You Love Me

The third installment in the You series follows Joe Goldberg, a charming, well-read serial killer who narrates in the first person, addressing the woman he pursues as "you." Having been exonerated of past murders, Joe was coerced at gunpoint by his ex-girlfriend Love Quinn's wealthy family into signing away parental rights to his infant son, Forty, in exchange for four million dollars and a house on Bainbridge Island in the Pacific Northwest. He anonymously donated $100,000 to the local library to secure a volunteer position there, determined to reinvent himself as a good person.

On his first day, Joe meets Mary Kay DiMarco, the library's branch manager. They bond instantly over books and pop culture. Mary Kay has a teenage daughter, Nomi, a high school senior obsessed with the book Columbine and the Columbine shooters. Joe notes that Mary Kay wears no wedding ring and that her Instagram suggests she is a single mother. He resolves to win her over without resorting to his past patterns of stalking and violence.

Joe and Mary Kay develop a routine of eating lunch together in the library's Japanese garden. Joe earns a promotion to Fiction Specialist. Mary Kay texts Joe one evening and accidentally writes "I love you" before correcting it as a typo, which Joe takes as confirmation of her feelings. He meets her close friends: Melanda, a hostile English teacher, and Seamus Cooley, who inherited a hardware store and is competitive and dismissive. After Mary Kay's book club one night, Joe persuades her to have a drink at a pub. On this first real date, she opens up about her parents' divorce and her complicated upbringing. In the pub bathroom, Mary Kay pulls Joe in for a passionate kiss but abruptly breaks away and leaves. The next day she tells Joe they cannot be together because of Nomi and insists they remain friends.

Joe begins running on trails near Mary Kay's house and overhearing her conversations. Nomi encounters him on the trail and mentions the family's plans for a Saturday ferry trip to Seattle. Joe boards the same ferry and discovers Mary Kay has been hiding a husband: Phil DiMarco, the lead singer of a 1990s band called Sacriphil. Joe researches Phil obsessively, learning he hosts a late-night radio show, is in recovery from heroin addiction, and lives off dwindling royalties. Joe drives to Phil's studio with knives, intending to kill him, but after overhearing Mary Kay tell Phil she loves him on the phone, Joe relents. Separately, a man Joe dubs the "Strawberry Killer" confronts him on the street, warning him to stop watching Love Quinn's Instagram stories, revealing that the Quinn family is actively surveilling Joe.

Joe attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings under the alias "Jay," posing as a fan of Sacriphil to befriend Phil. He encourages Phil to prioritize his music career over his family, hoping to drive a wedge in the marriage.

One night, Melanda catches Joe hiding near Mary Kay's house with binoculars and attacks him. Joe overpowers her, hits her with a rock, and locks her in his soundproof basement, which he calls the Whisper Room. He takes her phone and begins impersonating her in texts to Mary Kay, fabricating a story that Melanda has moved to Minneapolis. In captivity, Melanda reveals she and Phil have been having a sexual affair for 10 years. Meanwhile, Mary Kay tells Joe the truth about Phil at a bar, and Joe pretends to have only recently learned about the marriage. Later, Mary Kay comes to Joe's house, and they share a sexual encounter. Joe goes downstairs afterward and discovers Melanda has died by suicide using broken pieces of the television, leaving the words "Single White Female" written in blood on the wall.

Joe dumps Melanda's body at Fort Ward, a park with old military bunkers. The Strawberry Killer follows him and photographs the burial, then reveals himself as Oliver Potter, a failed screenwriter and private investigator employed by the Quinn family. Oliver blackmails Joe into buying him expensive art and furniture through a luxury shopping app in exchange for suppressing the incriminating video. Using Melanda's phone one final time, Joe sends Mary Kay a text purportedly from Melanda, confessing the affair with Phil.

Joe installs hidden cameras throughout Mary Kay's house and begins systematically sabotaging the household to escalate tensions between Mary Kay and Phil. He plants heroin in Phil's nightstand, hoping Mary Kay will discover it. When Nomi nearly catches Joe in the house, he panics and removes all his surveillance equipment.

Joe manipulates events so that Phil misses a library event Mary Kay organized. Days later, Mary Kay appears at Joe's door, declares she has ended things with Phil, and they have sex for the first time. They begin a secret affair while waiting for Nomi to leave for college. During a day together at Fort Ward, Mary Kay receives a voicemail: Phil has died of a fentanyl overdose, having obtained the drugs on his own. Nomi found the body. Mary Kay, consumed by guilt, tells Joe their day together "never happened."

Phil's half-brother Ivan, a controlling self-styled life coach, arrives and takes over the household. Joe discovers the house is in Ivan's name. Under Ivan's influence, Mary Kay breaks up with Joe, and Nomi announces a gap year interning for Ivan instead of attending NYU. Joe finds a TikTok video by a woman accusing Ivan of sexual coercion and posts her account on Reddit, prompting more women to come forward. Ivan's reputation collapses, and he sells Mary Kay's house to pay legal fees, leaving Mary Kay and Nomi homeless.

Joe offers them his guesthouse. Eventually Nomi reveals she already knows about the relationship and approves. The three move into Joe's main house as a family and begin planning a bookstore together called the Empathy Bordello.

Love contacts Joe, threatening to expose his new life. In a hotel room, Love holds Joe at gunpoint, shoots him in the head, and kills herself. Joe survives. Love's father, Ray Quinn, forces Joe to permanently relinquish custody of Forty. Joe returns to Bainbridge to find Mary Kay furious about his unexplained disappearance and living in a budget motel with Nomi.

Seamus, who has been competing for Mary Kay's attention, kidnaps Joe, ties him to a tree in the mountains, and pours animal blood on him to attract predators. Oliver arrives and shoots Seamus dead. Joe proposes to Mary Kay at the library. He places a ring on his own finger and explains that some people never learned "object permanence," the understanding that something still exists even when you cannot see it. Mary Kay slides the ring onto her own finger, and they hold a backyard wedding.

After the wedding, Nomi reveals she had a sexual relationship with Seamus beginning when she was underage and confesses romantic feelings for Joe, which he firmly rejects. When Mary Kay returns home and finds them together, Nomi accuses Joe of trying to kiss her. A bitter argument erupts. Nomi discloses the abuse by Seamus, and Mary Kay, overwhelmed with guilt, retaliates by revealing Phil and Melanda's affair. In a moment of rage, Nomi shoves Mary Kay, who slips and tumbles down the stairs, falling unconscious.

In the epilogue, Joe has relocated to central Florida and opened the Empathy Bordello Bar & Bookstore, the dream he and Mary Kay once shared. Mary Kay remains in a coma, and Nomi has texted that they are pulling the plug. Joe monitors social media for glimpses of his son and watches for Ray Quinn's obituary, hoping Ray's death will allow him to reclaim Forty. A woman enters the bookstore. Joe cannot see her face, but his heart begins to beat faster, suggesting the cycle of obsession may begin again.