Mommy Issues Lessons for ‘You’ Season 3: Bad Parents Yield Bad Kids.

When I finished ‘You’ season 2, I counted days backwards till the next season will be released. Not only did I follow Penn Badgley on every existing social media (not Joe Goldberg style),  I constantly checked updates for the show. I can not explain how excited I got when the teaser trailer was released. 

There are so many reasons the show is very near to my heart, but the primary is, I love a good thriller/murder drama. A story of an obsessive, psychotic boyfriend that is not cringy in Wattpad style is the absolute definition of entertainment to me. An inner monologue is my favorite narrative style (looking at Patrick Batman). 

Season 3 started with Joe and Love in their lovely suburban home in Madre Linda, far away from their past (the bodies they buried). It looks all normal till Joe goes back to his psychotic self and stalks his neighbor Natalie. The neighborhood friendship was at the cusp of an affair till psycho Joe's psycho wife kills Natalie, and they get on with normal life.

Well, not normal life, at least. The crazy, murderous couple lifestyle, I mean. In their very LA suburban American nightmare, Joe and Love, with their son Henry Forty Quinn-Goldberg are trying to fit in with the crowd. Joe takes hunting (animals this time) with diet-conscious 'alpha male' dads, and Love takes the blogger mommy role in society. All this, and yet they couldn't keep their instincts in control. 

This makes me think, what is wrong with them? 

In the third season, we get a lot of flashbacks of Joe's life at the orphanage. Linking the story with their past and trying to justify their parenting style by giving a glimpse into their childhood. Love and Joe both have issues with their mom in their lives. Where Joe's mother physically abandons him, Love's mother was too busy caring for the son to provide the care and nurture she required, abandoning Love emotionally. 

The couple struggles a lot when taking care of their son. Both have different reactions to their own dysfunctional childhoods past.

Joe, excited to have a daughter whom he could protect, was shocked and disappointed about begetting a son. He believed that Henry will be like him as he is like his own father. He is worried about passing on the psychotic to his child. Yet, he doesn't run away, because he knows what it's like to be abandoned. 

Living in the orphanage system, he would never dream of such a life for his own kid. He is trying to bond, make himself love Henry. Joe is eager to take care of others in his life, no matter how extreme the step may be. He did it for Candice, he did it for Beck and he did it for Love. This type of attachment style reflects his need to cater to the needs of others. 

Linking to his childhood, acts of service is the way he expresses his devotion. In the mind of 13-year-old Joe, he needs to protect his mother, he carried this attachment style into his relationships. His obsessive need to solve the issues in his partners come from his early life when he needed to protect his mother from his abusive father. 

Love is quite similar, she shows a similar obsession with his brother and Joe. Their 'knight in shining armour' syndrome provokes them to take extreme steps to protect their loved ones. 

Children look up to adults for safety and love. Unfulfillment of which can yield extremely unstable and problematic adults, and they give birth to sadder children. 

Love and Joe each react very differently in situations, and yet there are some similarities. The couple is willing to protect their child from everything, yet they find it hard to remain loyal to their partners.  They both carry trust issues, yet they find it hard to remain loyal. This all can be characterized as a trauma response to abandonment. 

All these minute details and major flaws in the character of Joe and Love Quinn-Goldberg is what makes You one of my favorite shows. 

Final words:

Apart from all the murders and ostentatious humans in this 10 episode series, the show is fantastically written. I love when intelligent, and cunning characters make mistakes. As I said earlier, the inner monologue gives us insight to the panic they felt after every mistake they made. This makes characters more realistic and the whole act more convincing. 

I am a big fan of the show, yet I think this should be the final season. Because it is better to leave things on a high note than to ruin it all by milking it out. *Cough* GOT *Cough*