I often convince people to watch You by emphasizing just how fun it is, for a show about a man who sees obsessively stalking women and murdering people who stand in his way as a misguided gambit to insert himself into their life… like a hornier, post-modern Dexter (the show, and also the character) who doesn’t understand that he’s not a good person. Yet You’s pacing and shocking reveals have always been its true secret weapons for keeping us captivated so far. This is why the decision to split the fourth season into two five-episode parts, released one month apart, may be frustrating for eager fans – especially with how Part 1 ends on a good old-fashioned mid-season cliffhanger – but as someone who also had to wait a few weeks to see Part 2, it does make the case for why this break is necessary. Trust me: the impact is worth it when Part 2 picks up after the dust has more or less settled.

On a different show, Part 1 and Part 2 would’ve been two solid, if short, back-to-back seasons, fully fleshing out supporting characters and extending the mystery. You keeps inconsequential characters simple and out of the way, which isn’t a problem for this genre – and when our detective has to eliminate suspects quickly. Tilly Keeper and Lukas Gage join the cast as a rocky couple who play a secondary role in this season, and Keeper sparkles as the sweetly naïve Phoebe while Gage portrays failing American crypto-bro Adam with an easy bliss. Their story mainly exists to color Joe’s priorities as he pursues his new object of desire, Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), but there seems to be missing information that leads to jarring and implausible shifts in their characters. It’s not a big thing, since these lovebirds don’t factor in too much with Joe’s interests, but their inconsistency rubbed me the wrong way after we get an understanding of their motives and how they interact.

You is good at upping the ante of dynamic complexity with each season, with Joe as the evolving (devolving?) constant from season to season. We’re now four seasons into a show that takes on an almost entirely new supporting cast every year and Badgley is consistently able to hold it down as the straight man to the bigger characters. He’s great at subtly reacting and giving his scene partners something to bounce off of, knowing that his wry narration supplements that performance. Under a new identity as a professor, Joe’s made a quiet life for himself discussing American literature with young minds at a local college. He’s particularly good-natured with one of his students, the jaded Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman), who’s playing the younger sibling role to Joe, reminiscent of his relationship with Paco from season 1 and Ellie from season 2. Ed Speelers plays the mayoral hopeful Rhys Montrose with an easy balance of cheekiness and tough love that disarms a desperate Joe looking for redemption.

For Kate, the no-nonsense gallerist, surviving girlfriend of the Eat the Rich Killer’s first victim, and daughter of the insanely powerful Tom Lockwood (played by someone whose reveal delighted me as much as John Stamos’ casting in season one did). Joe finds something with her that inspires actual consideration and something other than pure obsession. Ritchie portrays Kate’s immediate distrust of Joe with the emotional flexibility of a wall, and at first I worried that the chemistry wouldn’t be there, even if early on she demonstrates that she can – à la the Hot Priest from Fleabag – cut through Joe’s pensive narration to be present. But as Joe and Kate’s individual wariness of each other transformed effortlessly into warmth, I can only say kudos to Badgley and Ritchie’s acting. It’s new for Joe – and new for us – to see that he may actually have a mature match that accepts his past. Overall, these relationships coax out Joe’s vulnerability and actually makes it seem like he is doing something right in his life for once.