You season 2 relies on past plotlines and leaves some hanging

You season 2 is a huge hit on Netflix after it premiered at the end of 2019, but it left something to be desired for some fans.

The second season of You was met with anticipation among fans and critics, and why wouldn’t it be? The show’s first season was thrilling and full of weird twists.

Penn Badgley plays killer and stalker boyfriend Joe Goldberg, who remains calm in even the most stressful situations and has a rationale for killings that is reminiscent of Dexter.

Also like Dexter, Joe keeps “trophies” that represent his victims. You even gave a nod to the old show when Love says “you’re basically Dexter” to Joe when she first confronts him about his past life.

Joe moved from New York City to Los Angeles in season 2, which should have added a different flavor and plot to a show that relies on surprising its viewers.

However, season 2 is more or less the same as season 1, using different characters than the ones in the first season, but having their roles be too similar to people in earlier episodes.

As Ellie takes the place of Paco and Love takes the place of Beck, a similar story plays out where Joe must protect a young child and his murdering ways slowly unravel. Until the last few episodes, the second season played out nearly the same way as the first.

And it’s not like season 1 had a lack of jumping-off points.

In the first season, Paco had a chance to save Beck when she was trapped in the basement of the New York book store. He didn’t let her out, which ultimately led to Joe being able to kill her.

Paco came from an abusive household, had key support systems in his life leave him, just like Joe did, and his mom got a job out in California, but we don’t get any update on that in the second season. It seemed weird to me that they never really brought up such a big character from the initial part of the show.

Another loose thread that was never tied together was mentioned towards the end of the season 1 finale. The Salinger’s private investigator, who was looking into Peach Salinger’s death, was shown unimpressed by reading Beck’s book.

Joe is narrating over the scene and said that “maybe not everyone was completely convinced” of Beck’s death, but that it doesn’t matter because the evidence was overwhelming. Well, I guess it truly didn’t matter, because the private investigator is never shown in the second season. It’s kind of a weird thing to put at the end of season one and have it be inconsequential.

The show still had its share of season 1 dealings come back to haunt Joe, most notably Candace infiltrating Joe’s California life and Dr. Nicky — Beck and Joe’s therapist — being interviewed by Forty. But You seemed to be selective in what they decided to bring back and what they left for the viewer to ignore.

In the third episode of the newest season, Forty is shown standing on a table, talking about an idea of his for a movie. Forty, holding a knife, said “it’s Chekhov’s knife, and as soon as we see it, then you know throats are gonna get cut.” Here, he is loosely referencing the Chekhov’s gun principle that states that a writer shouldn’t foreshadow something if it’s never going to come to fruition.

The problem with season 2 is that not enough of Chekhov’s knives led to cut throats, and the audience is left with a show that had undeveloped plot lines and copies of season 1 characters.

You is coming back for season 3 at Netflix. It will be interesting to see if they come back to those problems and characters presented in the first season.