You Season 3
Developed by Greg Berlanti & Sera Gamble
★★½
YOU (L to R) VICTORIA PEDRETTI as LOVE QUINN in episode 302 of YOU Cr. JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX © 2021
The newest season of Netflix’s darkly funny, cyber stalker series You is simultaneously the same as its previous seasons and vastly different. We’ve come to expect the darkly funny one liners, the campy outbursts, the spouts of intense violence, the way that Penn Badgley's Joe is so gleefully unaware of his sociopathy and, of course, the cage, and the shows third season delivers on these, yet season 3 has one new secret weapon, Love.
Sure, we had Love last season, but this time around we get to see her for who she truly is, murderous flaws and all. And it's in these abnormalities that Victoria Pedretti elevates the show into something it hasn’t yet been, awards worthy. Pedretti is absolutely brilliant as the unhinged Love, who will stop at nothing to protect her family, even if what she perceives as danger may be too quick of a judgement call. Her unique reactions and delivery to any given situation highlight her true genius as an actress, and her turn this season is the shot in the arm the show needed to stay relevant.
Additionally, the writing this season is the sharpest it has been throughout the series, and as they’ve relocated to the richer ‘burbs, the writers truly take aim at the upper class, influencer filled ‘family’ lifestyle and how empty it truly is. There are also a lot of shocking turns the story takes, and even though it's similar to stuff we’ve seen before, it's not always coming from who we expect or how far along we expect it to occur within the story?
There are a lot of strong new characters in play this season that are fun to watch and see how they affect both Love and Joe. Shalita Grant’s Sherry is delightfully catty as the neighborhood’s HBIC. Dylan Arnold is also a welcome addition as the neighbor’s stepson Theo, and ends up being one of the best parts of the season, coming off as a parallel to Joe (yet, somewhat similar).
The first half of the season is the strongest of the entire show and was on track to do something completely new, similar to the constantly changing structure of The Good Place. Unfortunately, the show derails near episode 6 and almost completely undoes all the goodwill it had going for it up until that point, choosing to fall back into its tired cliched trappings and do absolutely nothing new. I had hoped that the show would go to a certain place at the end, but it is successful in what it does, so why try anything new and creative when you know you’re going to make money with the same old shit.
You Season 3 explores the confines of marriage and family, and the realization that everything may not be as peachy as it initially seems, through the puppy-love tinted lens of the honeymoon phase and how adding a child to the mix can literally change every part of your relationship. The show wants to be somewhat of a feminist proclamation, and sometimes succeeds, but by the end of the season, ends up with the same tired misogynistic victories that undermine anything that it tries to say.
