‘You’: Joe and Love’s Therapist Uncovers Their Biggest Fear
On season 3 of You, Netflix viewers got to see Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) in uncharted territory. They went to couples therapy. Of course, they couldn’t tell their therapist Chandra (Ayalet Zurer) the real source of their friction. Even though her patients didn’t confess to murder, Chandra had a breakthrough with them.
[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for season 3 of You on Netflix.]
Joe Goldberg and Love Quinn express their feelings on ‘You’
To Chandra, Joe and Love seem like her average clients. Love says she caught Joe cheating. What she meant was she found Joe’s box of Natalie (Michaela McManus) mementos which is worse than adultery. Love walks it back though and says, “I caught him about to cheat. It’s the same thing.”
Joe, of course, is reacting to Love murdering Natalie. A therapist would agree that’s a disproportionate reaction, if she knew the truth. But, the closest normal thing Joe can compare it to is saying Love broke a vase. “Sometimes I get passionate,” Love says.
Chandra digs deeper with Joe about fatherhood. Only the You audience gets to hear Joe’s real thoughts, “An existential tangle of dread and failure. Oh, and also murder.” Love complains that Joe seems checked out, that he’s just going through the motions.
Joe Goldberg’s couples therapy breakthrough on ‘You’
First off, Chandra reassures Joe and Love that their feelings of violence are normal. They’re actually far past normal, but Chandra doesn’t know the truth.
“50% of my married clients want to kill each other,” Chandra said. “It’s normal and here’s the better news. Neither one of you is going to kill your spouse. You are many things but you are not murderers. The intensity here is a very good sign. You’re not fighting to be right, you’re fighting for your lives. Deeper, right? Joe, can you think of any times where you felt as violent as you did towards Love in your fight?”
Joe claims he’s not a violent person and doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Chandra gets at the feeling under his rage. Joe admits it’s fear.
“If someone sees me, if someone sees the real me, they’ll go away for good,” Joe says.
Love Quinn’s couples therapy breakthrough
Turning the question on Love, Love admits she flies into rage when she feels protective. She’s fighting to protect her family. Love says family must love her unconditionally, “Because if anyone saw how ugly I can be…” Joe finishes the sentence, “They’ll go away for good.” That’s the breakthrough Chandra was looking for.
“Fair to say one of the things you have in common is fear of abandonment so deep it downright feels kill or be killed, metaphorically speaking,” Chandra said. “When our patterns line up like this it’s very hard to see the other person because it’s dangerously close to looking in a mirror.”
How’d couples therapy go for Joe Goldberg and Love Quinn?
At the end of the session, Joe and Love agree to work on it. If you’ve watched to the end of You on Netflix, you’ll see therapy wasn’t enough. In fact, some of the extremes Chandra dismissed came to pass.
Love got Joe into more trouble attacking other neighbors. Ultimately, Joe had to kill Love, in self-defense because she poisoned him. Fortunately he predicted her poison and pregamed with the antidote. Joe also faked his own death even though it meant leaving Henry with other patients.
Nice try, Chandra. We’ll leave you with one other couples therapy insight when Love refers to them as “we” instead of asserting she’s expressing how she feels..
“The we is codependence masquerading as love,” Chandra said. “If you don’t know how to communicate healthily it’s because it was never modeled for you. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think this fight has anything to do with Joe’s so-called cheating.”
