You's Season 4 Villain Speaks Out About Going Toe-to-Toe With Joe Goldberg

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for You Season 4 Part 1. Read at your own risk!] 

Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) met his love match when he met Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) in Season 2 of You. We learned in Season 3 that maybe Joe isn't capable of love matches, because Love ended up dead, and Joe fled to Europe to find Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) and start a new life. That's where we find him at the start of Season 4: in London, living it up as a university English professor named Jonathan Moore. He's already found Marienne and made the shockingly mature decision to let her go to prove his love, and now, Joe may have met his true match — a serial killer match. 

Season 4 Part 1 is a whodunit, forcing Joe to track down a mysterious killer who is taking out his rich friends one by one. In the final episodes of this half of the season, which premiered on Thursday (with Part 2 still to come on March 9), we find out that the real killer is actually Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers), the rags-to-riches author with ambitions of becoming mayor of London. Rhys initially intends to frame Joe for his selective murders, but when Joe expertly disposes of the first body, Rhys realizes he's found a potential partner in crime, and things only go downhill from there. 

"This discovery is two things: It's a relief that he may not be the one who's doing this, but it also sets off whatever his triggers are," Badgley explained to TV Guide when asked what it was like for Joe to go up against another serial killer. "Whatever is being triggered, this deep-set stuff, it's at a nearly explosive level all the time. He's silently managing a lot of rage, which is just kind of a warm bath for me at this point." 

While Badgley felt bath-level comfortable with the confrontation, Speleers was overjoyed at the challenge of taking on someone as prolific as Joe.

You Season 4 Part 1 Review: Joe Goldberg Is Trapped in a Funny but Frustrating Whodunit

"You look at what Penn has done with the character of Joe over many years — it's so inspiring how he's approached that character. I feel that he should actually have more accolades for what he's pieced together over the years," Speleers said. "It was a lot of fun for me in some respects, because I was exploring things I hadn't before, and trying to do it in a way without giving anything away. You're trying to keep everything as grounded as possible even though sometimes our show is quite elevated at times." 

Part of that grounding came from knowing who Rhys was and wasn't willing to kill. Speleers admitted that while his character might seem more chaotic to Joe, Rhys is actually much more to the point of who he kills and why. 

"I think he justifies his chaos because he's liberated. I do think that some of his killings are justified, but I feel he can honestly look at people he's killing and be like, 'Well, actually, they don't need to be here,'" Speleers said. "Much in the same way that Joe does, I feel that Rhys' approach is so much more matter of fact. He is looking at an even bigger picture. He's doing it, he believes, for Joe's benefit. Although it appears chaotic, he's only trying to do it for Joe's best interests." 

And according to Speleers, Rhys is looking out for more than just Joe. He truly has a vision for the people of London, but he just needs everyone to agree with it. 

"I feel that he genuinely wants to help the people of London. I don't think he's as narcissistic as just trying to get into power for the sake of it. He felt if he can wipe out some of this high society, then he can do great things for London," the actor elaborated. "He also thinks he can work together with high society. That's always been a thing with his character, but if people don't want to get on board with his ideas, or are particularly abhorrent, he'll get rid of them."

It is helpful that the victims were all people in the way of Joe's new romantic conquests or those who suspected Joe of being the Eat the Rich Killer. What is not helpful is that now that Joe escaped the murder weekend at Phoebe's (Tilly Keeper) estate, Rhys has officially announced that he's running for mayor. And we have to wait until Part 2 to find out if Joe is ready and able to take down a high-profile killer hiding in the spotlight. 

You Season 4 Part 1 is now streaming on Netflix. Part 2 streams on March 9.