You Fans Lose Their Minds Over Shocking Character Return
You's Love Quinn will somehow return from the dead for You season 4, part 2.
Netflix just dropped a trailer for the second part of You season 4, and Love is in the air, literally. The fan-favorite love interest/antagonist of You seasons 2 and 3, Love Quinn, shows up at the end of the trailer sitting in Joe’s combination library/torture chamber. Fans may remember that Love apparently burned to death at the end of season 3, begging the question, what is she doing back?
The return of You star Victoria Pedretti was a welcome surprise at the end of the new trailer. Love Quinn showing up to further complicate what has already been a fairly complicated season is a delicious proposition. But is the character a dream, a hallucination, or somehow miraculously alive?
We know from previous seasons that Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg is no stranger to hallucinations. In season 2, Joe had hallucinations of ex-girlfriend Candance whom he believed to be dead. Could You be hitting the audience with some deja vu by having the serial killer have similar visions of Love Quinn?
It’s certainly possible, especially given Joe’s new taste for Absinthe. The famously hallucinogenic spirit could be playing with Joe’s already fragile mind and causing him to imagine that Love Quinn is back. Of course, it could always be a combination of hallucinations and reality.
If the creators of You were really determined to repeat earlier story beats, they would have Goldberg hallucinate a believed to be dead Love Quinn only to really bring her back a few episodes later like they did previously with Candace, another ex he believed he murdered. If something can happen once, it can always happen again. On the other hand, a burning house wouldn’t be the craziest thing a television character has survived.
It’s a trope as old as narrative fiction itself to have a character “die” in a situation that practically screams certain death, only to have the same character pop up later alive, either to the other character’s relief or their detriment. If that’s the case with You, then the real question is, will the return of Love Quinn be more like Gandalf in Lord of the Rings or Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars?
The laziest way to revive the character would be a dream sequence, something so cliche that it should be outlawed in 2023. Unfortunately, it’s not, and we shouldn’t put it past any show, even You, to lazily set up a scene where Love Quinn returns and has a meaningful interaction with the father of her child only to have Joe wake up in bed covered in sweat.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter why Victoria Pedretti is back. Fans are lucky to have such a beloved character return to You no matter the reason. Love Quinn was one of the best parts of the show, a perfect yin to Joe’s yang. Having her and Joe back together is awesome, even if it is a hallucination or dream.
You Season 4 Part 2 drops on Netflix on March 9th. Part 1 is available to stream right now.
