You Season 2: Joe Meets with an Ex and Stalks a New Woman in Netflix's First Photos

Joe Goldberg is at it again.

In season 2 of the hit psychological thriller You, the bookstore manager (Penn Badgley) moves from New York to Los Angeles, where he meets a new subject of desire, Love Quinn. The two quickly bond over the fact that they are both grieving a recent loss, although of course, Love doesn’t know the whole story.

In the first episodic photos released from the upcoming season, which begins streaming on Netflix next month, Joe can be seen standing in the distance while watching Love (Victoria Pedretti) shopping for groceries.

“It’s not that simple love-at-first-sight he might’ve been looking for a couple of years ago,” showrunner Sera Gamble told EW of the pair’s first meeting. “He’s a different guy. He’s been through more.”

“The circumstances of his encounter with Love are very informed by what he went through with Beck,” Gamble added, referencing the woman Joe became obsessed with — and ultimately killed — in season 1.

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Another photo shows Joe meeting with ex Candace, who viewers found out is alive at the end of season 1.

“She is a survivor,” Gamble said. “And now she’s faced with some really difficult decisions about how she’s going to move forward.”

You, which was loosely based on Caroline Kepnes’ bestselling novel of the same name, premiered on Netflix in December 2018 after it aired on Lifetime. According to Gamble, the upcoming season, which is now owned by Netflix and is based on Kepnes’ second novel, Hidden Bodies, is even more twisted than the first.

“At least one scene comes to mind that’s gorier and scarier than anything we had in season 1,” Gamble previously told TV Guide. “You will know it when you see it.”

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Even Badgley teased a new level of gore.

“There are some things I’ve done with prosthetic bodies in this [new] season that were kind of nauseating as I did them, I will say that,” he told Entertainment Tonight over the summer.

But before Joe can move forward, he must revisit his past. Badgley said the character must face the reality of his actions after killing Beck.

“There’s a revisitation of that with Joe in the second episode of the second season, where you get to see a bit more of the hard reality of what he did to her. Whereas you’re sort of, for better or worse, mercifully saved from seeing that in the first season,” he told ET. “That always haunts me, thinking of Beck. It’s like, ‘You really did that in the first season, and we’re still going, and people really like this guy?!’ That’s disturbing. In his mind, she’s not even dead.”

You season 2 will drop Dec. 26 on Netflix.