A new season of Netflix’s You is here, and Joe (Penn Badgley) has found himself right in the middle of a mystery. Unfortunately for all of us, this season is split into two parts, so we have a month before Part 2 drops on Netflix for more answers. But, in happier news, there’s a giant clue hidden in these first five episodes pointing to what’s going to happen next.
As part of his London girlboss era, Joe is now an English professor at a university teaching a class in short American fiction. And to no one’s surprise, his syllabus includes a lot of books about love, obsession, and even stalking. But there’s one short story Joe’s teaching that particularly stands out: Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Man of the Crowd.”
Now, we know this season of You is shaped like a good, old-fashioned whodunit. And if we’ve learned anything from Benoit Blanc, it’s that these sorts of stories love planting an obvious clue right at the core of an onion you can clearly see through. So, I’m putting my signature Benoit ascot on and proclaiming that there are clues within Poe’s prose that we should all be paying more attention to. Here’s why.
What is “The Man of the Crowd” about?
Credit: Design Pics Inc/Shutterstock
Poe’s story begins with a nameless narrator sitting at a cafe and people-watching London’s bustling crowd. All we know of him is that he’s recovering from an illness and that he loves categorizing people based on their little quirks. It’s kind of like passing judgment on someone for wearing something from Shein, or more darkly, kind of like how Joe nitpicks everyone around him — but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The narrator proceeds to spot an old stranger in the crowd and becomes completely infatuated with him. Poe notes that this instant infatuation is partially due to the stranger hiding a dagger underneath his coat. It’s the first thing the narrator sees and he begins questioning what this stranger is hiding. So he starts following the stranger and increasingly becomes obsessed with him with each step.
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As he follows the stranger through London’s many streets, the narrator incessantly questions who this stranger is. Why can’t he pin him down to one of his categories? What is he hiding? The narrator follows the stranger all throughout the night and onto the next day, but eventually becomes tired. He gives up and proclaims, “This old man…is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. He is the man of the crowd. It will be in vain to follow; for I shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds.” The stranger never realizes he’s being followed, and the story ends there.
Okay, but what does all of that mean?
Credit: Netflix
Let’s buckle up for some English 101, because class is officially in session. At a first glance, Poe’s story untangles an increasingly industrialized London and its changing cityscape that includes larger crowds. Poe is questioning what it means to be an individual during the boom of capitalism, arriving at a conclusion that we all simply exist as part of the crowd and maybe we should start accepting that.
But there’s more analysis to Poe’s story that leans into darker themes. We know the crowned king of goth loves psychological thrillers, so it’s been argued that “The Man of the Crowd” is a story of a narrator being haunted by his own subconscious. Another possible interpretation is that the narrator in “The Man of the Crowd” isn’t aware that his illness is affecting how he perceives things — and to that end — his perception of the stranger himself.
A popular analysis of Poe’s story suggests that the narrator and stranger are two sides of the same person, kind of like Edward Norton and Brad Pitt in Fight Club. The stranger is actually the narrator’s double. He could be an older version of him. He could be an embodiment of someone he’s afraid to turn into. Or, if we keep the dagger in mind, he could be a manifestation of the narrator’s mysterious past haunting him. Now, how does all of this play into You?
The narrator and the stranger are parallels for Joe and Rhys.
Credit: Netflix
Like the narrator, Joe is an obsessive observer who mistakes infatuation for love. And like the narrator, Joe is chasing after a stranger with a big secret — the eat-the-rich killer who’s revealed to be Rhys (Ed Speleers). Now this is the first obvious parallel to Poe’s story: Joe is our narrator who’s following and trying to understand Rhys, the murderous stranger. But things are a little bit more complicated than that.
Because of their constant game of cat-and-mouse, the questions of who’s the narrator and who’s the stranger in Joe and Rhys’s relationship are harder to answer. Rhys is also obsessed with Joe and sees him as a genius he’s trying to untangle. Rhys is even stalking Joe right back. With that in mind, Rhys could likely be the narrator in this case and Joe (also a murderous stranger) the person he’s chasing after.
But the parallels between Poe’s story and Joe and Rhys don’t end there, as our anti-hero and protagonist are strikingly similar and weirdly bonded to each other. There’s a deep-rooted, dangerous mutual adoration between Joe and Rhys, like the narrator’s (albeit one-sided) adoration of the stranger. They both spend the majority of this season picking each other apart, trying to figure out who the other really is deep down, and even almost join forces. It’s safe to assume that Poe’s story is a skeleton for their relationship built on mutual obsession.
Why does that matter?
Credit: Netflix
We’ve established that Joe and Rhys are interchangeable parallels to the characters in Poe’s story, which makes the analysis of “The Man of the Crowd” a possible clue as to what’s going to happen next. If the stranger is the narrator’s double, that could mean that Joe and Rhys are also doubles or two sides of the same coin. But what does that even mean?
Perhaps we’re about to get a Fight Club situation where it’ll be revealed that, like the narrator in Poe’s story, Joe has an illness that’s affecting his perception and that Rhys isn’t real. We’ve only ever seen Joe talk to Rhys privately, but we’ve also seen Rhys interacting with Joe’s friends. Then again, Joe constantly speaking to himself at parties would be a cause for concern by onlookers, so the Fight Club theory may be a little far-fetched.
On the other hand, the doubles theory could suggest that Joe’s been indirectly helping Rhys this entire time. Maybe Rhys took some inspiration from Joe’s past killing sprees and replicated them, or maybe Joe’s been doing some of the killings himself and we’re about to get a giant plot twist via voice-over.
The most plausible theory is that Rhys could be a manifestation of what Joe’s about to turn into. Like the stranger in Poe’s story, Rhys could be a reflection of Joe’s old ways that he’s capable of dipping back into and a cautionary tale of what might happen next. So far, Joe’s been comparatively tame this season. We haven’t seen the return of his doomed keepsake box, for example, but with five episodes remaining that could easily change. Whatever the outcome, we’ll have to wait for Part 2 to finally figure things out.
With all these parallels between Poe’s story and the pair’s relationship, the answer may be hiding in plain sight. Do you have something to tell us, Joe?
You Season 4 Part 1 is now streaming on Netflix.
