-free, all whereas convincing himself he is the nice man. The addition of the “Struggle Membership” twist added a breath of vitality to a collection that feels prefer it’s simply been occurring for too lengthy.

In fact, “You” season 4 is solely unable to exchange Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), Joe’s equally murderous spouse who he manages to kill on the finish of season three. After swearing off his latest obsession, Marianne (Tati Gabrielle), at first of season 4, Joe turns into infatuated with a brand new woman named Kate (Charlotte Richie). Nonetheless, out of all of Joe’s obsessions, Kate is certainly the least well-developed character. Coming so quickly after the richly fascinating Love and way more compelling Merianne, Kate appears virtually deliberately bland. She’s yet one more woman with a troubled relationship together with her wealthy father, like most of Joe’s different obsessions, however she’s largely unlikable and bitter throughout her time on display screen, making it onerous to see why Joe idealizes her or why she falls for him — and the present would not do sufficient with their relationship to make us really care sufficient to determine any of it.

“You” season 4 may have chosen to alter issues up right here in a number of methods. For instance, it may have made Joe obsessed along with his hallucinated model of Rhys as a substitute of a brand new love curiosity. It additionally may have chosen to maintain Love alive as a substitute of Joe, making her the protagonist of the subsequent season, then it may have began alongside a brand new path, and possibly then a “Struggle Membership”-esque twist would have felt brisker. It is easy to think about Love wrapped up in her delusions, imagining Joe nonetheless alive or following one other girl round who kills the wealthy mothers of Madre Linda and seems to have been her the entire time.

Making an attempt to match “You” to “Struggle Membership” would not precisely work; they’re very tonally totally different from one another. Nonetheless, they each satirize capitalism and wealth, and so they each discover the concept of what would occur if one’s inside violent nature was absolutely unleashed. There are a selection of interpretations of “Struggle Membership,” many at odds with each other. Some consider it is arguing that masculinity is inherently violent and has been suppressed by fashionable social norms, making it right into a flashpoint for a sure form of regressive sexism. Others consider it is actually railing in opposition to capitalism and the way in which it harms each gender.

“You” season 4 in all probability lands nearer to the primary camp, and if the present does have a coherent message, it is that generally nice-guy exteriors can home true malice. Joe is somebody who’s so insane and evil that the twist — when utilized to his story — lands us proper again to the place we began in the beginning of the collection, as a substitute of opening up the opportunity of real progress and alter like we see on the finish of “Struggle Membership.”

On the finish of each “You” and “Struggle Membership,” each characters try and kill their hallucinated doubles by killing themselves. In an effort to destroy Rhys, Joe jumps off a bridge. Equally, on the finish of “Struggle Membership,” as The Pixies’s “The place Is My Thoughts” performs, the narrator shoots himself in an effort to kill Tyler Durden as soon as he realizes the ripple impact his journey into chaos is having.

Each Joe and the narrator survive, although Tyler Durden by no means comes again in any respect within the the rest of “Struggle Membership,” whereas Rhys reappears to Joe within the last frames of “You” to the sound of Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.” At this level, it is clear that Joe’s violence is static, and “You” has additionally change into a static present, making the identical level again and again. Joe continues to get off scot-free, his wealthy lover will get ever-richer, and “You” will get to proceed to be as absurd as ever — although, after all, we will not look away.