What a wild ride You has gone on. I’ve come to terms with the fact that the show is not going to follow Caroline Kepnes’ books to the T, so I was able to enjoy this ride a little more. With that being said, I felt like this season did honor Kepnes’ latest novel a lot better than I was expecting.
We fast forward a little bit in time to Madre Linda, California, where Joe and Love now live with their child Henry. Unfortunately, Henry was also named Forty, so that’s something Joe has to live with forever. Especially since Love and her mother keep referring to him as Forty constantly. Joe is trying most of the season to be a good person and the kind of father that Henry can look up to. However, Joe is Joe and that means it’s not long before he starts obsessing over their neighbor, Natalie. While Natalie seems down for a fling, Joe does actually stop it before it starts.
This doesn’t stop Love from killing Natalie in a fit of jealous rage. That means that Joe and Love connect a little more in trying to get rid of Natalie’s body. But when Love also kills local “good dad,” Gil, for giving her son measles because he and his wife were too stupid to vaccinate their children, Joe starts to resent Love for continuously putting him in these situations. I will say, Love has quite the body count this season, but that doesn’t suddenly make Joe redeemable. It’s just sort of adds someone to his playing field.
While both Love and Joe have practice in covering up crimes, they don’t count on Natalie’s husband Matthew to be so distraught and determined to find her real killer. Joe certainly doesn’t suspect that Love starts something with Matthew’s college aged stepson, Theo. Nor does Love suspect that Joe is starting his obsession with his boss at the library, Marianne. Once Marianne starts becoming a more centralized part of the story is it more obvious that this is where Kepnes’ third novel comes into play. It’s not verbatim, but it’s pretty darn close. She’s got a daughter and is trying to fight for custody from her jerk ex-husband. Both used to be former addicts, but Ryan got the upper hand quicker than Marianne. Joe’s hands don’t end up completely clean by the end of the season.
So much happens in the last episode that it almost made my head spin. Ultimately Joe’s untrustworthiness of Love is what saves him in the end, and is her demise. Joe is finally rid of Love, which is really what he’s been trying to do since the end of the second season. His decision to give Henry up is tragic, but logical, and it should come as no surprise that he’s on the hunt for Marianne. More people end up alive than I would have expected and even though Joe faked his own death, I can’t help but think his pardons will come back to haunt him in future seasons.
Perhaps the most fun surprise came in the form of two characters that never existed in the novels, Sherry and Cary. As husband and wife in Joe and Love’s neighborhood, these two are ridiculous and rather annoying, but they provided a lot of humor this season. Late in the season there is an episode about swinging that was both tense and hysterical. Overall, it was a wild season, but very good. I’ll be interested to see what the next season will bring and also if we’ll get another novel from Kepnes.