Viewers of You season four are really struggling to believe that Joe's London apartment is in any way realistic.
The popular Netflix series has already attracted some disbelief for the way it's portraying London, not least because Joe walks to work and in real life that would take him six hours, and now it's our protagonist's living situation which is coming in for criticism.
For those who missed the trailer, season four of You sees the murderous Joe (Penn Badgley) in his new life across the Atlantic in the UK, where he's now living as a London-based professor named Jonathan Moore.
Advert
Considering last season ended with him murdering his wife Love (Victoria Pedretti), giving his son up for adoption and burning down his house to fake his own death - it's meant to be a fresh start for Joe.
However, that all gets disrupted when a mysterious messenger who claims to know his true identity starts killing people and sending Joe messages.
Never mind all that, though, because according to Netflix viewers the real mystery is how Joe is affording his luxury London flat on a teacher's salary.
One person wondered how Joe was 'affording an 800k+ flat' and someone replying to them said You's unrealistic living arrangement 'ruins the show for me'.
Advert
Several others agreed that Joe's expensive flat was 'the most unrealistic thing' about season four of You, while someone else joked that they were 'trying to figure out how can Joe afford a flat in South Kensington'.
Another pointed out that it even had a 'real fireplace', and despite his fancy life there's surely no way he could have afforded such a nice home.
Others suggested he might be able to afford the really expensive place because Joe doesn't always play by the rules, as evidenced by the multiple murders he's committed over the course of the show.
While it might be very unrealistic for someone on a teacher's salary to afford the sort of London flat that would make an international arms dealer dismiss as 'too expensive', characters on TV living in places they really shouldn't be able to afford is nothing new.
Advert
A big part of the reason is that the set needs to be large enough to fit a film crew in without things getting too crowded or tripping up over the décor.
It needs to be a place where you can fit all the equipment into and still have space to film a wide variety of shots of your actors.
Characters in TV shows often live in places far beyond their price range, just remember the massive apartments the crew from Friends are in, but it's better than having a cluttered set where your leading actor can barely squeeze themselves around the place.
The last thing you want is for production to come to a halt because the assistant director tripped on the corner of the sofa and faceplanted into the decorative bookcase.
Season four of You is available to stream now on Netflix.
Topics: You, Netflix, TV and Film, London
Joe Harker