Diksha Sundriyal
In the fourth season of Netflix’s ‘You’, we follow the story of Joe Goldberg who escapes his life in America, aiming for a fresh start in London. Previously, all of his efforts for a fresh start were halted in their tracks by his obsession with a certain woman which ended up with a lot of blood on Joe’s hands. Now, finally, he has succeeded in reining in his obsessive behavior and is living a quiet, clean life. That is until a murder happens and he receives a cryptic text. Who is this person texting Joe and what do they want from him? Let’s find out. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Rhys: The Enigmatic Texter Unveiled
At the end of the first episode of the fourth season, Joe (going by Jonathan Moore) receives a text on Evanesce, an app that deletes messages as soon as they have been read. The first text reads “Hello, you.” In the following texts, the sender talks about how they left Malcolm’s dead body on his table hoping that Joe would be pinned for the murder. But he surprised them by handling the situation without falling apart or even being thoroughly shocked by finding a dead body in his apartment. This means that Jonathan Moore is not the person they thought he was and now they’ll be digging into him to find who he really is.
With this text, the tables are turned for Joe, who realizes that he is being targeted by someone he doesn’t know. Over the following episodes, Joe discovers that this person is monitoring him closely. Joe is being stalked! Things get more complicated when he realizes that the texter is a serial killer. They don’t plan on stopping simply after killing Malcolm. They kill Simon and Gemma, too, and Joe has good reason to believe that they will try to kill him as well.
It is clear to Joe that the person texting him is someone within Malcolm’s friend group. The killings started after Joe was introduced to the group. This gave the murderer the perfect opportunity to commit the crime and blame it on the new guy. With more killings on the way, the murderer would like Joe to be in the vicinity, as it would make it easier for them to keep an eye on him. But it also bestows the same advantage on Joe. So, he decides to befriend everyone in the group and find out what their motivation could be behind the killings.
Despite suspecting several members of the group, Joe is in for a surprise when at the end of the fifth episode, he discovers that Rhys is the killer. He attacks Joe in the forest when he was being chased by Roald. Rhys takes both of them to the cellar where he ties them up and forces Joe to kill Roald and pin the murders on the latter. Joe is yet to receive an explanation as to why Rhys did all this, but it makes sense why he had tried to befriend Joe when they first met at the party. He acted like he wasn’t like other people in the group and had a few heart-to-hearts with him so that Joe wouldn’t suspect him of being the murderer.
On the night of Malcolm’s murder, Rhys was there when Joe got drunk and must have followed him and Malcolm to Joe’s apartment. He knew that Joe was too drunk to remember anything that happened and wouldn’t be able to defend himself when the cops showed up. After Joe gets rid of Malcolm’s body, he goes to the bar where he finds Rhys. They have a chat where Rhys asks him to “embrace everything”. This echoes the killer’s desire to see Joe in their own image. They are lonely and want someone with a similar interest in killing, with whom they can have some sense of camaraderie. Joe gets the same sense whenever he has a conversation with Rhys. When Rhys shows up at Hampsie and confesses to everything, it becomes clear that he was the one texting Joe.
Read More: Is You’s Evanesce a Real Messaging App?
