‘You’ finds twisted new wrinkles with Love and marriage within the suburbs

A lot of that has to do with Penn Badgley’s completely pitched portrayal of Joe Goldberg, the tech-savvy stalker whose infatuations burn brightly however seldom finish effectively. After two seasons wherein he has at all times seemed to be one step forward of the guillotine, Joe has married Love (Victoria Pedretti), directs a lot of his narration at his toddler son and speaks (at the least in his personal head) about changing into a greater man for each of them, however critically, who’d wish to watch that?
Season three begins with Joe and Love experiencing a few of the joys and most of the complications related to parenthood, earlier than a flirtatious neighbor complicates his try to show over a brand new leaf.
Something past that lands squarely within the “spoiler” zone, however suffice it to say that the ‘burbs are crammed with completely happy, smiling people who Joe regularly finds annoying or simply plain odd, and a few of them are unlikely to outlive right through this yr’s 10 episodes. In fact, the very fact there’s some critically twisted stuff happening behind the picket fences and excellent lawns would not assist issues.
One of many challenges of “You” entails dancing as much as that line in telling its story from a sociopath’s perspective with out fully toppling over it, creating conditions which can be edgy with out changing into downright distasteful. In that regard, there is a truthful quantity of dishonest in portraying the seemingly strange souls in Joe’s orbit as being screwed up sufficient that it is doable for him — and by extension, the viewers — to see justification ought to one thing unhealthy occur.
Joe’s nuclear household definitely provides to the diploma of issue, and credit score the producers with principally navigating these guardrails because the sequence stays each tense and darkly humorous. Joe may be very intelligent, however his plans have a behavior of going wildly awry, leaving us aware of his panicked inner monologues.
Maybe that is why each season past the second, frankly, looks like gravy. And whereas this go-round units the stage for extra, as Dexter found, even a good-looking sociopath ought to acknowledge the perils of staying in a single place too lengthy.
“You” Season 3 begins Oct. 15 on Netflix.