[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 2 finale of You, "Love, Actually."]
It has been nearly two years since the second season of You premiered on Netflix on December 26, 2019. After an excruciatingly long wait, Netflix announced last week that, finally, Season 3 is almost here. With 10 brand new episodes, Season 3 of You is set to drop on October 15. It's been a long time since we last broke into a cold sweat waiting for Joe (Penn Badgley) to claim his next victim, so we've provided you with a brief recap of Season 2 and that shocking plot twist.
Body Count: 7 (and shockingly, only 3 of whom were at the hands of Joe)
October 15 is rapidly approaching, so there's no time to waste. Here is everyone who died in Season 2 of You.
Joe's Father (Flashback)
We dove deeper into Joe's past in Season 2, specifically the abusive relationship between his mother (Magda Apanowicz) and father. Joe's father physically and emotionally abused both him and his mother, while Joe's mother often neglected Joe and left him by himself while she sought the company of other men. In Season 2, we witness Joe's first murder in which he killed his father to protect his mother.
Love and Forty's Au-Pair (Flashback)
Ah, Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), the "perfectly imperfect girl" who delivered that earth-shattering plot twist. Joe's new love interest proved that her co-dependent relationship with her twin brother Forty (James Scully) knows no bounds. She reveals that when she and Forty were younger, they had an au-pair from Spain named Sofia (Brooke Johnson) who entered into a sexual relationship with Forty. Forty believed that he and Sofia were in love, but Love saw what Forty could not: Forty was a minor being sexually abused. We learn that Love slashed the au-pair's throat in a severe, violent act of protection. She figured it would be better if her parents thought Forty murdered the au-pair, so she staged it to look like Forty murdered Sofia in a blackout rage. The powerful Quinn family then played it off as a suicide.
Jasper
After Joe steals the identity of the real Will Bettelheim (Robin Lord Taylor) and locks him in his cage, he soon finds himself in a compromising position. It turns out that Will is in an enormous amount of debt to his client Jasper (Steven W. Bailey). Joe meets with Jasper in hopes to pay him off, but unfortunately for Joe, Will owes Jasper a whopping 50,000 dollars. Jasper cuts Joe's finger off and threatens to kill him if he doesn't get the money. Joe eventually brings Jasper to the cage and explains that he isn't the real Will Bettelheim. Jasper doesn't care either way if he isn't going to get his 50 grand, so he takes out his pocket knife to kill Joe, who stabs and kills him with a knife from his workbench. Later, he chops Jasper's body into pieces, shoves them in a meat grinder, and then disposes of them in the dumpster. Classic Joe, am I right?
Henderson, aka "Hendy"
Henderson (Chris D'Elia), the famous "man of the people" comedian with a secret history of child molestation, is Joe's second victim in Season 2. Joe feels it is his duty to protect Ellie (Jenna Marie Ortega), Delilah's (Carmela Zumbado) 15-year-old sister who is Hendy's intern. Joe manages to drug and tie Henderson up in his basement, and demands that Hendy confess to his crimes. After Henderson breaks out of his ropes and tries to get away, Joe chases him and throws him against a wall in an attempt to keep him from escaping, which ultimately ends up killing Hendy. Joe stages it to look like a suicide, though it isn't long before it is being investigated as a murder.
Delilah
In one of the most tragic deaths in both Seasons 1 and 2 of You, Joe finds Delilah lying dead in his cage in a pool of her own blood after Joe locked her in when she finds out his secret life as a cold-blooded murderer. Joe assumes he is the one who murdered Delilah during a hazy drug-infused night after Forty secretly slips LSD in his drink. He finds out in a shocking twist that it was in fact Love who killed Delilah. Love found the keys to Joe's cage and after finding Delilah locked up, slashed her throat in order to protect Joe.
Candace
In a shocking turn of events, after Candace (Ambyr Childers) calls Love to see what (she assumes) Joe has done to Delilah, Love slashes Candace's throat, killing her in what seems to be a signature move, one that Love justifies as doing no matter what it takes to protect those she loves. It is a tragic ending for Candace who, as we learn in Season 2, was buried alive by Joe. It turns out, it would have probably been a lot better had Candace called the cops instead of Love after she locked Joe in the cage.
Forty
In the Season 2 finale, Forty begins to piece together the truth about Joe. He already found out and accepted that Joe took on a false name, but once he discovers with certainty that Joe is a murderer, Forty races to warn Love. Of course, Forty does not know that Love already knows everything there is to know about Joe's murderous secrets, and is devising a plan with Joe to mollify Forty and convince him that his beliefs about Joe are just delusions. In a final showdown at Anavrin, Forty holds a gun to Joe's head. Joe closes his eyes and seemingly accepts his fate when Delilah's long-time hook-up LAPD officer David Fincher (Danny Vasquez) busts in and shoots Forty. After Forty dies, Fincher begins to look at Forty for Henderson's murder, a terrible and false legacy the troubled Quinn brother will now leave behind.
Season 2 Ending Explained
We should have known that there was something suspicious about Love when she actually took the time to make Joe an entire pan of cinnamon rolls with salt instead of sugar just to make a point.
In the Season 2 finale, it becomes clear that Joe really has met his match. In a shocking plot twist, it is revealed that Love murdered Delilah, Joe's neighbor and brief love interest who found out Joe's murderous history. When Joe locks Delilah in his cage, he is determined to let her out and to prove to himself that he is not the murderer he has been in the past. He knows that Delilah does not deserve to die, and more importantly to Joe, Ellie will be left alone if he kills Delilah. Like Joe shows in Season 1 with Paco, he has a soft spot when it comes to protecting children, likely due to the darkness of his own childhood.
Joe promises to Delilah that he will let her out after he makes plans to leave the city as quickly as possible. He sets a timer on the pair of handcuffs he uses on Delilah so that once he is long gone from LA, she will be freed. Unfortunately, as he is making preparations, he runs into Forty who wants his help with the script they are working on. After Forty drugs Joe in an attempt to channel their inner creative genius and finish the script for his film adaptation of Beck's (Elizabeth Lail) book, Joe can't piece together the events of the night. To his horror, he finds Delilah dead in his cage, her throat slashed. Naturally, he assumes that he is the one who murdered her.
To make matters even worse, Candace, who has found Joe and is determined to keep Joe from harming the Quinn family, finds the keys to Joe's storage unit where he keeps his cage. She manages to lock Joe in the cage along with Delilah, whom she assumes Joe killed, just as he did Beck and attempted to do to her. Candace calls Love so she can show her once and for all who Joe truly is. When Love arrives and finds Joe in the cage, she tells Candace to let him out and begs Joe to tell Candace he didn't do this. When Joe admits to his true colors, Love walks away, seemingly sickened, and vomits in a trash can. When Candace goes after her, Love turns around and in a shocking move, slashes Candace's throat with a broken bottle, instantly killing her.
She goes back to Joe and tells him that she dealt with Candace. Joe is horrified and believes he has broken her. To his utter disbelief and horror, Love tells him that she was the one who killed Delilah and that she knows all about Joe's past after her family's PI managed to dig up some information on him. Not only does she forgive Joe's actions, she defends them. According to Love, Joe was justified in his murderous actions because, like her, he was forced to do bad things while learning how to survive when they were really young. Then she drops another bombshell: she was the one who killed Forty's au-pair after she sexually abused him. She claims that she and Joe are the same. They are soulmates.
Joe is absolutely horrified. He asks Love to think about Ellie, and Love reveals she already thought out a plan for Ellie. She has framed Ellie for Henderson's death, but only so that she can lawyer her up with the Quinn family lawyer, who will make the case go away due to the lack of evidence and the fact that Ellie is a 15-year-old girl. Then, Delilah's body will be found with a suicide note, revealing Henderson's true colors and making her a feminist icon, effectively killing Ellie's case. Ellie will then walk away with settlement money that will provide for her for life. Love tells him, "While I was seeing you, really seeing you, you were busy staring at a goddamn fantasy. A perfectly imperfect girl. You saw what you wanted to see. But I was always right here, the whole time. It wasn't that hard. All you had to do was look."
Joe, stunned, speaks for all of us: "What. The. Fuck?"
Joe eventually convinces Love to let him out of the cage. When she does, he immediately tries to slash her throat with Delilah's broken cuffs. Then, Love drops one last bombshell: she is pregnant with his child. Joe, stunned by the revelation, realizes he can't kill her. He is resigned to spend his life with Love so that he can be the father he never had, even though his image of Love is completely destroyed.
Meanwhile, Forty begins to piece together Joe's past and races to warn Love. In a showdown at Anavrin, Forty desperately tries to tell Love who Joe really is and what he has really done. Love, who of course already knows, tries to talk Forty down and convince him that he is just spiraling. In a desperate attempt to stop Forty, who holds a gun to Joe's head, Love tells him that she is pregnant. Forty, however, is firm in his decision. Joe closes his eyes, accepting his fate, when Officer Fincher suddenly bursts into the cafe and shoots Forty, killing him. Love is devastated.
We then flash forward to the future, where we see Joe and Love have moved to the California suburbs. Love is much further along in her pregnancy, and Joe delivers his final monologue of the season. Joe can't wait to meet his child, although he says that he was resigned to living in a cage he built for himself. Until, that is, he realized destiny works in mysterious ways. All of the traumatic events up to this point have led him to the perfect place to meet... "you," the mysterious woman who lives on the other side of the fence.
And here we go again.
You Season 3 will premiere on Netflix on October 15.