Spoiler alert! This story contains spoilers for Season 3 of the Netflix drama series You. Proceed with caution if you haven’t finished all of the episodes.
Joe Goldberg and Love Quinn tackled married life in Season 3 of the Netflix hit drama You, and what could be more stressful for the short-fused new parents than suburban life in Northern California? The killer couple were tempted by neighbors, enraged by judgmental gossipers, and exhausted with the responsibilities of their new family. So the question became, will Love and Joe work as a team to defend their family and keep each other’s secrets, or will they turn on the one person who could ultimately destroy them? The You Season 3 ending answered that question, as serial killer Joe went head-to-head with his equally murderous wife.
It didn’t take long for things to begin to spiral out of control for Joe and Love in Season 3. Joe began a new obsession with the neighbor, Natalie, who Love promptly offed. And in the name of protecting their secrets in a town full of security cameras, the Quinn-Goldbergs buried themselves deeper and deeper until each of them felt it was literally “kill or be killed.” Love and Joe turned on each other after Joe became obsessed with librarian Marienne and wanted to run away with her, and Love realized she couldn’t break Joe’s patterns. Here’s how the ending of You’s third season played out for its main characters.
Love And Joe Paralyzed Each Other, But Joe Dealt The Fatal Blow
Joe killed Marienne’s ex-husband Ryan after Ryan screwed Marienne in a custody battle over their daughter. Love found Joe’s bloody shirt and realized how strong Joe’s feelings for his boss were. She put aconite — a paralytic — on the handle of a knife, so when Joe grabbed the knife to defend himself, he was rendered paralyzed.
However, the master of suspicion that he was, Joe had noticed Love was growing wolfsbane in their garden to make the paralytic, and upon realizing that Love knew about Marienne, he pre-emptively took an antidote. Joe needed only to wait for the adrenaline to kick in before he was able to attack Love, injecting her with a fatal dose of aconite.
Joe Framed Love For All Of The Other Killings
After injecting Love with aconite, Joe forged a confession, supposedly written by Love, in which his wife “admitted” to killing adulterous neighbor Natalie; framing anti-vaxxer Gil for Natalie’s murder; hunting down Ryan, the reporter who threatened them; and trapping Sherry and Cary, the couple who was trying to destroy them. The confession also stated that Love killed Joe, which was apparently confirmed by police who DNA-tested the two toes they found at the house (one in a pie — yuck). Joe burned the house down with Love’s body inside and walked away scot-free.
Joe Left His Son In Order To Protect Him
Season 3 spent a fair amount of time delving into Joe's mommy issues and fear of abandonment. Joe was bullied in the foster system for insisting that his mother was going to come back for him. With Love dead, Joe took a page from his own mother’s book and made a clean break, leaving Henry on the doorstep of his library co-worker Dante. In saying goodbye to Henry, Joe told him he wasn’t leaving forever, so it’ll be interesting to see if and how that plays out in Season 4, as everyone in Madre Linda thinks Love baked Joe into a pie.
Theo And Matthew Reconnected As Theo Recovered From His Injuries
While Matthew had suspected Joe and Love's involvement in his wife Natalie’s disappearance from the beginning, his stepson Theo refused to think Love could be involved. That is, until she hit him in the head and knocked him down a flight of stairs. Joe showed compassion when he found the near-dead teenager, and dropped him off at a hospital. After Love and Joe’s supposed murder-suicide, Matthew got the closure he needed, and was able to reconnect with Theo, who appeared to be making a long but full recovery.
Sherry And Cary Escaped The Cage And Capitalized On Their Experience
After a polyamorous night gone really wrong, in which mommy blogger Sherry and her husband Cary overheard Love confess to killing Natalie, Joe and Love locked the optimized couple in the cage below Love’s bakery. The close quarters nearly got the best of Sherry and Cary, as Cary — in trying to shoot the lock off the door — grazed Sherry’s ear, and Sherry retaliated by shooting Cary in the leg.
When Sherry saw that the cage door locked from both sides, she realized the Quinn-Goldbergs didn’t trust each other and had likely hidden a key inside. They ransacked the cage, ultimately finding the key and escaping with their lives. They capitalized on the experience in a totally on-brand way — they wrote a book, titled Caged: A Radical Couple's Therapy Technique.
Marienne Disappeared With Her Daughter
After paralyzing Joe with aconite, Love lured Marienne to their house with the intention of murdering her. Love told Marienne that Joe was toxic and obsessed with her, and that he killed Ryan. Just as Love seemed about to strike, Love’s daughter Juliette interrupted, and Love instead told Marienne to run and get far away from Joe. Marienne apparently listened, too, because after he finished crafting Love’s confession, Joe went to find Marienne but she and Juliette were already gone.
Joe Continued Searching For His Soulmate
When Joe and Marienne had talked about running away together, Paris was the city Marienne said she’d always dreamed of going. Ever the romantic, that was where Joe began his search. Joe, going by the name “Nick,” vowed to search the world until he found her.
Netflix has renewed You for a fourth season, so this may not be the end of the story between Joe and Marienne, but does anyone believe Joe would actually be able to settle down with one woman and have his happily ever after? We’ll probably have to wait awhile to answer that question. Until then, all three seasons of You are streaming on Netflix if you care to revisit them, and you can also check out this list of Netflix TV premiere dates, as well as the best shows to binge watch on Netflix.
