Never trust a man who is very protective about his basement. That's what we all learned from addictive Netflix thriller You in 2019. But what lessons will You season 2 bring us?

After months of keeping us waiting, the streaming giant confirmed the release date as December 26. Here's everything you need to know ahead of its release, starting with the newest character.

You season 2 trailer

The full trailer for You Season 2 dropped on December 16 and Joe is still creepy AF as he makes the move from New York to Los Angeles and changes his name to Will Bettelheim. Keen for a fresh start after the brutal killings, he begins a new relationship with Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti).

But, as Joe says at the beginning of the trailer, "It's hard to have a fresh start, when the past is on your mind." It then cuts to ex-girlfriend Candace (Ambyr Childers), who has followed him from New York to LA - and isn't prepared to let him get away with murder. "We have unfinished business to talk about," she tells him.

Elsewhere in the trailer, Candace warns, "If he loves you. That's the most dangerous thing."

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Before the full trailer dropped, Netflix also treated fans to a series of teasers, including one where we see Joe in a cafe eyeing up all the people around him, while his voice over says, "You know? Love has taken me to some pretty dark places. But Los Angeles has got to be the darkest it gets..."

What is You about?

From the beginning: You followed Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley as Joe - a spine-chillingly charming psychopath and manager of New York book store Mooney's, who begins stalking an ambitious writer and poet called Guinevere Beck after she has the misfortune to step into his store.

His store, incidentally, happens to have a sound-proof glass cage in the basement. And, yep, Beck ends up locked in said basement once she discovers all the manipulation and murderous deeds Joe is guilty of in his deluded bid to keep her as his girlfriend. For ever. And. Ever.

Sure, the start of their relationship may seem on the surface as relatable to many in the first flourishes of love... Ordering lots of take-aways together and generally eating lots of food most of the time, snogging loads, and doing boring stuff, like furniture shopping, which weirdly becomes fun when you're in a couple.

However in reality, Joe is stalking Beck on social media and IRL, and just bumped off her ex-boyfriend Benji and her best friend Peach (Shay Mitchell). Oh, and it appears as though he may have also killed his former girlfriend Candace, because she's been missing since she cheated on him. (The 'him' she cheated on Joe with, he 'fell' off a balcony and died).

Shay Mitchell as Peach in You pinterest
Barbara Nitke//Netflix
Shay Mitchell’s Peach didn’t last long either...

Tragically the denouement features Joe making Beck the final victim of his body count (in season one, that is) but he publishes the story Beck wrote in an attempt to secure her freedom, which serves him the perfect alibi. This turns her into a posthumous bestselling author - it's what she would have wanted - and removes him from suspicion.

Season one of the ten-part series was adapted from part one of Caroline Kepnes' best-selling novel of the same title, and season two will be based on Kepnes' second part called Hidden Bodies.

BUY NOW You by Caroline Kepnes, £6.99, Amazon

You season 2's cast

Penn will reprise his role as the *ahem* newly-single Joe. Ambyr Childers is back as his MIA ex-girlfriend Candace - but this time in the present, rather than in Joe's troubled hallucinations.

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Netflix
Benji didn’t stand a chance

You co-creator Sera Gamble spoke to Cosmopolitan UK about her and Netflix's decision to keep Joe's ex-girlfriend Candace alive for season one's cliffhanger finale - or should that be, resurrect her from dead because she's most definitely not alive in the book - and how she will feature in season two.

"At some point in the season we realised everyone would assume Candace was dead and wouldn't it be a great twist if she wasn't, and we had some stuff that we knew would happen in season two and her being alive spun out new ideas," Sera explained.

"Greg [Berlanti - co-writer] pitched the idea that at the end Candace wasn't quite as dead as we thought, and as soon as he said it, everyone in the writers' room had so many ideas. And her being alive does open up options of what will happen next. I can tell you we will see more of her, and she shakes Joe to the very core with what she brings to the story, and so it propels Joe a lot in what he decides to do next."

Chris D'Elia announced on his Instagram that he will be in season 2 of You earlier this year. He posted this photo of him and Penn, and captioned it: "Season 2 😨 #younetflix #nospoilers". He also features in the teaser.

But we do know from other sources that the comedian will be playing a recurring character called Henderson - a "designer-hoodie, black Ray-Bans, expensive sneakers-wearing famous comedian with a 'hard-life-lessons man-of-the-people' thing working for him." Whether he'll be a friend or foe of Joe's is still unclear.

Candace in Netflix's Youpinterest
Netflix
Candace should be afraid...

Beck's vapid besties Lynn (Nicole King) and Annika (Kathryn Gallagher) are expected to return, because Joe hasn't killed them yet, along with Hari Nef's Blythe, who was Beck's competitive classmate on their MFA programme at Columbia University. And let's not forget John Stamos' stoner Dr Nicky - he's taken the rap for Joe, but could he piece together the truth from his therapy sessions with both Joe and Beck (aka Ronaldo).

We're also assuming Joe's loyal book clerk employee Ethan (Zach Cherry) - now happily dating Blythe - will be back too.

"The most I can say is this: I'm superstitious and never tease a character coming back until the deal is closed with the actor," Sera continued. "There are definitely characters we would love to come back and continue to see. And there are storylines that are left dangling that could come back and bite Joe in the butt.

"And we would like to bite Joe in the butt as much as possible this season. We're not trying to make life easier for Joe in season 2, so hopefully you will see people that you like again in season two."

We also know that Joe has a new girl in his life in season 2, and her name is Love. Sure...

This Haunting Of Hill House's Victoria Pedretti has been cast as Joe's new girlfriend in season 2 of Youpinterest
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Victoria Pedretti is playing Love, and she could not be more different to Beck. Entertainment Weekly described her as: "An aspiring chef working as a produce manager in a high-end grocery store. Love is uninterested in the world of social media, branding and self-promotion, focused instead on leading an interesting life. She is also tending to a deep grief, and when she meets Joe Goldberg, she senses a shared knowledge of profound, life-changing loss."

You's co-creator Sera Gamble added: “Season one was a particular kind of story that we could tell about the relationship between Joe and Beck and the moment that we did what we did in the finale, that’s not repeatable.

"I will say that Love is a person he could only have met after what happened between him and Beck. And by the way, Joe is not out there looking for love. He’s truly heartbroken by what has happened, and so what Love offers is a different kind of friendship and a different kind of relationship.”

James Scully has been cast as the brother of Joe Goldberg's new love interest, called Love (for real). The 25-year-old Heathers actor will play Forty Quinn, described as "confident, opinionated and privileged — at his best, a charming buddy; at his worst, a razor-sharp bully", according to TV Line.

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James Scully

Forty has been relying heavily on his sister - The Haunting Of Hill House's Victoria Pedretti - as he battles with his sobriety, and goes through his 12-step program.

Meanwhile, Jane The Virgin's Jenna Ortega has been cast as a new character called Ellie Alves - a teenager who "grew up fast in the big city".

Premiere Of Columbia Pictures' 'Miss Bala' - Arrivalspinterest
Frazer Harrison//Getty Images
Jenna Ortega

Ellie sounds similar to Paco in that she is "secretly living with minimal adult supervision or nurturing in her life". When times get difficult, she "isn't afraid to get into murky waters to make a little cash. This includes working cons on adults around her, including Joe Goldberg."

And watch out Joe G, because an arch-nemesis could be on the horizon... Gotham's Robin Lord Taylor has been cast as Will, a character who "deals with unsavoury sorts as part of his job, but is himself a thoughtful, personable, and highly intelligent guy who marches to the beat of his own drummer. That is, until he gets trapped in a bad situation" (via Deadline). Could Will challenge Joe and his unsavoury behaviour in season two? Might he suspect Joe of his dodgy past?

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Frederick M. Brown//Getty Images
Robin Lord Taylor

Speaking about his character, Robin told Entertainment Tonight, "[Will's] incredibly good at reading people. He has an intuitiveness and empathy about him that I think he uses very effectively."

Fans of Netflix's mind-bending Russian Doll will be delighted to hear that Charlie Barnett - who played the loveable Alan in the series - has been cast as Gabe, best friend to Victoria Pedretti's female lead Love.

You season 2 first look

On 21 November, Netflix released the first stills from the new series and one of them shows Joe creeping on Love Quinn while she does her food shop.

Shedding more light on the encounter, Sera Gamble told EW: "It’s not that simple love-at-first-sight he might’ve been looking for a couple of years ago. 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."

A second photo shows Joe meeting with his ex Candace, who dies in the books but is kept alive in the TV series.

Sera said: "She is a survivor. And now she’s faced with some really difficult decisions about how she’s going to move forward."

You season 2 filming

Production on season two of You started early in 2018 this year, with Netflix marking the occasion by sharing a picture from their very first table reading, and of course Joe Goldberg was there being his best broody self.

You season 2 release date

Mark it in your diaries - Boxing Day 2019!

What's the You season 2 plot?

Sera has confirmed to us that Joe G will be moving to LA for season two - but through no choice of his own.

This theory about Beck in Netflix’s You will blow your tiny mindpinterest
Netflix

"Joe's going to hate it," she disclosed. "He's not there for fun. Can LA win Joe over a little bit? Or can anyone in LA win Joe over a little bit?

"He is in LA not because he's been dying to live in LA, but he's there for a reason that becomes clear in the first episode. He had a lot of judgement about New Yorkers around him, and the LA people around him are ten times worse."

But the writers aim to present Los Angeles as a "multicultural patchwork", rather than a phoney city filled with Hollywood agents and wannabe stars.

Penn Badgley in Youpinterest
Netflix
Joe looking shifty af...

"I'm really excited that this season embraces "the real LA" which isn't just agents making deals from fancy cars, but a beautiful multicultural patchwork that makes up this city and that's what we plan to explore."

BUY NOW Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes, £8.99, Amazon

Meanwhile, Sera has also hinted that Joe will struggle to move on from Beck - even though, you know, he killed her - and that he will be battling with his conscience from the body count he amassed in season one. Sera says that some viewers also became attached to and invested in Beck, so it might appear crass and unconvincing to instantly replace her.

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Netflix

Plus, the show-runner counters that Joe's "not a bloodthirsty killer", he kills to get his own way and control the people around him. "He doesn't want to kill anyone ever again, but probably in season two he will end up killing someone," she said.

"He's absolutely heartbroken after Beck and he and also w’re keenly aware that people are coming to the show after binging season 1 and have all fallen in love with Elisabeth Lail [Beck].

"We I think it would be stupid to just slot someone else in. Season one, we're constructing a story that really takes that into account, and no one is going to shove anything down the audience's throats. Joe is really contending with what happened in season one."

Penn Badgley in Netflix hit Youpinterest
Netflix

Season two will also delve into Joe's childhood and his cryptic relationship with book store owner Mr Mooney. "We'll be going into Joe's early life in season two, and naturally we want to know more and move around in his entire life," Sera revealed.

"I will say that the whole time we're in the writers' room talking about what that story could be, or what flashbacks or glimpses into his life we might catch, this has been a guiding principle for us; he had a pretty terrible childhood and that does contribute to who he is as an adult.

"BUT we also wanted to make it clear that a lot of us had shitty childhoods and most of us don't do what Joe Goldberg does we're trying to walk that line."

We're also predicting that Joe will have to face Candace once and for all, and perhaps she's going to dig deeper into his dodgy past and all the dead bodies he's left in his wake.

Penn recently gave us a taster of what to expect from You season two, and his character sounds more obsessive and dangerous than ever. "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," the 32-year-old reflected with Entertainment Tonight, before explaining how Joe's decision to kill Beck will be discussed in the upcoming season.

"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.

"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."

Unanswered questions from the first season of You...

What happened to Candace's brother? We know he was placed in psychiatric care, and Beck found out in season one that he had died six months ago. Did Joe kill him too? Is he really even dead?

Joe's Beck-rebound Karen (Natalie Paul) is the one that got away - literally - but did her short-lived relationship with Joe arouse any suspicions about him?

Paco knows what Joe really is - but will he snitch on the only dependable person in his life?

You season 2 is due for release on Netflix on Boxing Day.

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