Diksha Sundriyal
The fourth season of Netflix’s ‘You’ takes Joe Goldberg to London where he comes across someone who threatens to tear his life apart. The first episode gives us a glimpse into Joe’s new life, showing us just how hard he is trying to change. For once, it looks like he is finally turning over a new leaf, ensuring that he doesn’t kill anyone else. However, his “never again” soon goes into the bin and he finds himself embroiled in a murder. This episode packs a punch, answering several questions from the previous season while setting up the events of the new one. Here’s a look at all that happens in this episode. SPOILERS AHEAD!
You Season 4 Episode 1 “Joe Takes A Holiday” Recap
The third season of ‘You’ ended with Joe leaving his life in Madre Linda in the rearview mirror. Love is dead and he is presumed dead. This leaves Joe free to move to Europe to search for Marienne. In the flashbacks of Episode 1, we discover that Joe spent a lot of time running around the streets of Paris, trying to find her. He knew that she’d planned to come here with Juliette, her daughter. Because she’s an artist, Joe visits the artist haunts in Paris. His search finally comes to an end, but it does not go as he had expected.
Joe Finds Marienne
After endlessly searching for her, Joe finally tracks down Marienne. He discovers that she is in London, attending an art fair. He quickly packs his bags and finds himself in the streets of London. Here, he comes face to face with Marienne but does not receive the expected welcome. He thought that she’d be happy to see him, but she is so horrified that she runs away. Joe catches up with her and tries to explain that Love was the villain of their love story. However, Marienne believes otherwise. Knowing that Joe must have killed Love, Marienne is convinced that he will kill her too.
To her surprise, Joe lets her go to prove to her that he is not the senseless killer she believes him to be. Later, however, Joe is visited by Elliot Tannenberg, who works for the Quinn family. He was hired by Love’s father to track down Joe and kill him. However, Elliot decides that he is done with all the killing. He gives Joe another chance at life, telling him to kill Marienne, as she is the only one who knows that he is alive and could be a loose end. Joe tracks her down to the train station, but he doesn’t kill her. Instead, he lets her go after stealing her pendant, which he uses as evidence to prove to Elliot that he has killed Marienne and that his life as Joe Goldberg is behind him now.
Joe Goldberg Becomes Jonathan Moore
Elliot was hired to kill Joe but he decides to retire and gives Joe a chance at another life. He demands the money that Joe had emptied out of Love’s account before he fled Madre Linda. In return, he gives Joe the identity of Jonathan Moore, whose whole backstory has been created and is ready to be used by Joe. With the money, Elliot disappears from Joe’s life, and Joe Goldberg turns into Jonathan Moore.
Months later, we find Joe employed as an English professor at Darcy university. He has become friends with a colleague named Malcolm. Joe and Malcolm’s flats are so close that they can look into each other’s flats from their windows. This allows Joe to peep into Malcolm and his girlfriend Kate’s lives. He is intrigued, especially by her, but he makes a conscious effort not to get involved anymore. He wants nothing but to enjoy his European holidays with no romantic attachments.
Despite Joe’s intentions, fate has different plans for him. One night, while returning from work, Joe sees Kate getting attacked. He helps her but asks her not to mention him to the police. She agrees, but she does mention him to Malcolm, who, as a gesture of appreciation, invites Joe to party with his rich friends at an exclusive club. This is where Joe meets the elite of London. He is immediately repulsed by them, except for Rhys Montrose, a writer that Joe recently became aware of. Despite not wanting to, Joe gets blind drunk and wakes up the next day in his apartment, with no idea how he got there.
Who Murdered Malcolm?
When Joe wakes up, he is horrified to find Malcolm in his apartment, stabbed in the chest. Because he has no recollection of what happened the previous night, Joe can’t help but wonder if he killed Malcolm. Still, he has no time to process. So, he takes Malcolm’s body to a secluded factory, where he cuts it off in pieces and throws it into the river. A big relief to him is that no one suspects that Malcolm is dead. Everyone, including Kate, believes that he has gone away to one of his summer homes to relax.
Meanwhile, Lady Phoebe becomes very interested in Joe. Apparently, in his drunken stupor, he said something profound to her. He has no idea what it was but it had such an impact on her that she has decided to include him in their friend circle, something that Kate doesn’t approve of. Joe is invited to a soiree for Simon, one of Malcolm’s friends who is also a successful artist. Before he can join the celebration, Joe receives a cryptic text.
The text is sent on an app that is meant to delete the texts as soon as they are read. It is not used by the general public and Joe doesn’t remember downloading it to his phone. The person texting Joe reveals that it is they who murdered Malcolm and had tried to set Joe up to take the fall. They didn’t expect Joe to handle the dead body like such a pro, and now, they’ll be looking into Joe’s past to find out who he really is. This comes as a relief to Joe as it means that he has not started killing people again. However, this also means that one of the people in Malcolm’s friend circle is a killer and Joe needs to figure out who it is before it’s too late.
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