- Fans of Netflix's You have been sharing their twisted theory about how Love Quinn's ex-husband James died, and it's a lot.
- The second series of the hit show, which stars Penn Badgley as a serial killer in Los Angeles, dropped on Boxing Day 2019, and of course we've all binge-watched it already.
*Spoilers*
Was it even Boxing Day 2019 if you didn't watch 10 hours of Netflix's You? The second series of the show, based on Caroline Kepnes's novel Hidden Bodies, was the belated Christmas present we deserved, and it's all we've talked about since.
From the differences between the TV show and the book to the hidden connection between Joe and Beck that you might've missed, it's fair to say fans have done a lot of theorising about the second series.
And the latest fan theory to get the internet talking centres around Love Quinn (played by Victoria Pedretti) and her ex-husband James (Daniel Durant). Or more specifically, how he died.
Netflix
In You, Love tells Joe her husband had died several years prior of an illness, though we never find out specifically of what. In a flashback, Love relives the heartbreaking moment James told her he was ill and does not have long left to live, with James adding that he had known about the illness for a while before telling his wife.
Fast forward to episode nine, when viewers witness Love killing Delilah, and many have been left questioning how Love's ex-husband actually died. There's been speculation about whether there was actually more to the story than she originally revealed - especially because a previous flashback had revealed James didn't want to start a family when Love did.
Netflix
After all, we also find out she was guilty of killing Sophia the babysitter prior to Delilah - could James have been a victim too?
"We all agree Love poisoned and killed her first husband because he wouldn't give a baby right. .. #YouSeasonTwo," one person wrote on Twitter, while another added, "Love poisoned her husband didn't she? She said 'he got sick and they couldn't figure out what was wrong' so I'm guessing she killed him?"
A third said, "Am I the only one who thinks she has killed her husband??? Idk I feel like Love and Joe are the same person."
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Woah. This is traumatic.
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Before Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) started dating Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), she was married to her first husband, James (Daniel Durant). She revealed to Joe that he died “unexpectedly.” After Love’s violent pass was exposed, many You fans began to question the circumstances surrounding James’ death.
[Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers from You Season 2]
Love’s husband died from an unknown illness
RELATED: Joe and Love’s Baby Name on Netflix’s ‘You’ Holds a ‘Gossip Girl’ Connection (No, It’s Not Penn Badgley)
After showing Joe the best food spots in LA, Love opened up about her personal life. Love tells Joe that she’s a widow and that her husband’s name was James. She explained that her husband had an “unknown illness.”
In a series of flashbacks, Love’s relationship dynamic with James is revealed – when she proposes the idea of having children, he is against it at first. He argues that they can’t financially support a child. Being that Love comes from a wealthy family, she suggests they borrow money from her parents. But, James rejects the idea, saying that this is something they both decided against. Soon after, he died unexpectedly, and they never had children.
‘You’ fans speculated that Love poisoned James
RELATED: ‘You’: Forty Possibly Hinted That Love Quinn Was Hiding Another Major Secret Fans Could See in Season 3
In a Reddit post, a user posted a fan-made video that addresses James’ death. The video suggests that Love killed her husband.
James’ objection to children deeply upset Love, and she alluded to this with Joe. After Sohpia’s death, Love wanted to have a “perfect family.” So, when James shattered her plans for a family, Love murdered him.
The theory suggests that Love killed James with poison. Given that she is a skilled baker, the user alluded to the possibility of Love poisoning James through food. The user suggests that Love found a method to poison James without being detected – this would explain how he died unexpectedly, and no one knew the cause.
In addition, the user referenced this line in the video: “In one of the earlier episodes, Love says she did a terrible thing, she ‘put some of her husband’s things in a box and threw them away.’ I think this may refer to her murdering James and maybe getting rid of him.” This argument suggests that Love murdered her husband and disposed of the body.
When is ‘You’ Season 3 returning to Netflix?
In You Season 3, Joe moves to the suburbs with his newborn son Henry and his wife, Love. Joe wants to start a new life. However, when a new neighbor moves in next door, Joe’s obsessive tendencies threaten to resurface. Alongside Penn Badgley, Victoria Pedretti, and Saffron Burrows will return for season 3.
The new cast members include Michaela McManus, Tati Gabrielle, Shalita Grant, Chris O’Shea, Ben Mehl, Dylan Arnold, and more. Also, showrunner Sera Gamble and creator Greg Berlanti will return as executive producers for season 3. Secondly, Michael Foley, Leslie Morgenstein, Gina Girolamo, and Sarah Schechter will join the new season.
You Season 3 premieres on Netflix on Oct. 15.
You season 3 spoilers ahead.
During the You season 2 finale, we learned that Joe Goldberg had unintentionally met his murderous match in Love Quinn. It turns out the chef is just as dangerous as Joe, willing to get some blood on her hands if it means being closer to him.
Now in season 3, we've gotten to see two serial killers make a go at life in suburbia, married and raising a son while attempting to live a normal life. But knowing our main antagonists, with new tempting, beautiful neighbors abound, we shouldn't have been surprised that they couldn't even make it to the end of episode 1 before blood was shed.
First to fall victim to their lethal urges? Love.
"Each of them believes very strongly that they're doing the right thing," executive producer and showrunner, Sera Gamble, tells Oprah Daily. "They have justified their behavior. I think what's interesting is to put them in a marriage and then hear what the other person thinks, right? Like Love. I don't think she loses a lot of sleep at night over what she's done because protecting her family is her reason for being alive. But I do think it affects her quite a bit when Joe says she's being impulsive."
Unfortunately for the residents of Madre Linda, Love found it extremely difficult to control her impulses this season. By the finale, she'd added a few more poor souls to her kill count, with a handful of others barely coming out unscathed.
In the end, two murderers in a marriage was one too many, and Joe had to get rid of his dangerous wife for good before she could take care of him. Below, a look at just how much damage Love Quinn inflicted before she met her own demise.
"Ultimately, the story between Love and Joe is either they're a team and they're helping each other, or they are nemeses," Gamble says. "And we frankly want to have our cake and eat it too. But we knew that, ultimately, this marriage wasn't built to last."
Season 2
#1: Love and Forty's childhood nanny
Earlier in the series, it was revealed that an adolescent Forty was abused by and slept with his and Love's much older nanny. We're then led to believe that after their relationship was discovered and stopped by his family, Forty killed the woman in a crime of passion, with the Quinns covering it up. However, in the season 2 finale, Love revealed that she actually slashed the nanny's throat, as she was unsatisfied with how her parents handled the situation. (Because murder is a more reasonable solution, apparently.)
#2: Delilah
As we learn that Love has an extremely violent past of her own, she confesses to Joe that after discovering Delilah trapped in his trusty cage at the storage facility, she took the young writer's life in an attempt to protect Joe's secrets.
#3: Candace
Love strikes...again! Before any of us knew that the bubbly chef was a murderer, Candace called her to Joe's storage facility so she could see him trapped in a cage with Delilah's corpse. And though you'd think seeing her boyfriend with a dead body would make Love runaway, it instead prompted Love to kill Candace, who also knew too much about Joe.
Season 3
#1: Natalie
Unfortunately for Natalie, she doesn't even survive to make an appearance in episode 2. After Love discovers that their new neighbor is the latest object of Joe's psychotic obsessive tendencies, she lures the unsuspecting realtor into the basement of a potential storefront for Love's bakery. It's here that in a fit of jealous rage, Love kills Natalie with an axe. Moments after the murder, she tearfully calls Joe and says, "I think we need to go to couples' therapy." Yeah...we can think of a couple other places they should go first.
#2: Gil
Okay, this one is a little bit complicated. Because as we all come to know, unfortunately, Gil committed suicide. However, both Love and Joe's actions had a large impact on his decision to take his own life. But let's start at the beginning.
Where did Gil go wrong to earn the ire of Love? Well, due to his family's anti-vax stances, their unvaccinated children passed on measles to baby Henry, who had to be hospitalized after contracting the disease. When Gil visits Love at her bakery to explain this to her, brushing off the danger his family put her son in, Love angrily whacks Gil in the head with a rolling pin.
Cut Gil being alive but trapped in Love and Joe's plexiglass cage in the basement of the bakery. The murderous pair now have a problem: They don't want to kill Gil, but can't risk him revealing to Madre Linda that they're both...unhinged. In efforts to blackmail Gil into secrecy upon his release, the pair discover that Gil's son has mysteriously relocated colleges twice to cover up instances in which he sexually assaulted women on campus. But while Gil was involved in the first cover up, his wife left him in the dark about the second. In the midst of despair after learning of his failures as a parent, Gil hangs himself while in the infamous cage. But this tragedy gives Joe and Love the perfect scapegoat for Natalie's murder.
#3: James
In the finale, a fan theory from season 2 is confirmed: she did in fact kill her first husband James. But in a twist, Love says that the murder was an accident. While poisoning Joe at their dinner table, she tells him that after James recovered from his (still unnamed) illness, he wanted to leave her. In order to prevent that, she tried to temporarily paralyze him with aconite—aka, wolfsbane. "I took care of him," she said. "Doesn't it seem reasonable to think he'd want to be with me when he got better? That was my first time using it, and the dosage was too high when ingested. I just wanted to stop him; keep him in one place long enough until we could talk it through." She then proceeded to use the same poison on Joe... but we all know how that ended.
The ones that—thankfully—got away.
#1 and #2: Sherry and Cary
An intended night of passion between Sherry, Cary, Love, and Joe quickly turned sour when the former overheard Love and Joe talking about killing Natalie. The pair attempted to outsmart and escape the home of the lethal couple, but Love and Joe overtook them, trapping them in the infamous glass prison.
Stuck alone together with a gun, Sherry and Cary sustained two gunshot wounds between the both of them—and very nearly broke up—but managed to come together, find a hidden key, and escape. And thanks to Love being dead and Joe skipping town for Paris, they now have the title of sole survivors of the plexiglass cage.
#3: Theo
When Theo discovers the Conrads in the basement of the bakery, on his was to free them (unfortunately for him) he runs into Love. He knows too much, so Love bashes him over the head with a fire extinguisher, and he tumbles down the stairs. She leaves him for dead, with Joe returning the next morning to get rid of the body—only to discover that Theo is still alive. In a rare show of mercy, Joe takes pity on Theo and drops him off at a nearby hospital, saving his life.
#4: Marienne
With Joe paralyzed on their dining room floor, Love invites Marienne to their home under false pretenses, intending to kill Joe's latest "You" right in front of him. But as a vengeful Love hides a knife behind her back, the charismatic Marienne unknowingly wins Love over, bringing her daughter and breaking out into a speech about loving yourself and having no need for a man to be happy. Love takes mercy on her, telling her Joe killed her ex and sending the librarian off with a warning to leave town ASAP.
#5: Joe
Okay, we're not so thankful this guy got away. But if there's anyone who can outsmart Love, it's him. Leaving him temporarily paralyzed, Love took full advantage of her husband's comatose state. Fueled by Marienne's words of independence, she was just seconds away from slashing Joe's throat—until he regained mobility and lethally poisoned her right back. It turned out he'd figured out his wife's plan and taken an aconite antidote just hours before. Check mate. (We say grudgingly).
McKenzie Jean-PhilippeEditorial Assistant
McKenzie Jean-Philippe is the editorial assistant at OprahMag.com covering pop culture, TV, movies, celebrity, and lifestyle. She loves a great Oprah viral moment and all things Netflix—but come summertime, Big Brother has her heart. On a day off you'll find her curled up with a new juicy romance novel.
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