Houston Southard
a name that looks so fake you'll care just as little to learn it's not
Caroline Kepnes - For you and only you
Take a charismatic stalker with the occasional affinity for killing his darlings, make him extremely well-read to bolster his off the rails narcissism, give him a platform to write a fictional self-victimizing book about his relational transgressions, and what pops out is... You.
This fourth installation is Caroline Kepnes at her most ambitious. Its sister fan-favorite series popularized on Netflix has completely veered away from canon, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Up until the latest run, each season has been loosely based on its book, but this is the first time the show has been released before the book. It's a breath of fresh air to dive into an adventure unrecognizable from the absolute dumpster fire of what the writer's room has done to the on-screen adaptation.
In the book, the titular Joe Goldberg escapes another slew of murders and lands in an ivy league fiction fellowship. In the show, he's fled to Europe to gain favor amongst London's pampered elite. In the book, Joe maintains a constancy of character. In the show, he randomly develops dissociative identity disorder.
The first rule of fight club is that you do not repeat fight club.
The writers are more narcissistic than the character they're ruining. The fundamental magic of this series is being inside Joe's head, and although it's an extremely disturbed head, it gives readers the same voyeuristic fetish Joe himself hungers for. Crucially, the narration needs to be reliable. Using the twist of having Joe unknowingly revealed as the eat the rich killer is not only lazy, it's disrespectful to the character, to Caroline, and to the audience.
Joe's always been a troubled character, for less obvious reasons than the fact that he murders people. As a kid working in a New York bookstore, his abusive boss locked him in a cage in the shop's basement for days, notably during the 9/11 attacks. He's released after the twin towers fall into a broken world. But he's still Joe. His arc, while meandering, is one of growth, not psychosis solely for shock value from a team assuming its viewers are dumb.
Unsurprisingly-great book, annoyingly-watchable show.