You

 The pleasures of watching a TV series are different than those associated with attending a movie.  TV shows are diffuse, a minuet between surprise and formula.  In a series, certain narrative paradigms are established that are designed to interest and amuse the viewer.  Then, these narrative formulae are subjected to variations -- in effect, TV series are variations on certain themes that slowly evolve and develop but that, nonetheless, retain a genetic or family resemblance.  From a film, even one that is quite lengthy, you expect a concentrated dose of meaning; a TV series is something that you watch, in part, because others are watching it -- that is, the show has a track-record of interesting people -- and because you are willing to accept a certain amount of repetition in the material as a price for interacting imaginatively with fascinating or absorbing personalities.  Of course, TV shows are more aligned with life, as it were -- in actual existence, we don't often face crises that test our character and compel us to change in a radical way; to the contrary, in life, character is assumed as fundamental and mostly static:  events present us with variations on themes -- each day is more or less like another and we don't have the luxury of waking up as a different person every morning; things follow a pattern with minor variations emerging from time to time.  Therefore, it's my argument that a limited TV series, particularly one that is realistic (without superheroes or skyscraper-toppling battles) is, more or less, realistic -- that is, a depiction of life, albeit from the perspective of characters who are slightly more exaggerated in their features than people we know but recognizably types that we understand.  

I decided to watch an episode of You, a series about romantic obsession, mainly because others were apparently watching the show.  In fact, You consists of four seasons.  This report is on about six or seven episodes in Season One and, so, caution must be exercised about my impressions.  Maybe the show develops in new directions in later series, but, frankly, I doubt it.  This is because the program's formula is so successful in attracting the interest of the viewer that it would be difficult to improve on the show's fundamental recipe.  You concerns a good-looking young man, Joe Goldberg, the proprietor of a used bookstore in Manhattan. Joe has no real backstory -- at least, after six episodes:  it's given that he owns the bookstore, was previously taught the trade by a mentor (shown in flashbacks as either avuncular or some kind of monster), and that he may have been state-raised -- that is, the product of foster homes and the child welfare system.  He has no kin and seems something of an outsider.  Joe is glib, articulate, and, in fact, charming to the point of being loveable.  The show depends upon the audience identifying with Joe and wanted him to succeed.  Since the program represents reality from within Joe's perspective, it takes a while (but not too long) to realize that there is something very wrong with the character.  Joe seems to be some kind of sociopath, a conniving villain, although he never seems to be exactly villainous to the viewer.  This is because the people that Joe harms always deserve being mistreated.  Like Dexter in the show of that name, Joe injures folks but only because the scenario has been contrived to establish that his victims are bad people who richly deserve the comeuppance that he inflicts upon them.  The show's other interesting angle is that the object of Joe's desires, a  comely young woman called Guinevere Beck, is conceived as an enigma -- we're never sure whether she is a promiscuous schemer or a kind and generous person who is sometimes misled by her loathsome friends or her own desires.  The show dramatizes the concern that people experience when they begin dating someone -- is this person in good faith and authentic or is he or she scheming to damage me?  Since everyone in the modern city has a history of sexual experiences, some of them slightly sinister, we can be assured that our lovers will have had others -- but are those others still omni-present or are they in the past and, of course, one's romantic exertions are complicated by the fact that the lover is competing with present and past lovers who aren't entirely expunged from the record.  The show is successful at retaining suspense about Beck's true character -- is she loyal and authentic or, rather, scheming and narcissistic?

You begins with Joe encountering Beck in his store.  She buys a book and flirts with him.  (The show uses copious voice-over to reveal Joe's thoughts -- although Joe acts, more or less, ruthlessly, he always misleads himself as to his intentions:  he wants to be the perfect boyfriend while, all the time, stalking and spying on the object of his desire.)  Joe sneaks around, tracking Beck and observing her snarky girlfriends, a Sex in the Cities melange of attractive if shallow and patronizing women led by Peach Salinger, said to be somehow connected to the author J. D. Salinger, a fabulously seductive and manipulative woman who may be Beck's lover as well. Peach is smart -- far brighter than Beck -- and she connives to keep Beck within her sphere of influence, even, though, she seems pretty clearly destructive.  Beck has a boyfriend, a narcissist named Benjy.  Benjy ends up trapped in a climate-controlled cage in the cellar of the bookstore where rare books are kept.  Benjy has arrogantly mistreated Beck and abused her loyalty and, so, Joe traps him and, then, murders him as well.  (This leads to some gruesome scenes in which Joe has to dispose of Benjy's decomposing body.)  The Benjy plot introduces the show's disquieting aspects -- Joe will do anything to protect Beck against her own somewhat wayward desires; he's quite willing to torture and kill someone for her.  (It seems apparent that he would be willing to torture and kill Beck too if something went wrong with their relationship.)  A key plot point is that Joe has Beck's cell-phone and, after she gets another phone, he remains linked to her device -- this means that he has real-time access to her text messages and, therefore, can spy on her at his leisure.  (He also has some of her underwear which he fondles as well and seems to be a thief -- he's stolen a rare book from Peach, Ozma of Oz, apparently, just for the hell of it.)  When Joe's first sexual encounter with Beck ends in a catastrophe, he can access her accounts of his dysfunction as she texts her friends about the debacle.  

True to form, the show (presented in 42 minutes episodes with obvious fades to black where commercials were once inserted -- the program is now on Netflix) is very repetitious.  Beck is sexually abused by Benjy; then, Beck is sexually harassed by her professor (she's a TA in a MFA program in creative writing); later, when she has written some essays that have been published, she gets sexually harassed by a man purporting to want to represent her as an agent.  Joe murders Benjy and warns Beck about the literary agent.  Peach has set up Beck to fail with the literary agent (who plans, it seems, to rape her).  Peach and Beck have a big fight, but Peach, then, contrives an over-dose (it's faked) to lure Beck to care for her -- and, apparently, has sex with her.  Joe has been following Peach and clubs her to death (apparently) in Central Park -- repeating his murder of  Benjy in a new form; he's not about to tolerate any competition for Beck's favors. 

The show has a Seinfeld aspect.  Its urban metrosexuals are all liars and utterly selfish.  Everyone has contempt for everyone else.  On the evidence of her poems recited in the show, Beck is an inept writer, self-absorbed and banal -- one sympathizes with her professor who admits he was only supportive of her work because he wanted to have sex with her.  She also lies about her past.  For instance, she has trademarked her sad relationship with her father, dead of an overdose, as an important feature of writing.  But, as it happens, her father went to NA and is very much alive -- greatly to the surprise of Joe who follows Beck around and, even, spies on her when she has sex with other men.  There's a subplot involving a young boy, Paco, who is trapped in a neighboring apartment where his mother is being beaten by a vicious drunkard, a parole officer  Joe gives Paco books to read and, otherwise, encourage the young kid until the parole officer savagely thrashes Joe for his interference.  (I assume that the parole office may not be long for this world given Joe's homicidal inclinations.)  The series has the courage to show its principal characters as mostly swine -- manipulative, vicious, narcissistic but, also, somewhat endearing beasts.  The plot just keeps regenerating -- Beck almost discovers Joe is stalking her, but not quite; they fight and, then, she shows up to reconcile with him, using manipulative bouts of "make up" sex as her modus operandi.  Beck's girlfriends keep mocking and patronizing Joe as being declasse.  Beck keeps inserting herself in situations in which she is sexually harassed.  Joe is always protectively lurking in the shadows -- the ideal boyfriend when it comes to protecting his woman, but, of course, also pathologically homicidal.  And so it goes with a good time had by all.  It's embarrassing to admit that I enjoy this show -- it's actually addictive.  

(The show premiered with ten episodes on Lifetime in 2017 -- hence, the 42 minutes episodes with black-outs where commercials were interposed.  There are another 20 episodes that seem to be variations on the themes in the shows that I have watched.  These later episodes feature the adventures of the psychopathic Joe Goldberg in Los Angeles and London -- there's a fresh set of series premiering as I write this note in February 2023.)