With the fourth season of You soon arriving on Netflix, viewers might have to refresh their memory on the previous season, which premiered over a 12 months ago. Here, we revisit key moments within the season 3 finale in an interview with showrunner Sera Gamble, originally published on October 16, 2021. Major spoilers for You season 3 lie ahead.
Fans have been wanting to meet up with Joe Goldberg since You season 2 ended, and season 3, now streaming on Netflix, didn’t disappoint. From the murders to the marital drama to Joe’s multiple amorous affairs, the third chapter of Netflix’s hit series was every bit as juicy as we hoped, and its finale left us with the cliffhanger to finish all cliffhangers.
Executive producer and showrunner Sera Gamble breaks down the shocking season 3 finale with ELLE.com, and dishes on what fans can expect when You returns for a fourth go-round.
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Is Love really dead?
This might be our biggest, burning query after watching season 3. While some viewers are probably hoping that Victoria Pedretti’s Love remains to be alive, in keeping with showrunner Gamble, her fate within the finale is pretty final. “Inevitable might be a great word for it, actually,” Gamble tells ELLE.com. “When you consider it just through the lens of Joe as a personality, his loves end in tragedy because they don’t seem to be built on a foundation that can ever work. When it comes to writing the story and making the show, we knew that we had a two-season story for this couple, that the turning point was once we discover who Love really is at the top of season 2.”
Watching Joe and Love’s relationship develop and disintegrate was definitely fun (though often painful), and it was just as fun to put in writing. “It was pretty juicy. There’s lots between them,” Gamble says. “There are definitely times where it makes perfect sense for them to be together, but I do not think they really had what it takes to be a long-term relationship. There have been definitely times this season, especially towards the top where we very much considered Love as Joe’s antagonist, but we were well aware that is simply because we’re telling the story from the viewpoint of [Joe], who’s our protagonist.” Gamble continues, “Really, should you put them on paper, she’s not doing anything worse than he’s. The truth is, may be the other….She did do more murdering than he did.”
Love’s fate can have been a shock to viewers, however the actors were actually pretty prepared for it. “Penn and Victoria each knew that probably [the season 3 finale] was going to finish along with her dead. That was probably what it was going to be,” Gamble explains. “But I will be honest. There have been definitely days in the author’s room where we were like, or possibly she runs away and we are able to play some more with this character later.”
Nevertheless, leaving Love’s storyline open just didn’t feel right. Gamble says, “Ultimately it felt like we actually needed to go there. In a way it’s just like the character is so powerful within the season that we actually felt like we couldn’t half-ass the ending.”
Will we see Henry again?
In a full-circle moment, Joe abandoned his and Love’s son, Henry, within the season 3 finale. The load of his decision is felt all of the more deeply by viewers who know that Joe was also abandoned by his own mother.
“I feel feeling like he had to do this will affect him deeply. I do not think abandoning a baby would ever go away,” Gamble explains. “And I do know that there is certain things in Joe’s wiring which might be a bit of different than another people, but not that.”
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As for whether Henry will likely be back in later seasons, the powers that be are giving nothing away. “I can not really answer the query about what that will likely be in the long run,” Gamble teases. “For now, he has made what I feel is a fairly smart move to depart him with parents who can properly parent him and protect him. And I could not really say what the long run will bring after that.”
Quite a lot of characters survived Season 3. Will any of them come after Joe? And can Joe seek out Marienne (Tati Gabrielle)?
The suburbs became an exceedingly dangerous place to be with Love and Joe in them, but plenty of characters (including Sherry, Cary, Matthew, Dante, and Theo) all survived season 3. “I hope it doesn’t seem to be we’re getting soft, that so many individuals didn’t die,” Gamble jokes. “Some people died and [Joe is] definitely searching for Marienne at the top of the season. That is why he’s flown to Europe.”
As for whether any of those survivors may be searching for revenge, Gamble says, “To start with, anything bad that may occur to Joe, we’re occupied with exploring…anyone who knows what his deal is, anyone who’s a loose end.”
Specifically, Love and Joe’s married friends, Sherry and Cary, survived, and were inspired to start out a business based on their time within the infamous cage. “When it comes to people you actually thought might die…I feel from the moment we meet them, we’re like, ‘Oh, they don’t seem to be going to survive the season,’” Gamble says. “Nevertheless it became necessary to us to have a married couple within the season who also went through an actual crucible of their relationship, in order that we could actually hold someone up and say that is what it looks like when it’s good. That is what it looks like when people hearken to one another they usually are truly putting one another’s interests on the forefront of their consciousness. I’ll admit that as a author’s room, we were really rooting for Sherry and Cary the entire time.”
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But for anyone hoping Scott Speedman’s Matthew may be back, that currently sounds unlikely. “That was probably the greatest days of the season, once we heard he may be occupied with being on the show in any respect,” Gamble says. “I actually have never gotten so many texts from friends that were excited as when his casting was announced.”
Will Joe’s mother get more screen time in future seasons?
A flashback within the finale revealed that Joe’s mom moved on and commenced taking care of one other child after abandoning her son. Effectively, she left Joe behind for good, much to the chagrin of our antihero. However the maternal influence in Joe’s life may be back for future installments of the series. “That is definitely a possibility. We’ve not nailed down any particular story, but in so some ways, when you concentrate on Joe, all roads lead back to her, so she’s a vital presence within the story,” Gamble reveals. “So I feel it’s something we’d not less than be tempted to poke at.”
Was Episode 3, which featured Joe and Henry getting sick with the measles, intentional commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic and the anti-vax movement?
While parallels will absolutely be drawn between You’s measles storyline and the present COVID-19 pandemic, the episode was actually written pre-pandemic. “It’s definitely interesting to have this season come out now because this conversation could be very front and center today. And that happens sometimes, if you write TV, which you’ve to put in writing a few 12 months before it comes out, where suddenly it’s incredibly relevant in ways you could not have predicted,” Gamble tells us. “We figured that story out in February 2020. So it’s before we knew that there could be a pandemic on this country. And never only that, it was many months before the conversation was even really about vaccines.”
She continues, “It is not so different, this isn’t really a recent conversation. It’s just very sharp and really heightened right away. Nevertheless it’s a conversation that could be very much ongoing on this country. And the potential for a really young child being sick is just the one scariest thing that might occur to a parent.” As for Love’s response to meeting an anti-vax parent, Gamble says, “A part of our goal was to only put Love and Joe in situations where they’d really be tested and possibly inspired to knock someone over the top and throw them in a cage.”
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Will there be a Season 4 of You?
Netflix revealed days before the season 3 premiere that a season 4 of You is a go.
And Gamble has been ready, even before the following installment was confirmed. “The method every season up to now has been that [executive producer] Greg Berlanti and I actually have a whole lot of text and phone conversations nearly what could be cool for the following thing,” she reveals. “And we have now been having them a few potential season 4 since probably before we began shooting season 3. He’s all the time so great about coming up with these huge moving pieces which might be really shocking and great. So we’re definitely armed and able to strike if we needed to do it.”
Is Joe’s move to Paris everlasting?
Joe’s move to Paris reminded us a bit of of Carrie Bradshaw’s trip to the town way back when. “I have been hearing Emily [in Paris] lots, but I like Carrie,” Gamble says. As for whether Joe has moved to France or one other country for good, Gamble explains, “I feel, yes. If we do one other season, you get to see someplace recent.”
Moving to a different continent makes a whole lot of sense for Joe. “Just speaking for myself, I actually like the thought of him being somewhere that is very different than where he’s been and where he doesn’t necessarily fully understand all the cultures which might be happening around him,” Gamble teases. “That is only a juicy position to place him in.”
And for anyone that noticed the Recent York shoutout in the ultimate moments of the finale, Gamble tells ELLE.com, “I do not know what Joe is pondering in that moment, but I do consider Recent York as his home, greater than another place and never say never, right? If we get to inform the story for long enough, possibly he’ll pop back over there in some unspecified time in the future.”
Ultimately, Joe Goldberg can have left the suburbs behind, but his time there was fun while it lasted. “The irony of it’s that they move there since it’s such a protected environment for them and their kid, but all of those aspects make it a nasty place to kill someone because persons are watching, there’s a whole lot of security, everybody’s talking to one another,” Gamble says. “So it was good since it turned up the warmth on them a bit of bit.”
Amy Mackelden is a contract author, editor, and disability activist. Her bylines include Harper’s BAZAAR, Nicki Swift, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, ELLE, The Independent, Bustle, Healthline, and HelloGiggles. She co-edited The Emma Press Anthology of Illness, and previously spent all of her money on Kylie Cosmetics.
