Back in season 1 of You, Penn Badgely (who you just can’t help but think of as Dan from Gossip Girl) played Joe, a psychopathic stalker with a tendency towards killing his obsession, Guinevere Beck. He ended up creating a stalker/tracking system (…Gossip Girl…) and did end up killing Beck, as well as Shay Mitchell’s character Peach.
Now that season 2 is just around the corner, we can examine the trailer to see just what we have learned, where Joe is these days, and what might happen in the sequel.
Joe Seems To Regret Season 1
With a cover of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ playing softly in the background, Joe mentions that it’s “hard to have a fresh start when the past is on your mind”. This could mean quite a few things. Maybe he regrets what he did in season 1. After all, he did kill a girl he loved.
Then again, the re-emergence of Candace could actually be the “past” he talks of. She seemed to have a distinct impact on his actions, but we never really found out why.
Though He Doesn’t Look Like He’s Changed Much
Despite this revelation, Joe doesn’t seem like he will be doing things particularly different this time around.
We are shown Dan looking down on someone who could well be Candace, gagged at the mouth before a camera sitting on the floor shows him desperately chasing someone as she runs into the forest. This doesn’t give us the best picture of Joe’s supposed moving on. At the very least, he’s still in a pretty high-level stalker mode.
He’s Forged A New Identity In LA
One thing we know for sure is that he’s moved to Los Angeles. He says he’s a “new me," and seems to be playing up this role as much as he could, introducing himself as Will to his new landlady. He still isn’t on social media (well, under his new name, anyway) and he seems to have convinced this new character that he isn’t a “freak”. She seems to have a lot to learn. She doesn’t get a name yet and doesn’t appear in the rest of the trailer, so her role is pretty much unknown. Maybe it isn’t particularly long-lived?
And Found A New Target
His creepy interest in wandering around shops hasn’t stopped, and before long, he’s found someone new to stalk. He seems to have been investigating a few potential targets before selecting one who happened to be choosing the perfect apple in a supermarket. He says the name of the show as he decides on his target, before introducing himself. Her name is literally the word Love, which is pretty interesting. The two go on to share some romantic scenes of classic couple things, but we don’t really know if he feels the same towards her as he did Beck, or if she is just a new target.
But Someone Doesn’t Trust Him
This time around, Peach isn’t there to be wary of Joe. Instead, we are very briefly introduced to a new contender, this time in the form of Love’s brother. He appears for about a second in the trailer, asking Joe, “What are your intentions with my sister?"
Surely he isn’t aware of Joe’s particularly problematic past, so maybe he just doesn’t like the way he presents himself. Or maybe he’s a bit overprotective of his sister. He probably doesn’t know it yet, but he certainly should be. There’s a good chance he might meet a similar end to that of Peach. Then again, maybe he isn’t Love’s brother.
And Candace Isn’t Happy Either
We see Candace again later in the trailer, and Joe seems genuinely wary of her. “You did it again, didn’t you?” she asks. What “it” is, isn’t exactly made clear, but the obvious answer would be that Joe has killed again. Except, we don’t know when this scene happens. Is she referring to the death of Beck because she knows about Joe’s past before her? Or is it set towards the end of season 2, and Candace has found out that Joe hasn’t been on his best behavior with Love either? Love also seems to find out pretty quickly that Joe has a few issues with his ex-partners.
There’s Still Going To Be Blood And Violence
Considering You is a show primarily about murder and violence, it’s surprising that we go a full minute and a half without seeing much in this trailer. Cut to 1:35 and Joe seems to be cutting the head off of a corpse and then sitting in a bath with blood all over his hands.
The fact that he and Love are at a funeral which Candace is also at right after these scenes suggest that Joe might have a little too much involvement in whoever died. On top of all of this, Joe is literally shown having a knife fight with Candace. That’s a lot of violence packed into just a few seconds.
The Basement Prison Has Returned
The latter moments of the trailer show Joe returning to the basement prison which proved to be such an important location in season 1. On the surface, this suggests that he has returned to New York to access his impressive death room. Now, one of the biggest points of contention about season 1, is that Beck might not have died. Having said that, the prison does have a bloodied corpse in it, though we can’t see the face. Is it Beck? Is it Candace? Is it Love? Is it the same prison, or has Joe rebuilt it in LA? We just don’t know yet.
Yet He’s Still Painted As A ‘Hero’
Arguably the most problematic thing about season 1 of You is that Joe spent the entirety of the series as the protagonist, and despite being a creepy stalker with a fair few deaths under his belt and the ability to frame someone else for crimes he committed, we are conditioned into feeling a weird empathy for him.
With his suggestions that he’s trying to be a different person and the strange charming personality he crafts; this trailer seems to suggest that season 2 won’t give us a new perspective on the psychopathic protagonist.
We’ll Find Out On December 26th
Okay so we did sort of already know this, but now it is official. The second series of You drops on December 26 and it’ll be available to watch in full on Netflix straight away. This means it can be binged pretty quickly and spoilers will become readily available online in the hours after its release, so act fast. The fact this trailer came out so late seems pretty strange though, right?
