The fourth season of the hit Netflix series You is as compelling and twisty as the previous three, enthralling both newcomers and loyal fans of the original series of psychological thrillers by Caroline Kepnes. The first novel, You introduces listeners to Joe Goldberg, a bookshop clerk who falls hard for the smart, sexy, and sophisticated Guinevere Beck. But his interest soon turns to obsession, and before long, Guinevere finds herself caught up in a chilling tangle of lies and deceit.
The sequel, Hidden Bodies follows Joe as he flees to Los Angeles, hoping to leave his dark past behind. But when he meets another beautiful woman, he soon falls back into dangerous patterns. In You Love Me, Joe attempts, once again, to start over, this time on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest and, once again, fails spectacularly. The forthcoming For You and Only You sees Joe finally writing his own books instead of selling them. He even lands a coveted spot in a prestigious Harvard writing fellowship, where he meets a fellow writer who he is sure could be the love of his life—with just a little encouragement, of course.
The four seasons of You draw on storylines from all of Kepnes's novels, though the plot does diverge in a few significant ways. The series, like the books, is a fast-paced and propulsive story of obsession, power, lust, loneliness, and the cost of keeping secrets. It has all the hallmarks of a dark romantic thriller, with plenty of twists, turns, and surprise reveals.
Ready to delve into the differences between the You books and the show? Read on, but beware—spoilers for both the books and all four seasons of the show abound.
Major Differences: You, Page vs. Screen
Like many book-to-screen adaptations, the You TV series introduces some characters that don't exist in the books and leaves out other characters entirely. There are plenty of smaller differences too, like the ends certain characters meet, differing or compressed timelines of events, and gritty details about Joe's stalker and serial killer behaviors. Though all of these differences will stand out to anyone who's listened to the original novels, the biggest differences lie in the direction of the plot. The show diverges entirely from the books in Season 3, during which Joe and his girlfriend Love raise their son in a California suburb. The recently released fourth season also ventures into brand new territory—after the murderous fallout of his relationship with Love Quinn, Joe flees to London.
Differences in Characterization
Joe Goldberg
Of all the characters in the You universe, obsessive stalker, creepy charmer, and serial killer Joe Goldberg is the most consistent between the books and the show. The biggest difference between Joe in the television series and Joe in the books is that he's much less sympathetic in the books. The novels are written from Joe's POV, so listeners are privy to all of his dark and violent thoughts. As such, despite his projected charisma, he's more immediately chilling in the novels.
The series also introduces several characters and plot lines designed to make Joe more sympathetic, to show a different side of his personality, and perhaps to make any woman's attraction to him a bit more palatable to viewers. In season one, Joe supports and mentors his teenage neighbor Paco, eventually helping him to get free of his abusive stepfather. In season two, Joe similarly helps his 15-year old neighbor Ellie, the sister of his new landlord. He gives her money to get out of town when she's in trouble, once again showing that maybe he's not entirely monstrous. Neither Paco nor Ellie exist in the books.
Another major difference is Joe's backstory. In the television series, there are multiple flashbacks to Joe's past, in which viewers learn about his mentor and former boss, Mr. Mooney, who was abusive and cruel. Mr. Mooney taught Joe about restoring books but also locked him in a glass cage used for storing books—behavior that Joe repeats with many of his victims. This traumatic backstory is entirely absent in the novels.
Guinevere Beck
Like Joe, Guinevere's character is fairly consistent between the book and the show. In both, she's a Brown graduate pursuing her Masters in Fine Arts in New York. But while she's struggling to make ends meet in the show by working as a TA under a shady professor, she's stable and financially well-off in the books. Her character arc and storyline—meeting and falling for Joe, and eventually getting murdered by him—remain the same.
Candace
Joe murders his ex-girlfriend Candace in the first novel, You. In the series, viewers are led to believe he murdered her, but she turns up alive at the end of season one in a big twist, and features prominently in the second season. The show's writers did have some fun playing with the source material, though—the first novel ends with Joe flirting with a new love interest, Amy Adam, in the bookshop. Hidden Bodies opens with Joe establishing himself in LA, seeking revenge after his relationship with Amy ended with her theft of his rare and valuable books. Though Amy Adam doesn't exist in the screen version, Candace uses the name as a pseudonym when she arrives in LA, hoping to take her own vengeance on Joe.
Love Quinn
Love Quinn, Joe's love interest in season two, is also his love interest in Hidden Bodies. in the series, Love is a 20-something aspiring chef. She and Joe meet at a grocery store in LA, where Joe is working. In the book, she's an actor in her mid-30s, and she and Joe meet at Soho House.
Love features prominently in both seasons two and three, when the show began to diverge significantly from the books. In the series, Love, like Joe, is a killer. When she realizes that Joe had an affair with his landlord, Delilah, Love kills her. Later, when Candace tries to warn her that Joe is a serial killer, she kills her too. Love is crafty and smart, and when it looks like Joe is going to kill her anyway, despite what she's done to protect him, she announces she's pregnant, and they move to the suburbs together to raise their baby.
Forty Quinn
Love's twin brother, Forty has a different personality in the books and the show. In the books, he's portrayed as selfish, thoughtless, and reckless, often making choices that cause trouble and put his loved ones in harm's way. In the show, while he's still a somewhat reckless character, he's portrayed as a lot more lovable—wild and free and a bit unhinged, sure, but not exactly dangerous or unsympathetic.
His character arc and eventual death play out very differently as well. In Hidden Bodies, Forty pretends to write screenplays with Joe, only to sell them under his own name for a ton of money. For this, Joe attempts to murder him, but fails. Forty is eventually killed randomly by a drunk driver. In the show, none of this happens. Forty actually becomes suspicious of Joe and tries to warn his sister about him, but in a tense encounter, where he arrives on the scene to kill Joe and save his sister, he is shot and killed by a police officer instead.
Mary Kay DiMarco & Nomi
Mary Kay DiMarco plays a central role in the third Joe Goldberg novel, You Love Me. After murdering Love, Joe moves to Bainbridge Island in the Pacific Northwest and, predictably, becomes obsessed with a local woman, Mary Kay, a married librarian with a teenage daughter, Nomi. In the TV series, Joe never moves to Bainbridge. Season three is set in a California suburb, and though he does meet and fall for a librarian named Marienne, who also has a teenage daughter, that's about the only similarity between the two characters.
Plot Differences
The first season of You follows is a relatively faithful adaptation of the first book, with a few changes. But as each new season brings bigger and bigger plot twists, the series spirals further away from the original books. Although seasons two, three, and four of You are obviously inspired by the books, they are full of characters and plots that do not appear in the original novels. Let's dig into some of the biggest plot differences between each season and the book it's based on.
Season One vs. You
The first season of You is based heavily on the book and follows the plot closely. It concerns the relationship between Joe, who's working at a bookshop in New York, and grad student Guinevere Beck, who falls for him before realizing he's actually a stalker and serial killer. Both the first season of the show and the book end with Joe murdering Beck and fleeing to Los Angeles, though the exact circumstances of his exit differ.
Season Two vs. Hidden Bodies
Season two shares the same basic scaffolding as the book it is loosely based on, Hidden Bodies, but the actual events, major plot, characters, and ending are very different. In the book, Joe arrives in LA to seek out Amy Adam, his ex-girlfriend. Amy stole a huge cache of valuable rare books from Joe and then fled to LA, and Joe is determined to track her down. Leaving New York also has the added bonus of taking him far away from the place where he murdered Beck. He gets a job at a bookstore hoping to catch Amy in the act of selling the books. However, his plan changes when he meets Love Quinn, an aspiring actor, and soon becomes entangled with her.
In the TV series, Joe also leaves New York for LA, but under different circumstances. He doesn't go there to seek out an ex but simply to flee the mess he's made of his life. He arrives in LA under the false name Will Bettelheim—like with so many of his victims, he keeps the real Will imprisoned in his glass cage. He meets and falls for Love Quinn, but their relationship is much more complicated and drawn out than it is in the book.
In both the show and the book, Love reveals to Joe that she's pregnant with his child. The book ends with Joe being arrested for the murder of Beck. It is later revealed that Love gives birth while he's in jail, and he never meets his son. Despite finally being caught, he believes Love and her rich family will soon get him out of jail.
Season two of the series introduces an entirely new storyline. After Love reveals she's pregnant, she and Joe move to the suburbs together to raise their child. The season finale hints at future cracks in their relationship, as Joe begins a new obsession with their neighbor, despite pledging his devotion to Love.
Season Three vs. You Love Me
Season three of You isn't based on the third book in the series, You Love Me, at all. It does draw some inspiration from Hidden Bodies but soon ventures into territory not even hinted at in the books. This season marks a distinct split from the storylines of the Joe Goldberg novels—though the books and the show continue to share characters, the plots are not at all similar.
In You Love Me, after Joe's arrest, Love Quinn's rich family pays all his legal fees. Once he's found not guilty, they bribe him with millions of dollars to leave Love alone forever. So Joe does what he's best at—he leaves town again, this time resettling on Bainbridge Island off the coast of Washington. There, he falls hard for a local librarian, and though at first he tries to woo her instead of stalking her, he soon falls back into old patterns.
None of this happens in the television series. Instead, the season focuses on Love and Joe's new life in the California suburbs as parents of a newborn. Joe soon becomes obsessed and then involved with their neighbor, Marienne. Love, who has killed several women to protect Joe, and has proved over and over again that she's just as twisted as he is in some ways, eventually realizes the magnitude of her mistakes. In a confrontation with Marienne, who urges her to leave Joe, Love realizes that the only way she can repent is by killing him. She sets out to do so, but Joe kills her first.
Love also dies in You Love Me, but Joe doesn't kill her. She reaches out to Joe, inviting him to meet his son for the very first time. When he arrives at their rendezvous, she pulls a gun on him. She shoots, with the intention of killing Joe, but he survives after falling into a coma. Love dies by suicide.
At the end of season three, after Love's death, Marienne flees to Paris, hoping to get free of Joe forever. Joe frames Love's murder as a suicide, fakes his own death, and follows Marienne to Europe, setting up the events of the fourth season.
Season Four vs. For You and Only You
The fourth Joe Goldberg novel, For You and Only You will be published in April, and since season four of the show has already aired, it's obviously not based at all on the new book. The show was written and produced long before the fourth book’s publication. They do have one thing in common, though—both season four and For You and Only You begin with Joe once again starting over somewhere new. In the book, he switches from selling books to writing them at a prestigious literary fellowship at Harvard. In the show, he arrives in Europe looking for Marienne, who fled to Paris after narrowly escaping Joe's villainy at the end of season three.
Season four’s storyline is entirely independent of the novels. It follows Joe's exploits in Europe, where he's living under a new alias, Jonathan Moore, an English professor. He gets involved with Kate, the girlfriend of one of his fellow professors. The season also slowly untangles, through flashbacks as well as a present-day storyline, what happened to Marienne. Though he at first decided not to murder her, it is later revealed that Joe experienced a psychotic break, and thus cannot remember many of the events of the season, including his kidnapping of Marienne. In the season finale, Joe attempts suicide but is stopped by the police. He then decides to continue with his evil ways. He moves back to New York, accompanied by Kate, who pulls strings and spins the story to make it look like Joe was actually the victim in the gruesome events he was responsible for in Europe. The ending of season four, which repeats the pattern of Joe arriving in a new place with a new woman, leaves plenty of open threads to be explored in a potential fifth season.
