Last winter’s unexpected TV hit was You, which premiered in September on Lifetime to lackluster ratings but has found a great resurgence on Netflix. The soapy melodrama centers on a bookstore clerk named Joe (Penn Badgley) who develops an obsession with a woman named Beck (Elizabeth Lail). His fascination with Beck drives him to do some crazy things, like stalk her every move and, oh yeah, murder people in her inner circle. It’s a wild story, and thankfully Netflix is making a second season. (Lifetime passed You over to the streaming platform at the end of 2018.)
Just a few days before the show's new season starts streaming on December 26, we finally got a full-length trailer—and it's eerie as hell. While a cover of Radiohead's "Creep" plays in the background, we see show establishing Joe's new life as "Will Bettleheim" in Los Angeles. There are flashbacks to Beck, as well as what appears to be Candace's escape. Plus, we get to see the moment he meets the new object of his affection: Love Quinn. Though it seems like Candace is not going to let Joe get back into his stalking ways so easily.
In one scene his hands are covered in blood, and another shows what appears to be someone clawing their way out from being buried alive. We can't wait.
Here’s everything else we know about the next chapter of You—and be warned: Major spoilers for season one ahead.
It will premiere on December 26, 2019. Get ready.
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The first part of the season takes place in Los Angeles. This is in line with what happens in the second novel of the series that You is based on, Hidden Bodies. “Joe Goldberg comes to L.A., and he is a die-hard New Yorker, so I can’t say that he comes to L.A. and he instantly falls in love with the place,” You’s showrunner Sera Gamble tells the Hollywood Reporter. “At least at first glance, this is not Joe’s kind of town, which is delightful.”
All of Joe’s loose ends from season one will come back to haunt him. Remember, he framed Dr. Nicky (played by John Stamos) for Beck’s murder, and Peach Salinger’s (Shay Mitchell) family is investigating her mysterious death. All of this, Gamble tells THR, could “come back to him at anytime.” “He is very worried about the fact that Peach Salinger’s family has hired people to investigate her alleged suicide, and there is evidence potentially still at her house from season one,” Gamble says. “If you look at every act of violence that he does in season one, that is potentially something that could come back and bite him.”
But it’s unclear whether Stamos will be reprising his role in the second season. “We have been talking a lot about the character, and we’re excited to keep telling that story,” Gamble tells THR.
Joe will continue to be the “woke” guy who doesn’t really get it. “He thinks he really understands women,” Gamble also said to the Hollywood Reporter. “He thinks that he is such an incredible ally. I think that can be one of the most dangerous positions of all when you’re entitled and when you’re not entirely self-aware about why you do the things that you do…so, I don’t know, we’re having a lot of fun being subversive with the story, and that will continue.”
Penn Badgley is reprising his role of Joe. He’s back—and probably still very, very creepy. “There’s a revisitation of that with Joe in the second episode of the second season, where you get to see a bit more of the hard reality of what he did to her [Beck],” Badgley told ET. “Whereas you’re sort of, for better or worse, mercifully saved from seeing that in the first season. That always haunts me, thinking of Beck. It’s like, ‘You really did that in the first season, and we’re still going, and people really like this guy?!’ That’s disturbing. In his mind, she’s not even dead.” He clarifies, “I’m not giving you some kind of spoiler, she’s dead. In his mind, everyone’s still alive because the pain that he feels he suffered at their hand is very much still alive.”
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...Except he won't go by Joe. In a new trailer released on December 5, Joe seems to be back to his old antics, passing judgment on everyone around him and being generally creepy. He’s moved to L.A. in the preview and observes different people in a coffee shop with disdain. “You know, love has taken me to some pretty dark places,” he says. “But Los Angeles has got to be as dark as it gets.” Then he launches into a diatribe about how phony L.A. is and how the city’s residents are putting up a facade. “That's the thing about L.A.,” he continues. “Everyone is pretending to be someone they’re not.”
Then he reveals his new identity. The barista asks for his name and he says, “I’m Will,” offering a chilling, hair-raising smile.
We don’t know if he changed his identity to cover his tracks with Beck or if he’s after someone new, but either way, we’re spooked.
We will delve more into Joe’s past. We learned a little bit about his childhood in season one. Mr. Mooney (Mark Blum), Joe’s first boss, may have played a big hand in his, erm, perception of the world. This will also be expanded in the episodes to come. “Joe was taken in by a guy who had a certain type of life philosophy that really did rub off on Joe,” Gamble tells THR. “Joe was already a teenager by the time he even met Mr. Mooney. There’s a lot more to explore about Joe from earlier in his life. Those are the things we’re starting to get into for season two.”
Victoria Pedretti will play the female lead in season two. You may recognize her as Nell from The Haunting of Hill House. In the second season of You, though, she’ll play Love Quinn, an aspiring chef working as a produce manager at a fancy grocery store. She’s uninterested in social media and takes an interest in Joe when she senses they’ve both dealt with extreme grief. Love appears in Caroline Kepnes’s book Hidden Bodies and plays a big role in Joe’s move to Los Angeles.
“Like her name, she’s very warm, and there is a carefree aspect to her spirit that really comes from the fact that she has constructed a life for herself that’s about being in the moment and doing what she loves every day,” Gamble tells Entertainment Weekly. “In that way, she’s very, very different than the woman that you got to know in season one, Beck, who was ambitious and driven as a writer and also as a young person in a social circle that had a certain kind of status. Beck had been quite aware of her social media presence, and Love is extremely disinterested in all of that…. She’s a Los Angeles native. She has really absorbed the best of the city, and she’s really artistic with the way that she lives her life.”
But she isn’t Joe’s love interest, per se. “Season one was a particular kind of story that we could tell about the relationship between Joe and Beck, and the moment that we did what we did in the finale, that’s not repeatable,” Gamble also tells EW. “I will say that Love is a person he could only have met after what happened between him and Beck. And by the way, Joe is not out there looking for love. He’s truly heartbroken by what has happened, and so what Love offers is a different kind of friendship and a different kind of relationship.”
“Joe was always trying to get Beck’s attention, sort of almost against her own instincts and will, whereas Joe is trying to be better. And Love won’t let him say no to her, even though he’s trying desperately,” Badgley said in a recent interview. “It’s very different between Joe and Love than it was with Beck, and thank God, because you can’t do that again. That would just be brutal. To me, that would be irresponsible if we did the same thing again.”
We’re going to see a lot more of Candace. Joe’s mysterious, thought-to-be-dead ex-girlfriend proved to be very much alive by the end of season one—and she’s not going anywhere in the new season. Deadline reports that Ambyr Childers, the actress who plays Candace, has been promoted to series regular, which potentially means a lot more screen time. We can’t wait to see what sort of havoc she wreaks.
The show officially began production on February 15, 2019. Netflix teased the first table read of the upcoming second season, posting these photos of Badgley, Childers, and newcomer Pedretti.
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Gotham’s Robin Lord Taylor has also joined season two. The actor will trade in his role of Oswald Cobblepot, aka the Penguin, for a recurring role in You’s upcoming season. Deadline reports that Taylor will play a character named Will who’s described as a “thoughtful, personable, and highly intelligent guy”—however, he finds himself “trapped in a bad situation.” Only time will tell what exactly this means.
More cast members have been announced too. Marielle Scott will play Lucy, described by Deadline as an “edgy-chic literary agent with a deadpan wit and a sense of humor about her own L.A.-ness.” According to Refinery 29, Chris D’Elia will play a comic named Henderson; Carmela Zumbado will be an investigative journalist named Delilah; Adwin Brown, a bookstore worker named Calvin; James Scully will take up the role of Love’s brother, Forty; Jenna Ortega will play Ellie, a teen who might possibly be the new Paco; Melanie Field will be a mommy blogger named Sunrise; and Magda Apanowicz will play Sandy, a woman from Joe’s past.
Season two will somehow be even “darker” than season one. Gamble revealed this tidbit in a July 2019 interview with Us Weekly. “I would say that season two of You, kind of, doubles down on some of the stuff that you might come to expect,” she says.
She continues, “Moving the show to Los Angeles brought out a whole different side of Joe Goldberg.” And this side is, apparently, quite gory. Gamble tells TV Guide, ”At least one scene comes to mind that’s gorier and scarier than anything we had in season one. You will know it when you see it. Episode two of the season has my single favorite shot that I have been a part of in my entire career. My career is full of blood and gore and monsters. It’s also beautifully shot, and the director who shot the second episode lavished a lot of love. Joe is forced to do something he really doesn’t want to do.”
