Summary
- In You season 4, Kate’s complex backstory reveals a troubled childhood and a toxic relationship with her parents, which shaped her icy personality.
- Kate’s dark secret is revealed – she was responsible for falsifying reports that led to children getting cancer, causing her immense shame and guilt.
- Despite knowing Joe’s true identity and violent tendencies, Kate enters a committed relationship with him, seeking redemption and seeing him as her path to goodness.
Content Warning: The following article contains discussions of attempted suicide.
In season 4 of the Netflix psychological thriller series, Kate from You, played by Charlotte Ritchie, was one of the standout new characters as her complexity, mysteriousness, and charisma made her a great addition to this already intense and engaging series. Based on a series of books by Caroline Kepnes, Netflix’s You follows Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), a once-bookstore manager and serial killer who falls in love with multiple women throughout the series and how his toxic obsession with his love interests motivates him to commit heinous, violent acts. In You season 4, Joe poses as a man named Jonathan Moore living a simple life in London as a professor.
However, Joe/Jonathan’s quiet existence instantly becomes disrupted when a group of wealthy socialites he meets slowly get killed off by a serial killer who also pins the evidence on Joe, playing mind games with him and manipulating him into reverting to his old, violent ways. While attempting to keep his identity a secret, Joe falls in love with another woman named Kate, a successful yet icy art dealer who shares many similarities with him and may not be who she claims she is, creating an exciting but dangerous relationship between the two You season 4 characters.
Kate Galvin’s Backstory
Kate Galvin from You was born to a wealthy family and is one of seven children. Unfortunately, despite all that money, Kate did not live a happy childhood as she had a very rocky relationship with her parents. Her mother Greta broke down over a man and then slit her wrists, causing her to become hospitalized for a certain period, all of which happened when Kate was 15. Additionally, Kate was always expected to have her life together and so was never allowed to express any emotions, as her mother refused to talk to, or even look at, her daughter if she was not perfectly stoic.
Her relationship with her father, Tom Lockwood, is even worse though as Kate refers to him as the “worst man alive” and despises him so much that she adopts her mother’s birth name and cuts all contact with him. The reason why Kate decided to destroy all ties with her father when she was 20 years old is that Tom, an incredibly wealthy businessman and corporate raider who makes millions off of shady and unethical business practices, allegedly falsified well water toxicity reports in order to get a pipeline built, which resulted in several children getting cancer and Tom’s company receiving millions of dollars in profit.
Kate’s Dark Secret
In You season 4, episode 7, “Good Man, Cruel World” Kate confesses to Joe that it was not her father, but she who was responsible for the children getting cancer and falsifying the reports. When Kate was 19, she was a business prodigy who desired approval from her father and went to extreme lengths to get it. She felt such shame for what she did that she immediately quit and pursued a different career as an art dealer. Her father, however, took the blame for the incident because Kate was her favorite child, and he thus personally oversaw that she got everything she wanted from art internships to job offers.
Being forced to grow up stoic and emotionless by her mother combined with the guilt she acquired from her past dirty business practices, explains why Kate adopts this cold, icy, emotionless personality that Joe and the other wealthy socialites are accustomed to. While not surprised, Charlotte Ritchie still found it a hard pill to swallow when she learned the truth about her character. According to Ritchie, “Kate has probably been responsible for more pain on a structural level than Joe. Which is in some ways more insidious and horrifying because it’s this bureaucratic violence. It’s faceless and all-powerful.” (via Tudum).
Kate’s You Season 4 Ending Explained
Fortunately, Kate does not die at the end of You season 4. Not only does she survive, but she also enters a fully committed relationship with Joe despite being fully aware of his real identity and violent tendencies. Kate ultimately doesn’t care though because she wants to walk a path of redemption and goodness and sees Joe as her ticket to that path. Joe also seems to share this viewpoint,l as he himself states that things will be different this time. They begin their relationship with their first date, walking through the streets of London, discussing what their future marriage and lives together will look like.
Ritchie herself seems to understand Kate’s decision to be with Joe, stating “I think she’s been brought up in a very unhealthy environment, so she definitely doesn’t have a healthy attitude towards love and care. She has standards that a more adjusted person wouldn’t have.” (via NME) Joe and Kate vow to “keep each other good”, but whether they keep that promise is still unclear. With the fifth and final season of You being confirmed with Kate returning, the showrunners will be able to further explore Joe and Kate’s relationship and decide what happens to both her and their relationship.
Where You’ve Seen Kate Actress Charlotte Ritchie
While Charlotte Ritchie has received critical acclaim for her performance as Kate in You season 4, she has also found great success and praise from her performances in various TV shows. For example, she is best known for playing Alison, one of the two main leads, in the BBC sitcom Ghosts, Oregon in Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain’s Channel 4 comedy-drama Fresh Meat, Alison in the British sitcom Dead Pixels, and Barbara Gilbert in the BBC drama Call the Midwife. She has also appeared in shows like Raised by Wolves as Ruby, Feel Good as George, and Doctor Who as Lin in the episode “Resolution”.
In addition to her TV roles, including Kate in You, Ritchie has also starred in various short films such as Man of the Hour as Gemma, MatchBox as Imogen, and Capital as Charlotte Quince-Wheatley. She was also featured in the music video for “The Blades” by Squid, a British post-punk band. Additionally, Ritchie also lent her voice to two video game projects, Dreamfall Chapters, an episode 3D adventure game, as Zoë Castillo, and Bravely Default II, the third main installment in the Bravely series, as Gloria.
