review: 'you' season 3

By @nadreviews

Penn Badgley and Victoria Pedretti in You: Season 3 (2021) courtesy of Netflix

      Based on Caroline Kepnes’ best-selling novel of the same name, the premise of Netflix thriller series You is the foundation for how obsessive killer Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) operates, all in the name of true romance. The past two seasons have seen his pattern play out, with enough twists and turns to keep things interesting. He becomes transfixed with a woman, goes down a rabbit hole to find out everything about her, and is determined to eliminate anyone standing in his way of finding love. Joe’s narration puts the story inside his head, charting his emotions and thought process for why he feels like he’s right. The series starts to find its stride in season two, avoiding repetitiveness by introducing a fresh start in Los Angeles with Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). Love’s complicated character proves to be a game-changer, equally psychotic as she turns the tables on Joe and leaves room for more. The writing team of You season 3 take advantage of an opportunity to explore Love’s murderous spree, showing how this affects her and Joe’s marriage and joint parenthood in a suburban setting. The couple learns surprising layers about each other, while also relying on patterns they’ve come to know from being together. Has Joe really met his true match, or is his only chance at a fresh start one without love? Couple’s therapy can only do so much…Behind the white picket fences of small-town living is You’s most thrilling season yet.

    The biggest part of why You season 3 feels more fully realized than its predecessors is bringing the character of Love Quinn fully on board. Most of the unpredictability derives from her trajectory and the way she utilizes her surroundings, whereas Joe’s character has greater tendency to tread familiar/derivative territory. The two of them together, now married and raising their baby Henry in Northern California, raise the stakes under the roof of a new setting. The season makes a great decision in moving away from sprawling places like New York City and Los Angeles. The Quinn-Goldberg residence lies in the Northern California enclave of Madre Linda, a small suburban outskirt where a slowed-down lifestyle affords more time for the neighbors to know everyone’s business. There are only so many places to find solitude, a sentiment that Joe and Love’s next-door-neighbor Natalie (Michaela McManus) knows all too well. Getting to know her holds a mirror to Joe’s perpetual feeling of the grass being greener on the other side. The picture-perfect Quinn-Goldberg marriage is a suburban purgatory, and Joe’s loyalty to his own heart above all complicates their future. ​

Penn Badgley and Victoria Pedretti in You: Season 3 (2021) courtesy of Netflix

Michaela McManus in You: Season 3 (2021) courtesy of Netflix

      Built on a foundation of secrets and lies, season 3 excels at lifting the facade of an idealized life. Having a perfect marriage and family are romanticized over everything else, to the detriment of what’s real. The suburban setting is the perfect playground for this story, where so much rides on keeping up appearances and ultimately lying to yourself in order to do so. Watching Joe and Love attempt a cookie cutter lifestyle is entertaining and disturbing in equal measure, especially with the purity of baby Henry in the background. The facade of Joe and Love’s marriage is also lifted; moving to a setting that sounds mundane and typical only intensifies their attempts to fit in and gain acceptance. Madre Linda is a place where any deviation from social acceptance would be cause for ruin, making everyone’s hidden truths valuable weapons for self-destruction. Joe and Love may know plenty of each other’s dark murderous secrets, but not everything. The more Joe wants to reign himself in for the sake of his son, the more unpredictable Love becomes.
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    Reprising their roles, Penn Badgley and Victoria Pedretti give their most impressive performances of the series as Joe and Love. Giving them more layers to work with, the new season draws parallels between the two characters and gives insight into why they are able to keep up with each other. Both are unraveling in self-sabotage, unhappiness, and issues with their parents. With flashbacks to Joe’s troubled childhood, and present-day scenes with Love’s mother Dottie (Saffron Burrows), family scars dictate much of the couple’s decision-making with Henry. Season 3 puts Joe and Love in some new lights, giving Badgley and especially Pedretti room to flex a wider range of muscles. Love’s rollercoaster character takes far more of a responsibility this season, which makes each episode more and more impulsive. Joe’s character maintains a steady soundboard of insightful narration, new obsessions, and themes of toxic masculinity.

Tati Gabrielle in You: Season 3 (2021) courtesy of Netflix

Shalita Grant and Travis Van Winkle in You: Season 3 (2021) courtesy of Netflix

     The surrounding neighborhood of bloggers, entrepreneurs, and social media influencers is catnip for Joe’s taunting narration. You season 3 introduces a mostly new cast of supporting characters who complicate the leads’ decisions, cloud their judgement, and aren’t as unassuming as one would think. Mostly residents of Madre Linda, they have their own secrets and lies that can throw a wrench in even the most carefully planned situations. Among the standouts are Tati Gabrielle as Marienne and Dylan Arnold as Theo, each of whom have a bigger part to play in flipping the script as the season unravels. The season also introduces two of the most entertaining characters yet, Sherry and Cary Conrad. The Conrads, played by Shalita Grant and Travis Van Winkle, are the perfect playful anecdote to the Quinn-Goldbergs. Their performances play up the ridiculousness of social media obsession but neither of them, Grant especially, allow for their characters to become caricatures which makes their trajectory a lot more gratifying.

     You season 3 pulls a dangerously addictive front row seat to crumbling relationships in a hellish cookie cutter suburbia. Old habits die hard, and this new chapter does its best to maintain surprising twists that push the narrative in new directions. Building on the psychological edges and satirical commentary of the first two seasons, there’s more to the revelations than throwing in bombshells for the sake of it. Season three excels in conveying dual roles between Love and Joe. Both manipulative in their own right, the game becomes who is playing who at any given moment. The Quinn-Goldberg duo, along with memorable supporting characters aiming to get one step ahead of them, have enough tricks up their sleeve to maintain binge-worthy chills and thrills.

You season 3 releases exclusively on Netflix October 15th. ​