Looking for a You season 3 recap? Don’t worry; you don’t need to lurk in any bushes with your baseball cap for one of those because we’re going to serve a recap up here, freshly baked!
It’s been over a year since we saw Joe, Love, and Henry settle down in an ill-fated move to the suburbs. Still, now the You season 4 release date is creeping closer — with Part 1 of the Netflix series dropping on February 9 — we’re here to refresh your memory on how exactly their romance movie life went wrong. Joe might want to run away from his past, but that doesn’t mean you have to, so strap yourselves in for our You season 3 recap.
What happened in You season 3?
As Joe and Love’s marriage fell apart, the pair’s respective kill count rose.
You season 3 starts off with Joe and Love in “fake, plastic, suburban hell.” Despite Joe finally finding someone as loopy as he is (Love’s kill count is up to four by the time season 3 rolls around), it seems like a leopard just can’t change its spots, and he soon ends up falling back into old habits as he becomes obsessed with their neighbour, Natalie.
Love discovers a box dedicated to Natalie that exposes Joe’s creeping, and isn’t too happy about it — so she ends up killing Natalie and enlists Joe’s help in covering it up. Together, she and Joe then kidnap Gil — an anti-vaxxer neighbour who gave their son, Henry, measles — and find out through a Private Investigator about his shady family history. This leads to Gil killing himself, which proves convenient for the married couple because they then pin the murder on Natalie on him.
It turns out that being responsible for various deaths can put a strain on one’s marriage, so it isn’t long until both parties have affairs. Joe’s affair with Marienne, a recovering addict and single mother who works at the library he volunteers at, ends up going into obsessive territory (because, of course). This leads to Joe bumping off her abusive ex, Ryan, and then decides at that point it’s the right time to ask Love for a divorce.
What happened to Love in You?
Joe and Love end up in a final face-off in the You season 3 finale — and Love loses.
When Joe asks Love for a divorce, she doesn’t take it too well and ends up paralyzing him with aconite. She’d been growing the poisonous substance — which she also used to accidentally kill her first husband when he tried to leave — in the garden. Although Love considers killing Marienne, she eventually decides against it — but not before warning her against Joe’s true nature.
Although Love tried to poison him, Joe remained one step ahead: taking steroids to counteract the effects of the aconite, and then using the same poison to kill Love himself.
To cover up the deed, he not only forges a suicide letter by Love (while framing her for all the other murders in the process), but he also lops off a couple of his toes and bakes them in a pie in order to fake his own death at the hands of Love.
If you’re wondering what happens to Joe’s son, he was dropped off at the doorstep of neighbours Dante and Lansing. Meanwhile, Joe hobbled off into the sunset and heads to Paris to try and track down Marienne. So, will Love return in You season 4? Probably not.
To see who will be joining Joe instead in season 4, check out our guide to the You cast. Now that season 4 part 1 is out, find out what we made we of twists like Joe’s stalker and the Eat the Rich killer in our You season 4 part 1 review. Or, for a more in-depth account of what went down, check out our guide to the You season 4 part 1 ending explained.
We also gathered a handy list of everyone who dies in You season 4 part 1 and answered burning questions like what happened to Marienne, and when you can watch You season 4 part 2.