Why You's Season 2 Will Look Way, Way Different

UPDATE: This story was originally published on January 15 at 6:34 p.m.

For some pop culture fanatics, the highlight of the holidays wasn't family time – it was the hours spent eagerly devouring the addictive first season of Netflix series You. (Of course there are some people who discovered it before it was on Netflix, ahem.) Whether you watched You live on Lifetime or found it online, the eventual You season 2 premiere is undoubtedly on your mind. Ten mere episodes is just not enough time to get to know Joe, his unwitting love interest Beck, and all the creepy hijinks that ensue when a toxically masculine stalker starts killing people in order to get the girl. Thankfully, Netflix answered our prayers and is currently in production on more episodes, so all that’s left to do now is dig for clues until the new season appears in one fateful Friday morning drop.

Some of those clues will have to help us figure out when Netflix intends on releasing those episodes, though, because apart from a “coming soon” promise on the You Instagram, there’s no official Season 2 premiere date in sight. However, because the second season is already in production, it's fairly likely that it will drop on the streaming site within the year, and at the very least, by the time we’re all buying 2020 party favors for next New Year’s Eve. Luckily, the lack of an official date hasn't stopped Netflix from getting fans hyped on Twitter with jokes, memes, and GIFs of Joe's incredible dance moves.

Joking aside, fans can expect some rather serious changes when the unsettling series returns for a second season, which is confirmed to be based on You author Caroline Kepnes' hit follow-up novel Hidden Bodies. That means that, as the series hinted in its first season finale, Joe is leaving New York for Los Angeles, giving the series a brand new setting. Unfortunately for Joe, his problems aren’t going to stay behind in NYC, especially after his ex-girlfriend Candace, who he thought he had killed, showed up in the shocking season 1 finale. Cross-country move aside, Candace’s appearance opens an onslaught of questions that beg to be answered: What happened to her and why did Joe think he killed her? What is she planning to do to Joe? Is she real, or is she just one of Joe’s guilt-driven hallucinations? Plus, there are still all those loose threads that Joe left dangling — framing Dr. Nicky for Beck's murder, Peach's fake suicide note, and the "evidence" he left behind in Peach's house (yes, this includes the, er, sample he left in a jar on the hutch).

The biggest shakeup for You in its second season, however, would be if the series addressed the most important burning question of all, head on: Can Joe truly be trusted as the narrator? For most of the first season, we only saw his version of events and as a result, a pretty one-sided version of the story. Yes, we finally got insight into Beck’s side of things for a half an episode, once, but there’s certainly room in season 2 for more non-Joe perspectives... and maybe even more from Beck. After all, are we just supposed to take Joe’s word for it that she is dead? His first “dead” ex has already turned up alive, and he definitely looked surprised to see her. It’s not out of the question that Beck could do the same in season 2, showing up unexpectedly somewhere in Los Angeles to haunt Joe for his past actions, either as a ghost or as another surprise survivor.

But if Ghost Beck isn’t in the cards, Joe’s narrative can be checked by others: Mr. Mooney and Paco both know about his crimes. Mooney may be paralyzed and unable to talk due to a stroke (or perhaps because of something Joe did), but he knows about Joe’s first kill, and Paco knows about Joe murdering his stepfather and Beck. There’s also Dr. Nicky, who obviously knows he didn’t murder Beck or Peach, and who could very likely be working from behind bars to prove his innocence, starting with investigating the plot holes in Beck’s book. And the more who people learn about Joe’s crimes, the more likely it is that one of them will spill the beans, intentionally or not, which means season 2 is bound to be even twistier than the first go-round.

Yep, he sure will. According to Variety, Victoria Pedretti, from The Haunting Of Hill House, will join Season 2 as Joe's new flame. She'll play Love Quinn, who works in a high-end grocery store but dreams of being a chef. Unlike Beck, Love won't be posting her every move to social media, which should provide a bit of a challenge for Joe. Reportedly, Joe and Love will bond when they realize they both know tragedy and loss. Of course, Joe's is a bit different than Love's — hopefully.

And while Netflix has yet to satiate our thirst for any solid information about when season 2 arrives, we can thank the streaming giant for acquiring the rights to the series and bringing this collective obsession with Penn Badgley's twisted, stalker and serial killer Joe Goldberg and his unhealthy dating (and general living) habits into our lives. Who knew the evil answer to Dan Humphrey would be the thing that brings the world together in 2019?