How You Season 3’s Ending Sets Up Season 4’s Story

Netflix’s You season 3 ended with a surprising death and a dark story twist, but the events seemingly prepare the show for season 4. Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg finally met his match in You season 2. While looking for a new start in Los Angeles, the serial killer falls in love with a new obsession, Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). Love brings out the worst of Joe’s murderous old patterns, but she has some secrets of her own. In a twist in You season 2, Love reveals she’s also a killer, and she even murders to keep her relationship with Joe alive. After Love becomes pregnant with Joe’s child, the pair move to the suburbs. However, it’s quickly apparent that they both won’t make it out alive.

Love meets her end in the You season 3 finale. In the episode, Joe asks Love for a divorce, hoping he can go off with Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), a librarian and his new love/obsession. However, anticipating a less than loving reaction, Joe grabbed a knife before delivering the news, falling right into Love’s scheme. Love covered the knife handle with wolfsbane, which temporarily paralyzed Joe. But Joe secretly suspected her sabotage. Before Love’s murder attempt, he took a wolfsbane antidote. When Love tries to slit Joe’s throat, he surprises her and sticks a syringe full of the poison into her leg. Love seemingly dies on the ground, and Joe sets the scene to look like a suicide. He even cuts off a couple of toes to fake his death, and he causes a fire to burn up anything that could incriminate him.

The shocking ending sets up several storylines for You season 4. In all likelihood, Joe will attempt to reunite with Marienne in the upcoming season. Additionally, a new season could allow Joe to confront the traumas of his past and his mother’s abandonment. In a twist, the show could also set up Love for a surprising return, which may pick up storylines from author Caroline Kepnes’ You books. And once and for all, Joe’s past may finally catch up with him before the season’s end.

Joe Will Reunite With Marienne

After setting up Love’s death to look like a suicide, Joe whisks himself off to Paris. It’s not entirely clear how Joe gets to France after faking his death, but Will Bettelheim (Robin Lord Taylor), his friend from season 2, could’ve potentially helped him get a new identity. But, of course, Joe chooses France because it’s where he believes he can find Marienne. In season 3, episode 6, Marienne tells Joe that she’d head to Paris with her child if she had custody and her ex-husband, Ryan Goodwin (Scott Michael Foster), couldn’t find them. Joe killed Ryan in season 3, so he expects Marienne to stick to her plan. In closing narration, Joe says he will search the world for Marienne, so a You season 4 reunion appears inevitable.

Love Could Return

You appears to kill off Love in the season 3 finale, but the show leaves just enough leeway for the character to return. Interestingly, the season ends with Joe’s narration about Love’s death, how he framed it to look like a suicide, and how he faked his own demise. But Joe is an unreliable narrator and sees things how he wants to. This is especially evident when it comes to Love, who completely hid her murderous ways from Joe until the season 2 finale. Without a funeral or the episode showing Love’s body burning, You leaves the possibility that Love could make a comeback. After all, the show already pulled off fake deaths before. For example, in season 1, You tricks viewers into believing that Joe killed Candace (Ambyr Childers), his cheating ex-girlfriend. However, Candace later appears in the season 1 finale, announcing that she has “unfinished business” with Joe. Thus, You sets a precedent for dead characters returning and may pave the way for Love’s comeback.

Love’s return could also touch upon some previously ignored plot points from Caroline Kepnes’ You books. In Kepnes’ You Love Me, Love eventually lures Joe to Los Angeles and tries to kill him. After shooting Joe, she turns the gun on herself. He survives, but she doesn’t. Having Love return in season 4 could show her trying to get revenge. Joe’s trip to France in the You season 3 ending could even make season 4 like Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego for serial killers.

Joe Could Finally Confront His Issues With His Mom

In You season 3, episode 6, Marienne yells at Joe, and he finally gets a bit of self-awareness when he realizes he has “mother issues.” Joe’s trauma with his mom goes back to his childhood when he killed his abusive father for attacking her. His mother covered it up and told him it had to be done. She later abandons Joe at a group home in an attempt to get a fresh start. He eventually finds her and learns she has a new family. The show also uses his mother’s abandonment to justify why Joe leaves his son, Henry, with a new family and takes off. Joe’s “mother issues” are a defining characteristic of his life.

The fate of Joe’s mom is a mystery. However, with the frequent flashbacks to Joe’s childhood, it’s clear he still has unfinished business with his mother, and the show could pay it off in the future. By allowing Joe to live in season 4, he could potentially find his mom or gain some closure.

Joe’s Past Finally Catches Up With Him

Joe’s luck can’t last forever. For three seasons, Joe has been traveling around the United States (and now the world), committing heinous crimes and getting away with it. He has left a jar of urine at a crime scene, he somehow evaded capture in a super-secure suburb of Madre Linda, and his body count has continued to climb precipitously after offing Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) in You season 1. In Kepnes’ books, Joe at least spends some time in jail, but in the Netflix series, he consistently evades capture and constantly gets bailed out of jams. In You season 2, Joe’s saved at the last second after Forty (James Scully) holds him at gunpoint, and in the season 3 finale, he even bests Love when it comes to using wolfsbane, which is a drug Love has used to kill with before. But, of course, Joe can’t get away with things forever, and You season 4 may finally bring his comeuppance.

About The Author

Bill Bradley
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Bill is an experienced reporter who’s covered entertainment and fandom since 2014. He’s done everything from unearthing the discarded Game of Thrones pilot script in a library in Texas to finding out why Steve left Blue’s Clues. He also enjoys eating Taco Bell and drinking chocolate milk.

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