Netflix’s ‘You’ season 3 follows Joe and Love in Madre Linda, trying to give their kid, Henry, a happy and normal life. However, things go wrong when Joe gets obsessed with the next-door neighbor.
Season 3 begins with Joe and Love Quinn-Goldberg moving to Madre Linda to have a fresh start. Love gives birth to Henry and the couple decides to be the best parents to their kid. However, trouble begins when Joe gets attracted to the next-door neighbor Natalie, and her inviting him over for a drink.
Getting back to his old ways, he keeps a box of things belonging to Natalie. Love finds the box and gets jealous. She finds an excuse to buy a shop to convert it to a bakery using Natalie’s help and then murders her. Joe is taken aback but realizes that it was all for Love. The couple tries to frame Natalie’s murder on her husband, Matthew but does not go through with the plan.
Life in Madre Linda is very different from L.A., and they try to befriend people from a higher social class, some of them being Sherry and her husband Cary Conrad, Bill, and some others. Love notices that these people talk about her family issues behind her back but she still wants to fit in in order to lead a normal suburban lifestyle.
A few days later, their son, Henry, gets measles and is admitted to the hospital. The nurse informs that it might’ve gotten through someone who is not vaccinated, and Love’s mother suspects Joe. However, Bill comes forward and admits that his children are not vaccinated as he is one of the anti-vaxers.
Anger takes over Love and she hits Bill on the head, leaving him unconscious. She drags him to a glass cage in the basement. The cage is made by the couple in order to reflect and then react to a situation, giving time to the “culprit” and themselves to get out of the mess in a rational way.
To handle the situation and not let Bill go to the police, the couple tries to find dirt on him. They find out that his son got into an Ivy League school through a generous donation. Bill doesn’t know anything about him but connects the dots and kills himself because of the trauma.
Love suggests the idea to frame Bill for Natalie’s murder and Joe plants the evidence; the murder weapon and a suicide note suggesting Natalie having an extra-marital affair and Bill killing her and then himself after realizing that she cannot completely be his.
When the news becomes public, Natalie’s husband Matthew isn’t convinced about the story. Taking matters into his own hands, he hacks into the security footage of the entire city to look for the real murderer. He checks each and every footage himself and finds out that Love was the last person Natalie saw. However, he isn’t able to gather evidence to frame her.
Meanwhile, Joe takes up a job at the Library, where he meets Dante and Marienne. He’s attracted to Marienne right away and finds out that she’s divorced, and her ex Ryan was an abusive husband with the custody of their daughter Juliette. He wins through all court proceedings related to the custody through money and his contacts.
When Marienne discusses this with Joe, he takes it upon himself to help her. He plans on proving that Ryan is an addict and is not a fit father, but fails. At the library opening event, attended by the Quinn-Goldbergs, Ryan warns Joe to not get close to Marienne.
Joe’s feelings for her grow even stronger when he notices that she feels the same. They spend the afternoon together after he informs her about his separation from Love, which is in reality, not true.
Going through the rough patches in her marriage, Love finds comfort in Matthews’s son, Theo. During a conversation, Theo mentions that his father is suspecting the Quinn-Goldbergs for murder. She asks him to delete the footage, if possible.
She feels guilty when she sees Joe actually helping her with the baby and the daily chores, and tries to save their marriage and bring back the ‘spark’. She hints at a polyamorous relationship, just like Sherry and Cary’s. Joe wants to end the marriage but agrees to spend the night with the Conrads to not let Love suspect him cheating on her. He knows Love had killed her first husband because he wanted a divorce, and he knows if she found out the truth, she would kill either him or Marienne.
During an intimate scene with Sherry, Love notices that Joe is thinking about someone else and runs off to the kitchen. Even though Joe comes to calm her down, she shouts at him and accidentally talks about how she murdered Natalie out of jealousy. Sherry and Cary overhear their conversation and make a run to get out of the house, but are knocked out by Love and Joe and put into the glass cage for days.
As history repeats, Joe and Love find the ‘spark’ through violence, even though the former just pretends. One night, Love notices a blood-stained t-shirt in the dustbin. Her suspicion of Joe cheating grows even stronger. When she hears the news about Ryan being murdered, she connects the dots. She had seen Marienne with her ex, and figures that Marienne is the new love interest.
At dinner, she confronts Joe about his affair. He admits that he hasn’t been loyal, and wants a divorce. In order to defend himself, he holds a knife. However, his hand absorbs a paralyzing drug planted by Love, and she pushes him to the floor. She texts Marienne through his phone and asks her to come to his house.
When Marienne arrives, she tells Love that she had no idea that the couple wasn’t separating. Love is shocked, and her plan to kill her fades away when she sees her daughter, Juliette. She suggests she runs away with her daughter because Joe destroys everything when he gets obsessed with someone. Scared, Marienne leaves the place.
‘You’ Season 3 ending explained in detail:
Love and Joe’s future?
After Marienne leaves, Love comes to Joe and is attacked by him. Joe explains how he had noticed her growing the paralyzing drug and found an antidote which he took during dinner.
He injects enough amount of drugs to make her heart stop, writes a suicide note from her side stating that she killed Bill and Joe. He turns on the stove, burns their wedding album near it, and gets out before the entire house bursts into flames. Hence, it is most likely that Love is dead.
As for Joe’s future, he and Marienne had decided to run away together to start a new life. However, he could see that she believed Love’s lies and probably left already.
She had mentioned that she’d love to settle in Paris with her daughter, and that is where Joe goes to find them. Everyone in Madre Linda believes that he is dead, so he changes his name and starts his search in Paris.
Sherry and Cary
Sherry and Cary are still locked in the basement while the whole ordeal between Love and Joe takes place. The duo tries to look for a means to break open the cage from inside.
All of the boxes are searched, and finally, they find a key to get out. Post their escape, they go on to host a Ted Talk and write a book about their experience, tarnishing Love’s image further.
Where is Henry?
Joe realises that no matter how hard he tried, he can’t be a good father for Henry. Before going to Paris, he leaves him with Dante and his boyfriend, Lansing, as they weren’t able to adopt a child.
He does not wish Henry to grow up in an orphanage and believes that the gay couple would take good care of him.
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