The Netflix original series You, starring Penn Badgley, finally released its third season and fans have gone crazy. The season has generated constant conversation among all my friends. We all found each other racing to the finish line of the ten-episode season. You reached the top ten on my Netflix less than a week after its release. This article will in fact include details of the show, so if you haven’t seen it and do not want spoilers, then exit the tab because things get wild!
Of course, if you are a fan of this show you know the main character: Joe Goldberg. He is a serial killer who has a history of obsessing over one woman at a time and then luring them in, only to hurt all those around her, and in most cases, fatally ending the lives of his desired subjects. This series includes Joe’s internal thoughts through narration. The internal thoughts he has churn the stomach, yet they leave viewers wanting more. His pensive mind and observational skills are interesting to hear. As a society, we have a peculiar interest in killers and their motives, so Joe voicing his sick internal thoughts as an obsessive serial killer is a different take on fictional murder stories.
The first two seasons revolved mainly around Joe as a killer, yet when Love, his wife, enters the chat and her skeletons come out of the closet, a whole new dimension to killer couples is introduced. Although the show primarily remains in Joe’s perspective, Love’s character adds another side of insanity.
The entire third season is set in a Californian suburb and leads to the first murder of a neighbor, basically because Joe forms an obsession and Love cannot take it. This initial kill sparks a frenzy of murders, all while Joe begins an obsession over a new woman. Joe sees Love as a threat to his livelihood as a killer and sees her only as a way to get caught. So Joe kills her after she tries to kill him first. The ending is wild. The result is a sneak peek of Joe in his new life in Paris.
So, basically, we as a fan base are at step one. Joe by himself is ready to prey on another woman. As much as I love this show, I cannot help but wonder if it is far less for the fans’ sake, but that the third season was created only so we could get hooked onto the next. Some can recall that the fourth season was given the okay before the third was even released to the public. This made me question the intent of the show. Do the creators really care about the content that the fanbase desires? Or was this season a mere attempt to gain a lingering fan base so another season could make more profit for the Netflix platform? As an active consumer of media, this instance made me question the true intentions of the third season of You because I believe shows that prioritize quality over quantity tend to be more entertaining. But, You seems to only be starting yet another trek in season 4.
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