#YOU Review: Back on the Bullsh*t

It’s safe to say that Joe is officially back on his bullshit. However, it’s not without some self-awareness.

Therapy and an unexpected hunting trip with the suburban dads on YOU Season 3 Episode 5 led to a breakthrough for Joe as he surprisingly got to the root of his mommy issues and White Knight complex.

Meanwhile, Love’s self-awareness resulted from some real talk with Dottie and Sherry and a beautiful set of scenes where she recognized she needed to let Forty go on YOU Season 3 Episode 6.

In theory, Joe’s conclusion that it’s best to put his darkness on a leash instead of fighting it so much was shockingly self-evolved and sensible.

The more he attempted to suppress his darker urges and natures, the more dangerous it became for the objects of his obsession.

But all the progress he made during that ridiculous hunting trip resulted in Joe back on his bullshit with Marienne. It’s a slippery slope, and his self-awareness only consisted of knowing that his actions were dangerous but rationalizing them.

If he could figure out why Marienne piqued his interest so much, then he could put the twinges of obsession to bed before they blossomed into his usual thing, or so he believed.

Unsurprisingly, his feelings about Love continued to fluctuate.

They reached something steady when he and Love professed that they wanted to stop seeing Chandra since they knew how to communicate, and she “fixed” them. However, it was evident that Love was unhappy with Joe, and he was annoyed that she got sucked into the Stepford housewife bit like the rest of Madre Linda.

It wasn’t that far of a stretch for Love to fall in line with the others since she was no stranger to such cliques when she was in L.A, and all Love ever wanted was to belong to something somewhere.

And it spoke volumes that it was something that both Joe and Theo pointed out to her.

Ironically, even after Joe’s breakthrough in the form of nearly killing Cary and getting rewarded for it, it wasn’t believable that he considered any of those men his friends, and they didn’t follow up with that any further.

The trip itself was wild and felt like the series’ attempt to recapture some of the magic from Joe’s last drug-addled crazy outing. Cary is still a tool whose idea of masculinity is both toxic as hell and oddly progressive, and sue me, I don’t do the woods or killing squirrels.

His return from the trip had him riding high with a renewed interest in Love reflected in their animalistic sex life and his appreciation for her as the mother of his child.

But as he slipped further into his infatuation with Marienne, his interest in her waned again.

Joe’s assessments about himself were surprisingly astute. He realized that he has a thing for broken women and this incessant need to save them.

All of the women he’s drawn to fall into a pattern, and as he stalked the hell out of Marienne, he realized that she fit it. The further he dug deep into Marienne’s life and pressed on her vulnerabilities, the more illuminating it was for him.

I see it now, this is why you. You’re a pattern. You’re a lost lamb attracted to wolves, ergo, what I feel or you is not because you’re special it’s wait for it, it’s mother issues.


Joe Voiceover

Joe went from deluding himself that stalking and learning more about her was to nip his infatuation in the bud before it spiraled to falling down that same well. By the end, all he could do was promise himself (and the Marienne of his consciousness) that it’ll be different this time and Love won’t kill this one, to which I say, bullshit, Joseph!

If Joe “loved” Marienne so much, he wouldn’t place her in jeopardy of getting killed. 

Can people like Joe ever change? If it’s a cycle that needs breaking, then he’s having a hell of a time doing it.

Witnessing Joe plot and plan, stalk, and hide out under Marinenne’s bed, dig and pry was the equivalent of watching an addict falling off the wagon. It was disturbing, and it was effective all over again.

The revelation that Marinenne’s ex, Ryan, the news guy, trumped-up accusations to keep her away from her child sucked. And it was catnip for Joe, who got to step in and play hero when Ryan sounded as though he was about to get violent.

Cary actually taught me an important lesson, Love, I can’t completely cage what’s inside of me, or when it bursts out, it comes for blood. Better to feed it just enough to keep it in check, keep it on a leash, take it for a walk, make sure it knows the rules, no keepsakes. No social media. Just watching. So now I have you, Marienne. Arms always full of books. Never leaving the library before dark. No one home to hurry home to. We’re just friends, so what is it about you? I can’t pin it down. All I know is that I’ve felt more alive watching you than I’ve felt in a very long, long time, Marienne, but you can trust me with this secret, Love. Juggling the two of you is confusing, I”ll admit, but I’m up for the challenge. You won’t find out. You can’t. I’ll be careful, so, so careful. Things will be different this time.
Joe Voiceover

Joe and Marienne’s chemistry continued to crackle amid all of this vulnerability, so by the time they got to their scorching hot and wet kiss in the library, the dread hit like a mack truck.

Marienne seems like a decent woman, and she doesn’t want to be the person who comes between Joe and what she assumes is a happy family.

But she’s also drawn to him, and he makes her feel good, and the two share things in common and are connected on such a deep level as two individuals scarred by their experiences growing up in the system.

It served as another highlight as to why Joe wants desperately for Love to be his soulmate, but he doesn’t think it works. On some level, she may be a traumatized individual whose traumas led to bloody, violent, asocial results.

However, their traumas aren’t alike either. The disparity in how they grew up and their different worlds always come between them in some way.

It almost makes Joe’s connection with Marienne scarier. His infatuation isn’t built on presumptions of how she is and imagined connections and similarities between them but actual ones, myopic as it may be.

The flashbacks to his past show how Joe is drawn to wounded birds, and Nurse Fiona was a prime example. She was kind to him and doled out the attention that he wished his mother could have.

She, too, understood his urges to fight back against his bully since she was dealing with one of her own.

He gets mad at you and he hurts you. He says he’s sorry it will never happen again, and he gives you flowers, right? There are a lot of bad men out there, but sometimes you can’t tell until it’s too late.


Young Joe

It was sad that he could call out exactly what was happening to her when he saw her boyfriend. And she pushed him away because of it.

Jack Fisher is doing such an incredible job as Young Joe, as all these pieces about Joe click into place. Each flashback is illuminating in showcasing how this man came to be.

Meanwhile, Love’s storyline took a predictable and cliche route. Her affair with Theo is contrived. It would’ve been equally as effective if it stayed within the confines of platonic.

She still has an attachment to him that stems from her need to take care of other people, fix them, have them idolize her for her ability to tend to their needs.

She’s gravitating to Theo because of how much he reminds her of Forty, which makes the sexual component of their relationship Freudian AF.

At this point of the season, it hits you that Love never had enough time to grieve Forty. He was her soulmate — the person whom she spent her entire life.

She barreled right into motherhood after Forty’s death, and all of this pesky killing business and trying to cover their tracks distracted her from her grief.

Ironically, Sherry came through with some wise advice on how Love can take measures toward finding happiness. It was one of the only times when their friendship felt genuine and fruitful.

And while Dottie screwed Love and Forty up and has a set of issues all her own, her brutally blunt observations about Love are spot-on.

Love missed Henry’s first steps because she was having sex with Theo, a teenager who she seems to connect with on this deeper level, but who also serves as her Forty substitute. 

And Dottie was smart enough to see all of that for what it was. 

Dottie’s statements about how Love was never happy no matter what didn’t stand out nearly as much as when she stated that Love couldn’t appreciate the sacrifices and things she made for her children to have that better life.

Love: All you ever showed me was to get the prince, build the castle, and then burn it all to the fucking ground.

Dottie: Says the princess who was given all the mattresses in the world to sleep on and still complains she can feel the pea. I gave you the world, you little bitch! And you have no idea what I had to do to give it to you. Your coice to fuck the neighbor boy and blow up your life has nothing to do with me and everyhting to do with you being spoiled and bored. I’ll take the blame for spoiling you, but you want the source for your unhappiness, look in the mirror instead of spouting your own unhappiness.

It was an enlightening statement about Dottie that made you want to know more about her history. It implies that she didn’t come from means. And she had no patience for a well-off, spoiled Love who searched for reasons to be unhappy.

Love’s pregnancy scare bore no fruit, and other than the awkwardness of her mother announcing it, nothing else came from it. We didn’t see her immediate reaction to learning she wasn’t having a baby and didn’t have to worry about if it was Joe’s or Theo’s.

The scenes with Forty were among the best for her this season. The switch to Love’s voiceovers was a welcome treat to better insight into where she was at the time.

James Scully reprising the role, even briefly, was nice. It was a gratifying moment in Love’s development that she got to talk to her brother after weeks of texting him and confide in her person, and Scully and Pedretti were amazing together. Pedretti continues to excel this season.

Love: I am so sorry.

Forty: Don’t be sorry for surviving. You are the strong one and you always knew it would turn out this way, that’s why you held me so tight.

It’s an interesting thing to explore for a character like Love. What happens when the person of whom you’ve spent your entire life in a codependent relationship with abruptly dies and you’re alone?

Love realized that she had to let Forty go, stop clinging to their relationship, and live in the present with Joe and Henry. She has to stop self-sabotaging herself, too.

It’s a shame that her moment of recommitting to Joe and Henry comes at a time when Joe’s attentions are elsewhere. They rarely seem to align in the ways that matter. Love never sees that for what it is, and you feel for her.

She’s still in this weird place with Theo, and you can’t tell if she’s genuine in wanting to stop whatever they have and only exploit it, or if it’s a way of having her cake and eating it too.

Dear, Forty, you’ve been my best friend since before we were born, my other half, but I can’t keep holding back because I miss you. I can’t raise a family with a broken heart. I have to choose Joe now. I’ll always love you, but I have to say goodbye. For real this time, as much as it hurts. goodbye, you.


Love Voiceover

So much of this storyline with Theo comes with mixed results, even with their attempts to turn the bored houswife having sex with a teen angle on its head.

The emotional beats for Love are great, but an affair with a teen is such a contrived way of getting to them. It would’ve been cpmpelling albeit twisted if she embarked on one with Matthew instead while he investigated her.

Love and Theo’s connection is rooted in grief, pain, loneliness, and longing. It’s been killing him that he doesn’t have any family who pays him attention, so he clings to Love because of the fact that she does.

Matthew is deep into investigating Natalie’s death. Matthew doesn’t accept the story and has a private investigator played by Marcia Cross looking into all of Madre Linda, with Joe and Love topping the list.

All Theo wants is Matthew’s attention, but it always seems like a lost cause.

I’ve never felt more clearheaded but I don’t need time to figure out what to do about Love. I won’t let her hurt you, Marienne, I’ll never let anyone hurt you. I have to stay ahead of her this time.


Joe Voiceover

Matthew isn’t a bad guy, and he seems aware of his flaws as a father, but he’s also stuck in this loop where he doesn’t know how to change it.

He’s inaccessible beyond words, and you hate to see him spiraling like this, even though he hides it well.

Love playing Theo is their best bet at staying ahead of Matthew and aware of what he’s doing, but their suburban bubble is about to burst if this keeps up.

Over to you, YOU Fanatics.

How are you feeling about Joe and Love’s journey toward self-awareness? What are your thoughts on Matthew?

Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.