Students React to Season 3 of Netflix’s “You”
Jacquelyn Hampson '23 and Valeria Cervello '23. Photo by Ricardo Martinez '23
Season three of the Netflix original series “You” aired on Oct. 15 and many Marist College students finished the season in less than a week after its release.
“It’s so good, but so messed up,” said Madison Langweil ‘23.
This season earned a 91% score from top critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The show’s first season earned an 85% score from top critics and the second season earned an 88%.
The show starts off with Love Quinn giving birth to a newborn son, who she and her husband Joe Goldberg name Henry “Forty” Quinn-Goldberg.
They return to their new home – a house Love’s parents purchased for them – in the fictional town of Madre Linda, California to start over in hopes of becoming a “normal family.”
Dottie Quinn, Love’s mother, returns this season and is the first person to see their newborn child. She plays a significant role in the demise of her relationship with Love.
They meet several Madre Linda residents over the course of multiple episodes. First, they meet their neighbor and realtor Natalie, who was teased at the end of season two and helps Love open a new bakery called “A Fresh Tart.”
“She [Natalie] was just a generic, skinny white woman. Every character needs something distinguishable about them and Natalie didn’t have that,” said Langweil.
They also meet Sherry Conrad, “the Momfluencer”, her husband Cary and a couple of her friends at a party, who are all on super strict diets and all kinds of routines that Joe and Love see as incredibly unnecessary.
Valeria Cervello ‘23 said, “I really didn’t like Sherry and her husband at the beginning, and then towards the end, I started to like them.”
They eventually end up meeting Natalie’s husband Matthew, a tech wizard, and stepson from Matthew’s previous marriage Theo, who both play critical roles this season.
The themes of this season are quite toxic, perhaps even more so than in previous seasons. The most notable ones are fights and arguments between Joe and Love. It escalates to necessary couple’s therapy in an effort to resolve the issue.
Throughout the season, however, it is very apparent that therapy is not enough to prevent the tragic events that occur.
“That man [Joe] has to go, he’s really smart and good for him for it, but he’s a horrible human,” said Cervello.
Deception is a common theme when it comes to Joe Goldberg because he continuously fixates on a new woman every season regardless of whether or not he is in a relationship. He continues to stalk women, which alone brings up the bigger problem of men stalking women and how often they get away with it.
Despite his stalker tendencies, however, Jacquelyn Hampson ‘23 believes he showed a lot of growth this season.
“This season, Joe acknowledged where all his problems came from. First, he went to therapy, then he was like ‘I have mommy issues’ and he tried so hard to hold back and hold back for Henry and Love. He was trying so hard to be a good father and having a kid really changed him,” said Hampson.
The biggest theme, of course, has to be murder. Joe and Love murder several innocent residents of Madre Linda to preserve their family and marriage. This season’s killings were more impulsive, but also turned into very intricate framings that shifted the blame from the Quinn-Goldberg’s to other people.
Murder has been the main theme throughout all three seasons, with the characters going to extremes to protect people they care about.
Hampson and Cervello gave this season a 7 out of 10, while Langweil gave it a 9.9 out of 10.
Netflix confirmed the renewal of the show and a fourth season just days before the third season was released.