So, Joe is officially the villain.
(Major spoilers ahead!!!)
After finishing You Season 3, I have many thoughts. This season was a full-on rollercoaster, having me on the edge of my seat each episode. It included murders, cheating scandals, unexpected polyamory, and of course, Joe being a psycho. If there’s one thing everyone who watched this season can agree on, it is that it was definitely insane.
It started out with Joe and Love, our favorite average suburban couple, trying to navigate life in their new town, Madre Linda. Love was having trouble making friends and fitting in while Joe was busy fixating on their new neighbor. Watching this, I thought it was a bit repetitive. We’ve already seen Joe obsess over countless girls; but, boy was I wrong. When Love killed Natalie and Joe helped clean up the mess, that’s when I knew this season had taken a turn. It was no longer a show about a man who obsesses over the first girl who catches his eye. Instead, it’s about a married couple with serious issues (who also happen to murder a lot of people).
When Joe and Love became a team, I’ll admit, it was scary. They were willing to do absolutely anything to protect each other and their son, Henry. And that included hurting anyone who came in the way of their family. Of course, this did not last forever. Alas, our main character Joe found someone else to pursue, leaving Love in the dust. When Joe became obsessed with Marianne, he could not care less about Love and their marriage. In fact, he was trying everything to end it.
Now, even though Love did commit heinous crimes, I have to admit I felt sympathy for her. She was going above and beyond trying to save Joe and their marriage, while he was lying to her for a girl he had just met. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Love is not to blame for her actions, but when you think about it, everything she did was for or because of Joe. She killed Natalie to stop Joe from falling into his old patterns, she hurt Gil because he made Henry and Joe sick, she tried “swinging” with Sherry and Cary to fix her and Joe’s sex life, and she hit Theo to stop him from coming after Joe and exposing the truth. She did all of this just for Joe to kill her in the end and run away to Paris hoping to find “the one.”
If it wasn’t clear before that Joe was the villain, this season definitely let us know. The first two seasons gave the viewer hope that Joe could change for the better, but season three cemented the fact that Joe is irredeemable and that he’ll never change his ways. This was especially evident at the end, when he is in Paris searching for Marianne (or better said, “you”) which shows us that he will never be satisfied with his person.
After learning that the show was renewed for a fourth season, I am extremely interested to see how they spin it, especially now that they’ve proven that the main character is indeed the villain. It is a season that I am looking forward to watching, and hopefully, Joe gets a taste of his own medicine.