YOU Season 3 Recap: You’re a Pattern
Spoilers ahead!
Joe's (Penn Badgely) obsessive pattern stop now that he has a baby in the picture? I’m going to say no. Living in the suburban town Madre Linda with his and Love’s (Victoria Pedretti) newborn baby boy, Henry, also known as “Forty,” things start to heat up. If this name sounds familiar to you, it is the name of Love's brother who was killed in the previous season.
Love’s mother, Dottie (Saffron Burrows), believes their baby Henry is the reincarnated version of Forty. Weird right? Being the way he is, Joe cannot seem to bond with his child. As we get further into the season, we begin to understand the magnitude of Joe’s childhood trauma.
Growing up with an abusive father figure, we see that he actually committed his first murder at a very young age. He killed his father due to the fact he was so violet. Like father like son, his violent tendencies follow him into his adult years. His mother did not treat him the best either. She left him all alone, and he was constantly abused and bullied at school.
Shifting back to the present, Joe finds his new neighbor, Natalie Engler (Michaela McManus). Falling into his old habits, he starts to obsess over Natalie. He becomes eager to know more about her. Leaving the house to stalk his perfect neighbor, Joe finds himself actually coming into contact with her. “You've been watching me too,” he thinks. Natalie is married to CEO Matthew Engler (Scott Speedman), however, she still flirts with Joe and even kisses him.
Source: Insider
When Love, Joe, and Natalie find themselves invited to the party at Sherry (Shalita Grant) and Cary Conrad's (Travis Van Winkle) place, we all know something is about to go down. Natalie goes over to talk to Love—bad idea.
During the conversation, Love opens up about her passion for baking and her dreams of owning her own bakery. Natalie recommends a spot in town and tells her if she wants to take her up on the offer, to give her a call. Not too long after their conversation, Love confronts Joe about “sleeping with the neighbor.” Love has to be the only one for Joe—no one else can have him.
Being that she will kill anyone who stands in her way, Love calls Natalie and takes her up on her offer. After seeing an ax, she knows what she has to do. She grabs it and hits Natalie which ultimately kills her. But that's not all, we find Natalie’s things that Joe placed in a box.
Trying to mend their relationship, Love and Joe take on couples counseling. In an attempt to cover up the murder of Natalie Enger, the Goldberg-Quinn’s chop the tracking ring off of her finger before dumping her body, taking their poor baby boy with them as they commit these crimes.
Love opens up her bakery, “A Fresh Tart,” soon after Natalie’s disposal. She makes cupcakes and decides to send them over to Matthew Engler to rid any suspicions he may or may not have. Upon arrival, she was surprised to see Theo (the boy who hit on her in the parking lot), played by Dylan Arnold, answer the door. Police sirens begin to go off not long after Joe and Love arrive at home.
Headlines stating “Missing Natalie Engler” storm the news which causes some anxiety for the Goldberg-Quinn’s. Sherry, having a big mouth, spoke out about the case in an interview on live TV. She mentioned that Natalie helped Love open her bakery a few days before she was declared missing. She also mentions that Matthew is suspicious since he won’t talk to the press.
Goldberg is ultimately questioned by the detectives, but in true Joe nature, he covers it up. Joe and Love want to frame Matthew for killing his wife, but this plan backfires. Joe tries to plant evidence at Matthew’s house, but ends up passing out in his yard from being sick with the measles. Joe wants to do better for his son, so he decides that he will not frame this innocent man.
When Love finds out her baby got the measles from Gil's (Mackenzie Astin) children, she lashes out. She begins the torture by hitting him over the head and trapping him in a cage in the basement. Blackmailing Gil seemed to be the answer, but he became overwhelmed and committed suicide while in captivity. Gil’s suicide was the perfect way to hide their wrongdoings, so they framed him for the murder of Natalie.
During the search party, Love places the ax in the woods where they were looking. The police find it the ax and soon after, they see the fake suicide note along with Gil hanging in his home. This was the perfect solution as far as Joe and Love were concerned.
As we know, Joe is quite obsessive. He spots his next potential love, Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), who is his boss at the library. Will she actually be the one for Joe? The one to stop his obsessive pattern? Eventually, he becomes more and more obsessed to the point where he finds himself breaking into her home.
As expected, Joe and Marienne start to develop deep feelings for each other. Joe claims to be in love with Marienne and her feelings are mutual. In my opinion, I’d say Joe's feelings are more obsessive rather than love, but that's just me. Of course, they become closer throughout the season, and Joe cheats on Love with her continuously.
Love, on the other hand, has not been faithful herself. She has been messing around with Theo. The relationship progresses as Love begins sneaking around with him, picking him up when he was drinking, and even meeting at the bakery.
As we know, the case of Natalie Engler was closed when Gil became the “murderer.” Matthew could not believe what happened so he decided to hire private investigators to take a deeper look into who really murdered his wife. He grows very suspicious of Love and Joe. Later on, we see that he received access to cameras and has seen footage to help his case. Theo tells Love about this, and Love asks him to find out what he has on her and Joe. Theo finds himself watching the video, and he believes that it was Joe who killed Natalie, not Love.
As I mentioned previously, Joe’s new obsession is Marienne. When he finds out that she has a toxic ex Ryan (Scott Michael Foster), he goes crazy. Honestly, would crazy even be the word to describe his behavior? After all, it is Joe Goldberg that we're talking about.
In true Joe nature, he follows Ryan, sneaks into his house, changes the battery on his alarm clock to make him late, attempts to drug him and ruins everything—well, that's just what he thinks. Ryan seemed to have built up a tolerance to the drugs so this will not affect him, it somehow just makes things worse for Marienne. Plus, did Ryan ever really quit the drugs in the first place?
Moving forward, Love and Joe begin trying to spice things up in their relationship. Considering an open marriage, they reach out to the Conrads to sign their “agreement.” This agreement is practically an orgy. They decide to go through with it, however, Love grows uncomfortable and they stop. She and Joe then get into a huge fight because she knows he is thinking about another woman. Being as hurt as she was, Love accidentally screams that she killed Natalie, very loudly.
The Conrad’s heard this and they began to start attacking Love and Joe, causing them to end up in the famous cage in the basement. Sherry talks to Love as a friend to try and get her way out, which does not work. Eventually, Love decides to give them a gun. She says that one will shoot the other and she will let the remaining one go. They decide to stick together, but Sherry winds up getting shot by accident when Cary tries to get them out by shooting the door. Sherry shoots Cary in the leg as well, “by accident”.
Theo, walking into the bakery to find Love, hears the gunshot and enters the room with the cage. They beg him to let them out, but he doesn't oblige. He finds Love and tells her that he knows it wasn't her who killed Natalie, it was Joe. Love hits him over the head, thinking that he is dead, while Joe is out killing Marienne’s ex-husband. He ultimately stabs him to death after pushing him off a cliff. The murders are truly never-ending with these two.
Joe comes to cover up the Theo situation, only to find him alive. Feeling bad for Theo and Matthew, Joe drops him off at the hospital. Fast-forwarding to the end of the season, Joe wants to divorce Love, but here's what we know according to Dottie: Love killed her ex-husband after saying that he wanted a divorce.
When Joe brings this up, Love tries to poison him, not knowing Joe had taken something to reverse this effect. Laying there stuck, Love grabs Joe's phone and tells Marienne to come over due to an “emergency.”
Marienne and Joe had plans to run away together, but obviously, Love doesn't know that. After sending this message, Marienne arrives and Love tells her about Joe's obsessions and warns her about what she is getting herself into. Love is about to kill her, but she backs out when she notices that she has a daughter.
In the final moments of this season, Joe succeeds in Love's plan with the poison, only this time it is on her, not him. After killing Love, he decides this is the perfect opportunity to own up to every crime he’s ever committed. He has to fake his own death so it seems believable. In order to do so, he cuts off his toe (which he puts in the dinner she was making), sets the house on fire after writing a confession, and ultimately gives away Henry to more responsible parents. At the very end, we see Sherry and Cary escape the cage after finding a hidden key. They go on to tell people this story on a very grand scale. We also find out that Joe, now named “Nick,” is in Paris looking for Marienne. We all know he will not stop until he finds her.