Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) fall in love in season 2 of You, and their relationship spans two dark and intense seasons of the Netflix show. Joe meets Love when he moves to Los Angeles from New York City in the hopes of starting a new life. Love is Joe's third obsession after Candace Stone (Ambyr Childers) and Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), and he continues his pattern of stalking, seducing, and caging the people whom he thinks have gotten in the way of his happiness. Joe approaches love interests by spying on them before flirting and trying to seem sweet, innocent, and harmless.
Joe and Love are no longer together in the show since he brutally killed her in the season 3 finale, and season 4 of You sees him living in Paris under another new identity, hoping to find Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle). Joe's relationship with Love spanned You seasons 2 and 3. He will always be haunted by what he experienced with Love as she surprised him, and he realized that they had more in common than he originally thought. The couple had a shocking romance filled with passion, violence, and shifting power dynamics. Below is a timeline of Joe and Love's toxic and controlling relationship on the show You.
Season 2, Episode 1, "A Fresh Start" - Joe Meets Love At Anavrin
"A Fresh Start" sees Joe hoping that he can stop committing murder and be a "nice guy" for once. At the beginning of season 2 of You, Joe moves to Los Angeles and calls himself Will. He realizes he can't stop who he is when he meets Love at a fancy organic grocery store called Anavrin. Joe begins working at the store, rents a place close to Love, and has a game plan, but he is desperate and hopeless. It's compelling to look back on this episode as Love is hiding that she's just as dark as Joe and has some secrets of her own. They're the perfect, terrible match.
Season 2, Episodes 2-4 - Joe And Love Are Friends And Then Start A Relationship
Joe doesn't date Love right away, as they start a friendship in the You season 2 episode "Just The Tip." It's fascinating that Joe thinks that he can stay away from Love and that he can stop his base instincts since it's clear by this point in the story that he'll always be himself. Joe kills again on You, this time murdering the abusive comedian Henderson (Chris D'Elia). Joe and Love start dating, and he begins to see the cracks in her seemingly flawless world, including her obsession with her twin brother, Forty (James Scully). Joe and Love both keep things hidden from each other, upping the tension.
Season 2, Episode 5 "Have a Good Wellkend, Joe!" - Joe Learns About Love's Difficult Family Life And Their Relationship Is Complicated By Candace
The You season 2 episode "Have A Good Wellkend, Joe!" is a smart take on wellness culture and also the beginning of Joe and Love's toxic, heartbreaking journey. Candace appears, which is a big twist since it seemed like Joe killed her the same way he did Beck. Joe realizes that Candace has taken control and is now stalking him, ready to reveal his true nature. The You season 2 characters are complex, and this episode is a turning point. Joe learns Love's parents ignore her, and she feels guilty that Forty's au pair assaulted him when they were young. Joe sees Forty as an obstacle to truly winning Love.
Season 2, Episodes 6-8 - Love Breaks Up With Joe, Who Spirals
The next three episodes almost end Love and Joe's relationship, with her not trusting him anymore as Candace shares the dark and destructive story of him and Beck. After Love breaks up with Joe, he is lost and terrified of being alone, which is his biggest fear and what powers all of his decisions. In You season 2, episode 7, "Ex-istential Crisis," Joe traps his neighbor Delilah Alves (Carmela Zumbado) in his storage unit, proving that he will always need a cage for some sort of safety net. At this point in the show, Joe's need for control is most obvious, and it's easy to imagine things getting worse.
Season 2, Episodes 8-10 - Love Tells Joe She Wants To Be With Him And Joe Discovers Her Dark Nature, Then Love Gets Pregnant
In You's shocking season 2 twist, Love reveals herself to be a killer just like Joe. She's even more hopeless, miserable and violent than he is, which makes him wonder what their future will look like. These three episodes are significant and change this relationship, with Love becoming the more powerful one. In episode 9, "P.I. Joe," Love kills Candace, and in the season 2 finale, "Love, Actually," she shares that she killed Delilah and the au pair who hurt Forty. Joe is terrified and realizes his mistake. The season 2 finale is well-crafted and shares the next step: Love is pregnant, and Joe is stuck.
Season 3, Episode 1 - "And They Lived Happily Ever After" - Love And Joe Are Parents To Baby Henry And Struggling In Their Relationship
At the start of season 3, Joe is a father, to son Henry, and having a hard time being married to Love. In stark contrast to their free-spirited Los Angeles lives in the previous season, Joe and Love live in suburbia and don't fit in with their perfect, wealthy neighbors. Neither is sure that they will stick this out, which shows how insecure they both are and how their relationship has never been on steady ground. Can they pretend to live regular lives? Or will their base instincts take over, creating more destruction and harming the people around them? "And They Lived Happily Ever After" is a complicated, dramatic episode.
Season 3, Episode 2 - "So I Married An Axe Murderer" - Love And Joe Hide A Cage Under Her Bakery A Fresh Tart
Love opens up a bakery in You season 3 and gives it a clever name that spells disaster. Life will never be easy for this couple as long as they keep killing people. Love shows Joe she will do anything to keep him by killing their neighbor Natalie Engler (Michaela McManus). In an echo of the cage under the bookstore in season 1 where Joe traps and kills Beck, he and Love build a cage and put it under the bakery. This is a significant moment as they believe that they can keep their darker instincts separate from their family life, but it's clear this won't work for long.
Season 3, Episodes 3-5 - Joe And Love Go To Therapy, Struggle Not To Kill Anyone, And Crush On Theo And Marienne
In the next few episodes in season 3, Joe and Love attempt to fix their marriage by talking to a therapist who helps them pay more attention to each other's needs. The You season 3 ending is even more meaningful and tragic given the fact that Joe does care about Love. These scenes are humorous and upsetting at the same time since the therapist has no idea about the murders that they have committed. While the couple says that they want to have a healthy connection, Love is drawn to the younger Theo (Dylan Arnold), and Joe falls quickly for Marienne while at the town library.
Season 3, Episodes 6-7 - Joe Has Strong Feelings For Marienne And Cheats On Love
In episodes 6 and 7, Joe is unfaithful to Love and explores his connection with Marienne. His cheating feels worse this time around because he's a husband and father, and this storyline drives home the careless way that he treats the people in his life. Joe is unlikable in You season 3, but he is also a deeply layered character who looks for love because he has always felt lonely, and his mother's abandonment has scarred him for life. However, while Joe is given enough backstory to explain why he acts the way that he does, it's still tough to sympathize given the harm that he causes everyone around him.
Season 3, Episodes 8-9 - Joe And Love Are Intimate With Sherry And Cary And Become Closer While Love Becomes More Dangerous
The You season 3 characters Sherry and Cary Conrad (Shalita Grant and Travis Van Winkle, respectively) bring humor to a tense situation, with their beliefs about eating clean, the keto diet, and gender roles. Episodes 8 and 9 begin the path to Love's You death as Joe and Love attempt to sleep with the couple. Sherry and Cary brilliantly figure out they're in danger, but they end up in the cage under the bakery in a predictable yet still stunning twist. Joe and Love's romance spins out of control as Joe realizes that he can't reason with Love or convince her to stop hurting people and live a normal life.
Season 3, Episodes 10 - "What Is Love?" - Joe And Love's Relationship Falls Apart As Joe Turns The Tables On Love, Kills Her, And Escapes To Paris
Love is ready to murder Joe for his affair, but instead, Joe poisons her, writes a note so that people think they died together, and gives Henry to his colleague Dante Ferguson (Ben Mehl). The ending of You season 3 is memorable, disturbing, and inevitable. Joe and Love's story couldn't wrap up any other way, as they are both too scared of being alone and used to playing games with each other. Joe runs away to Paris, and it seems that he will start the cycle all over again with a new name and perhaps a new obsession, although he seems to be looking for Marienne.
What's Happened Next In Terms Of Joe & Love's Romance After Season 3?
The conclusion of You season 3 spells the end of Joe and Love's relationship after he murders her. While they can never be together again, it's easy to imagine Love haunting Joe for the rest of his life. He has to live with what he did to her, plus the fact that he gave up their baby when all he wanted was to be a good, supportive and caring father. Joe is definitely in a worse emotional place than ever before. Season 4 of You will see Joe trying to find love again while possibly finding his way back to Henry, and he will never forget his time with Love.
You returns for season 4 on Netflix on February 9, 2023.