Gaming News

You Season 5 Episode 3 Recap

On Apr 24, 2025 2:49 pm, by NuclearCoffee

Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for You season 5, episode 3.

Summary

Joe’s mistakes are catching up to him in “You” season 5, episode 3, leading to a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game.
Viewers witness Joe’s evil side as he manipulates and threatens Maddie, revealing his darkest intentions.
Joe’s twisted relationships and deceptive nature intensify, setting the stage for more thrilling and action-packed episodes.

By the time viewers tune into Netflix’s You season 5, episode 3, “Imposter Syndrome,” they’re used to Joe Goldberg’s (Penn Badgley) evil game, but it’s still fun watching him try to keep his life together when it’s clearly falling apart. When You season 1 premiered on Lifetime in 2018, fans were introduced to serial killer Joe and his first love interest, Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), a college student and writer who falls for his charm. Season 2 moved onto Netflix, and over the past few years, viewers have seen Joe kill anyone who gets in his way while convincing himself he’s a good person inside.

The You season 5 trailer showed Joe in New York City once again, and the third episode complicates his plans to live a regular life with his wife Kate Lockwood (Charlotte Ritchie) and his son Henry (Frankie DeMaio).

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What Happens In You Season 5 Episode 3?

At the beginning of You season 5, episode 3, Joe tries to fix the problem he ran into at the end of the last episode: Maddie (Anna Camp) is in the cage, not Raegan. Joe lies and says he has a crush on Maddie before blackmailing her into keeping quiet. If she doesn’t say anything, he won’t spill that she and Raegan’s husband Harrison (Pete Ploszek) are having an affair. This scene works well since it proves that although Joe has been a serial killer for years, he still makes mistakes all the time, which makes fans wonder when he’s going to get caught. It was clear that You season 4 would mean big changes for Joe, and he’s in even more trouble this season.

The rest of the episode is divided between two main storylines: Kate trying to fix the fact that Raegan wants Henry expelled from school and Joe’s interest in his Mooney’s employee Bronte (Madeline Brewer) growing. In a subplot that doesn’t add a lot to the series, Bronte asks to go to an auction to buy some used romance books.

Then, Joe asks Maddie if there’s something about Raegan only she, her twin, would be aware of, and Maddie shares a dark story about being abducted on vacation when she was 15. Joe shows how evil he can be when he plans to withhold insulin from Maddie, who has diabetes, until she does what he wants. When Maddie goes through withdrawal, Joe thinks of his infamous cage:

“This place is mine. Not many people have seen the inside of me and lived.”

The next part of the episode is fascinating since it sheds more light on who Bronte is. Bronte and Joe go to a literary salon that she’s part of and he meets her ex-boyfriend Clayton (Tom Francis), who embarrasses Bronte by reading her private work. Clayton says Bronte’s real name is Louise Flannery, which is a big reveal for Joe, who thought she was going to save him from his unhappy marriage to Kate.

As the episode nears what’s sure to be a thrilling conclusion, one loose end gets tied up as Raegan says that if Kate keeps Maddie and Harrison’s affair a secret, she’ll drop the charges against Henry. Then, Joe is mad that Kate doesn’t want to kill anyone and also gets mad at Maddie, who he learns was Raegan’s surrogate. That would have been a fascinating storyline to see on the show and would have likely matched any creepy horror movie about pregnancy. With Maddie still stuck in the cage, Joe looks up Bronte online and finds out Louise is an aspiring playwright from Ohio who took care of her mom, who passed away after an illness.

How Does You Season 5 Episode 3 End?

You season 5, episode 3 ends with Joe having a vision of Bronte reading his stories. Joe decides that if he can write about a character who murders people, he’ll be able to stop in real life. Of course, viewers know that isn’t the case. He also thinks Bronte gets him more than Kate does, which is how all of his twisted relationships start.

Kate and Joe’s marriage gets even worse when Kate asks why Joe isn’t upset and he says he’s not guilty about keeping his dark side secret now. Fans thought Joe would get tired of his happy marriage, and that’s definitely happening now. He didn’t kill anyone for three years, but now he can admit the truth. When Joe tells Kate he has a “purpose” in life by keeping her and Henry safe by killing others, she rejects that idea.

Although You season 5, episode 3 is a bit slow, it ends with a shocking twist when Raegan goes live on social media and pretends to be Maddie. She says she had an affair with Raegan’s husband and gives up her board seat, which means Kate will no longer have any clout there. Joe then asks Maddie:

“How would you like to become your sister?”

As You season 5 continues, viewers will see if any older characters show up, and based on this episode’s ending, it looks like the next one will be action-packed.

You season 5 is now streaming on Netflix.

You

Release Date: 2018 – 2024
Network: Lifetime, Netflix
Showrunner: Sera Gamble, Greg Berlanti
Directors: Marcos Siega, Lee Toland Krieger, Cherie Nowlan, DeMane Davis, Kellie Cyrus, Marta Cunningham, Martha Mitchell, Victoria Mahoney, Erin Feeley
Writers: Justin W. Lo