You (Season 3); Netflix Based on: You by Caroline Kepnes
You (Season 3); Netflix
Based on: You by Caroline Kepnes
Now in its third season, Netflix’s You is a bitingly funny, macabre send-up of the romantic comedy genre. Bookseller Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) may don the persona of Prince Charming, but he’s actually a murderous sociopath who happens to be extremely well-read. Joe’s idea of love mirrors obsessive ownership, which he justifies through a sense of moral superiority and entitlement. In the latest installment of the series, newly-wed parents Joe and Love (Victoria Pedretti) move out of Los Angeles and settle into the quiet Californian suburb of Madre Linda. It’s not long before Joe’s fascination with the neighbor, Natalie Engler, triggers Love’s jealousy. The possibility of Joe cheating with Natalie is quickly resolved, but other problems arise when he begins to fall for a local librarian named Marienne. Will Love and Joe get their happily ever after? Or will they both end up with blood on their hands? Perhaps on another network with lesser-skilled actors, You would be a dark, humorless, unsettling character study of a Ripley-like serial killer.
However, Badgley depicts Joe with a certain degree of self-loathing and self-awareness—a casualty of Cupid disgusted by his perceived weaknesses as well as the failings of humanity. He seems to think of himself as a vigilante or avenging angel rather than a disturbed stalker. Joe doesn’t want to be a violent person and he doesn’t think he’s a violent person, but what can a person do when some monsters only respond to violence? The repetition of internal monologue, which is used for both Joe and Love this season, cultivates a sense of familiarity: we are witnesses to the real people behind the masks. Pedretti really holds her own in season three, leaning into Love’s discomfort with newfound motherhood and her outsider status in a community of Stepford Wives (specifically: an obnoxious mommy blogger named Sherry). The show, based on the novels by Caroline Kepnes, has already been renewed for a fourth season. –Vanessa Willoughby, Assistant Editor
