🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
You Season 4 was a transformative one for Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), with the serial killer finally accepting the darkest parts of himself. However, Joe couldn’t self-actualize without revisiting two of the most important figures in his life: his Season 1 girlfriend Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) and his ex-wife Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti).
Yes, both Lail and Pedretti, whose characters are very much dead, appear in the trippy ninth episode of Season 4, which was directed by Badgley. Joe has a lot to process this episode as he finally realizes that he’s the Eat the Rich Killer, not his new buddy Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers), who’s actually a dissociative personality — the very worst kind of imaginary friend. Not only that, but Joe also realizes that he’s been keeping Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) in a glass cage. It’s not long before Joe downs a handful of tranquilizers to silence all the chaos he’s created and sleep. But there’s no rest for the wicked, so Joe winds up taking a wild tour through his broken mind, where versions of Beck and Love taunt him with the imaginary key to Marienne’s cell.
While Joe may not have appreciated being visited by the women he killed, Badgley loved reuniting with Lail and Pedretti, especially because the dream setting allowed them to show different sides of their characters.
“It was really nice and natural,” Badgley, who also serves as a producer on the thriller, tells Tudum. “Elizabeth was able to be meaner than she mostly got to be. And I think she particularly enjoyed that. For Victoria, her portrayal of Love is so iconic. I think it was really nice for her to come back and revisit the cage. It felt like this is what the show does best.”
When executive producer Greg Berlanti first pitched bringing back Lail and Pedretti, showrunner Sera Gamble was nervous for a very practical reason: scheduling.
“My stomach did a little flip because I was like, ‘These are very in-demand actors,’ ” says Gamble. “Elizabeth had a movie coming out at the time and Victoria’s always really busy.” But she quickly realized the importance of their presence because “we need somebody to talk to Joe after he realizes who and what Rhys really is,” she says. “We need a way for him to hash out what’s really going on and come to the conclusion of what he must do at the end of the season, and we’ve sort of short-circuited his inner monologue. We were just really fortunate that they were game and that they were able to make the schedule work. And then we gave them the best possible director.”
Joe’s nightmarish confrontations with Beck and Love aren’t the only things that happen in Episode 9. Elsewhere, Joe’s new love interest Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) tries her hardest to stop her best friend Lady Phoebe (Tilly Keeper) from marrying Adam (Lukas Gage), who only wants her for her money. Below, Badgley breaks down his television directorial debut and reveals his own favorite shot.
How did you come to direct this mind-bending episode?
I think it was mostly a scheduling thing. It just was serendipitous, really. The fact that I was able to direct Elizabeth and Victoria — as well as Eve [Austin, who plays Gemma in Season 4] — [who] have such history with the show, it was really nice. And I personally, as a storyteller, lean towards the surreal, and so I was stoked to have a dream sequence.
You’re the show’s star and a producer, but did you learn something new about the show when you looked at it as director?
Well, one of the reasons I was hesitant to direct before now was that I wasn’t sure that I was the one to [do it]. The creators of the show have always said they wanted somebody who wasn’t sure about bringing Joe to life, because of just what a terrible guy he is and what a sad-ass journey it is for him. I think, for those same reasons, I wasn’t sure that I was the right person to steer the ship for an episode. I commit to Joe, but could I commit to everything?
But I found, actually, that wasn’t a problem at all. I actually found that I resisted Joe the least when I was directing. And in some ways, I had the most fun being Joe while I was directing. I wasn’t really concerned about the same things. In a way, it was very natural to just take that baton right where they left it, and keep the show in the tone that it’s crafted so well now over so much time.
Were there any moments that made you particularly excited or nervous?
I don’t know that I know how to be nervous anymore with Joe because I’ve just been doing it for a long time. I’m accustomed to it. I’m a fish in the water or a frog in the boiling pot, at this point. So I mostly was just like, “Oh, there’s a lot happening in this.” You know the wedding sequence? I just was really excited to get to play with the boundaries of perception and lean into the surreality of things, even though I think, in the end, nothing is really that outlandish. Oh, and actually, the other thing was, as much as possible, turning Kate into a heroine, as well, because she’s on a mission that whole episode. I liked that. I really like directing other people and centering other people, actually.
How did you help Kate be the heroine of the story?
Well, one of my favorite shots — I don’t know that it’s anything special that anybody else would notice — is right after the title card pops up. There’s an elevator ding, and then we see Charlotte walking through this trippy, psychedelic lit hallway. She’s on a mission. I just wanted to keep that the whole time. I wanted [the camera] to be really tight on her face, seeing her move with determination and this growing dread for her friend.
To me, something about that relationship between Phoebe and Kate [is important]; it’s like, because of Joe, the show has to have a heart somewhere. And as disturbing as Phoebe’s state is in that episode, she’s actually a sweet person. She’s one of the sweetest and best people in the show this season. And Kate wanting to save her is Kate’s attempt to also be a good, sweet person, which she believes she is not and can’t be. To me, actually, that relationship was very compelling.
And then seeing Kate become dismantled by the end, very tragically, by her father, played by Greg Kinnear, was, to me, quite heart-wrenching. Whoever Joe’s in a relationship with is always a bit tragic, obviously. So there’s something about seeing a woman who may be closer to Joe than ever [experience that] — because Love actually quite accepted the part of her that was a killer, whereas Kate does not. So in that way, she’s like Joe. It’s almost like wanting to save Kate because you know you can’t save Joe, in a way. That also feels wrong. I think that was a little bit of –– not a clear mantra for me –– but a feeling I had as a director with that episode: Save Kate at all costs.
Is there anything else that differentiates Joe’s connection with Kate from the other Yous?
I think because there’s almost a desire for friendship more than there’s a desire for a romantic relationship… so they can appreciate that in one another. And so that just has a different feel to it. At its best, in a way, it’s more pure; but of course, at its worst, they’re both sociopaths.
And the fact that Kate wasn’t the You in Joe’s internal monologue for most of the season probably helped. I wonder if that prevented him from projecting too much onto her.
I think, yeah, he might be seeing her a bit more clearly because initially, he doesn’t have that draw and that compulsion. So in the context of Joe’s world and Joe’s vision, it’s healthier and it’s probably better.
How did you approach playing Joe when he’s dissociating in Episode 8?
I have to be honest. I was preparing to direct my episode and had some very precious time off to do that when Tati took the stage in the cage [in Episode 8]. I wasn’t really thinking about portraying him differently. I was just responding to what was there on the page, which is different than he’s ever been. We’re seeing him dissociate. So often, we’re in Joe’s mind and his view of himself. This was not that. So I honestly didn’t have to craft this wildly different performance or anything. I just responded to that and to what Tati was doing. In a way, it was quite natural.
How much were you told about the Rhys twist going into the season? Did anything surprise you?
I did know what was happening broadly the whole time. I would say the biggest surprise was when I saw the rough cut of Episode 8. I think it’s phenomenal and one of the best episodes of the whole series, partly because of what it’s doing. It’s more in another person’s perspective than we’ve ever had. And because it’s [Marienne’s] perspective, it’s triumphant. I was so glad to see that happen. It felt like, “Wow, this is what the show has been building towards all along — someone else’s hero story.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
