After a year of delays and uncertainties, You is back! Joe Goldberg returns in a new season and a new area continuing where he left off but this time with a champion who seems to match his energy, Love Quinn. Season 3 of our beloved stalker’s adventures is now streaming on Netflix! Here are my thoughts about the newest Season of You. Spoilers ahead!
In episode 1, we find Joe starting where he left off at the end of season 2. Joe peaked through his fence trying to figure out who was the lady on the other side. It was their new neighbor Natalie who has developed something over Joe. He tries not to become obsessed with her but he fails as she starts flirting with him. So, he tries to not indulge in himself due to his commitment to Love but he fails eventually. He becomes even more interested in her and obsessed while his relationship with Love and their baby, Henry, becomes strained. Eventually, Love catches onto Joe’s infatuation with their neighbor Natalie and murders her as she shows Love around a potential spot for her bakery. Love shows how much she would take and do to keep her picture-perfect family despite Joe straying away.
Joe and Love spend the majority of episode 2 covering up Natalie’s murder. While covering up the murder, they try to fix their problems by attending couples therapy. At this point, Love meets Theo, the stepson of their neighbor Natalie, who turns out to be an important character a couple of episodes down the line. In episode 3, Henry gets diagnosed with measles while Natalie’s disappearance causes huge media attention around the neighborhood. A neighbor, Gil reveals that his twin daughters had measles which is where Henry got it from and Love strikes him out of blind rage as he leaves her bakery Love and Joe lock Gil in the Plexiglas cage located in the basement of the bakery. Joe and Love try to find dirt on Gil so he doesn’t report to the police. Once they got back to him about his predator son, Gil commits suicide in the Plexiglas cage. Together, Love and Joe plant the murder of Natalie on Gil which works as the police fall for the staged murder-suicide.
Additionally, Joe strikes an interest in the local library librarian, Mariennewhile Joe and Love go to couple’s therapy. While Joe becomes infatuated with Marienne, Love starts to take an interest in Theo.
As Joe and Marienne’s relationship starts to progress, Joe breaks into Marienne’s place to know more about her (classic). He discovers her troubled past and her ongoing custody battle with her ex. After a night of trying to recover books later after the library sprinkler system malfunctions, Joe and Marienne kiss.
In episode 8, Joe and Love went on a swing date with their neighbors the Conrads. On the date, things get heated which causes Joe and Love to argue Leading to Love confessing she murdered Natalie with the Conrads listening in the other room. Once Joe and Love confronted the Conrads, they struggled for a bit with each other. Eventually, the Conrads ended up in the Plexiglas cage.
The last two episodes were the most intense as Love and Joe try to cover up their tracks while struggling with their marital problems. Things are falling apart at this point with the Conrads desperately trying to get out of the cage and their neighbor Matthew (Natalie’s husband) conducting a thorough investigation, suspecting Love and Joe are a part of his wife’s disappearance. Joe kills Ryan, Marrienne’s ex and Love finds out which angers her and makes her kill Marrienne. Love knocks Theo unconscious after he accidentally finds the Conrads in the basement. Love makes dinner to confront Joe where she paralyzes him and tries to lure Marrienne over to their house so that she can kill her. Marrienne comes in but with her daughter which causes Love not to kill her. Joe then injects her with aconite, killing Love. Then he stages a murder-suicide, writing a note that confessed to all of the murders that happened.
In the aftermath, the Conrads escape and write a book about their time in the cage, Theo is recovering from his injuries, Dante and Lansing adopt Henry. Joe, now under a new name Nick, travels to Paris in hopes of finding Marienne.
So that was a lot, Joe managed to get away with everything again unscathed (although missing a few body parts). He starts a new life under a new name (similar to the season 2 opener) which is something that I did expect honestly. I felt like Love was his match but with the flashbacks in between, this season reveals that Joe is a little more on edge than Love. His flashbacks shed light on the trauma that he faced as a child and how he dealt with his mom giving him up. This season provides some light on who Joe was as a child and why he acts the way he does today.
Overall, my feelings towards this season were that it was another great one. I think it was a little messy with the details and how they tied everything onto Love’s “suicide”. It has been renewed for season 4! So go on forward I would like to see more on Theo’s recovery and how he has come to terms with everything. I felt like this was an unanswered question. I feel like we haven’t seen the last of Madre Linda yet. Joe almost not getting away with everything had added a nice element to the season as it shows that he can be outsmarted, Love was the one, but he did outdo her at the end. I give this season an 8.5/10. You have been renewed for season 4! This time it looks like we are heading to France for Marienne. Let’s see what things that Joe would do for “the one”.