With the release of the fourth season of the hit Netflix series You, fans are already clamoring for news about the potential for a fifth season. While there has been no official confirmation yet, there are several indications that the show may continue.

Firstly, the showrunners have expressed their interest in continuing the story beyond season four. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Sera Gamble stated that “the world of You is always ripe for exploring,” hinting at the possibility of future seasons.

“I think the gift that [novelist] Caroline Kepnes gave us with the book is she is tackling incredibly dark, serious subjects that if we just talked about them bluntly in a conversation, we might be despairingly about them,” Gamble said in an interview with IndieWire.

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“And she’s given us this cheeky, subversive, fun, insane way of exploring all of that stuff. This author was a young woman writing about how fucking terrifying it is to be a woman just walking down the street because any guy you see, you have no idea what’s going on inside their head. That kind of vibe has just continued and paid dividends in the series. Joe is fun. He is fun when he’s doing bad things, he is fun when he’s trying to do good things.”

Gamble went on, “If we get the opportunity to do a little more, I think we want to make sure that we preserve the essential sweet romantic Joe that’s at the heart of it. I would say you can walk out of this season maybe noting that he remains like an optimist and someone that believes in love. We know that works out great for him, usually.”

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Additionally, the show’s popularity and success make it a prime candidate for renewal. However, there are also factors that could potentially prevent a fifth season from happening. One such factor is the availability of the show’s lead actor, Penn Badgley. In the past, Badgley has expressed his desire to move on from the role of Joe Goldberg, stating that he finds it emotionally taxing to portray such a dark character. If Badgley chooses not to continue with the show, it could be difficult to move forward with a new actor in the lead role. However, it seems apparent that he does want to finish the show with a fifth season, and bid adieu to his character for good.

In an interview with IndieWire, Badgley said “It feels to me like we need to do another season. It feels to me like Joe needs to get what’s coming to him, and now he has further to fall because he has all this power and wealth.”

“But of course, that’s not up to me. I don’t know where it’s going. But to me, with this concept and with this character, we always wanted to be responsible and it’s not just the kind of thing we can let keep going because it’s doing well.”

He went on, “I know the creators of the show always had this next season in mind as its last, should there be another one. And then it will probably be a spectacular resolution because it feels to me like something is in the works by the very end of this season.”

“The show has always been about taking some of our low-key toxic tropes about love and relationships and turning them on their head, or following them to their disturbing conclusions in a way, and bringing that back to us in a way that is fun and disturbing at the same time. So if it can do that to a degree about any of these other things, thematically, it does do that. But I don’t think it does do that anywhere near as well as it does just with love as an idea, as a notion,” he said.

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Badgley said, “I think maybe where it’s changing is this season, you realize it’s not about anyone else. You realize it’s about him. I think it draws you into a definition of ‘who I am and what do I want, and can I change? Is that possible? What have I done?’ And so I think that’s maybe where we’re at by the end. To me, it feels like this is Part 1 of Joe’s climax. Should there be a next season, that will be Part 2. That’s what it feels like to me.”

“You could leave it off where it is now, and it’s somewhat satisfying,” Badgley went on. “But I think what’s particularly dystopic or chilling about it is he has effectively won. You have taken this man and shown him going out on top. In that sense, I don’t think it’s the conclusion that anybody wants.”

He added, “We’re needing to see Joe come to a conclusion. Should there be another season? That to me feels like what is happening. Now Joe has power. There’s a set of circumstances that doesn’t exist before. It’s actually a deeper change. In a way, you certainly don’t think he’s happy. That’s really terrible feeling. In a way, that reflects reality, like as long as you somehow don’t think Joe is winning. You see a man getting everything he wants but you know that it’s awful. That to me is spiritually resonant storytelling. But I think we’ve got one more in us. But of course, I don’t know.”

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It’s too early to say for certain whether You will be renewed for a fifth season. While there are certainly factors that could prevent it from happening, the show’s popularity and the interest of the showrunners make it seem likely that we haven’t seen the last of Joe Goldberg just yet. Fans will just have to wait and see what the future holds for this thrilling and suspenseful series.