You Fans Have A Wild Theory About Who The *Real* Season 4 Killer Is
Why is this actually kind of convincing?!
The fourth season of You doesn’t just have a whole new London setting, it also has a suspenseful new whodunnit mystery. Unlike in seasons past when Joe Goldberg had all the blood on his hands, now he’s being tormented by an anonymous killer expertly framing Joe for all his crimes. At the end of Part 1, this killer’s identity was finally revealed... but some fans are already thinking there’s a deeper layer to this mystery that’s been hinted at throughout the first five episodes. Spoiler alert: Don’t read on if you haven’t finished You Season 4, Part 1 yet. Now, a popular fan theory that’s been going around ahead of Part 2 questions whether Rhys really had all those conversations with Joe, or if Joe had just imagined a like-minded persona he could blame his bloodthirsty outbursts on.
Yep, we’ve got ourselves a Fight Club theory, folks. Ever since the final act of the 1999 action movie famously revealed Tyler Durden was never more than a figment of the narrator’s imagination, an “imaginary character” reveal has become standard in the realm of fan theories. But it could actually make a lot of sense in You Season 4, especially considering a few key details.
For one thing, Joe’s conversations with Rhys are always one-on-one — he first met the author in a secluded corner of the otherwise lively Sundry House, then they chatted again the next morning when the social club was cleared out, and again while they were off to themselves at Simon’s art show and on the balcony at his wake.
Of course, other characters besides Joe have mentioned Rhys, so it’s not like an actual Rhys doesn’t exist, but it is notable that Joe’s big, heartfelt convos with him happen away from a crowd. Rhys could physically be there for some of these occasions, but it also got fans thinking Joe could have imagined chats with the man as well.
On top of that, fans on Reddit have pointed out another alarming detail: Joe was always unconscious at the time of each murder. He blacked out from too much absinthe the night of Malcolm’s stabbing, he fell asleep on a bench outside Simon’s art show when the artist was killed, and he had fallen from a second-story window right before Gemma’s death. Admittedly, it’s hard to imagine Joe getting up from his fall so quickly to murder Gemma and then return to the bush, but the show could have fudged with the timing a bit.
Basically, the theory purports that Joe clung on to his idealized image of Rhys and adopted him as an alter-ego, which he unleashes to murder the annoying people he can’t stand before reverting back to Joe, forgetting his previous actions. There are definitely some very obvious holes in this theory, like how Joe could have chained himself up in Episode 5 after Rhys caught him. But despite that, there are also some pretty convincing reasons this theory could be true, including Joe’s adopted name this season. Jonathan Moore is also the name of a mystery author, whose 2016 novel The Poison Artist shares a lot of similarities with Joe’s story. As fans on Reddit pointed out, the book also begins with a recently single man who finds himself in a twisted murder mystery after blacking out from too much absinthe. The story ends with the protagonist realizing the killer he’s been chasing has been a hallucination — could Joe be going down the same road?
It’s a wild theory, but You has dipped into hallucinations and trippy dream sequences several times before, so it’s not completely out of the question. Hold tight until March 9, when Part 2 of You Season 4 drops on Netflix with some answers.
