Netflix’s bone-chilling stalker hit “You” is back for its final season and one character is making a surprising return to Joe Goldberg’s (Penn Badgley) life.
Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), the librarian who escaped Joe’s clutches twice, is back. But it’s been four years since her introduction to the series, so what happened between her and Joe?
Read on for a recap of their history, which started in Season 3 and continued through Season 4.
Who is Marienne?
Marienne Bellamy was introduced as a local librarian in Madre Linda, the fictional California town in Season 3.
An aspiring artist, Joe found her to be strict and austere. However, over time, the pair struck up a friendly banter, which eventually transformed into flirting.
She has a daughter, Juliette (Dallas Skye), although Marienne’s ex-husband, Ryan Goodwin (Scott Michael Foster), had full custody of her.
Their marriage had difficulties. Ryan was abusive and both were struggling with addiction when they had Juliette. Despite Marienne getting clean, Ryan was able to lie and use Marienne’s past to manipulate the justice system into getting full custody.
Marienne speaks fluent French as she was born in Paris and bounced around from foster home to foster home before she turned 18. Her biggest driving force in life is her daughter.
What happened between Marienne and Joe in Season 3?
Joe, hating Madre Linda, was drawn to the library that Marienne worked at. He began volunteering there, repairing the library’s rare books.
Eventually, Marienne became Joe’s newest fixation. At the time, Joe was married to Love (Victoria Pedretti). Yet as is his pattern, Joe still became fixated on new women in his life, needing to stalk them. Once Love killed Natalie (Michaela McManus), Joe’s initial love interest, Marienne became his prime fixation.
As the two continued working together (and Joe stalking her), they got closer and eventually kissed.
Realizing that Love would kill Marienne for their kiss, Joe planned to resign from the library. Before he could, Marienne admitted that she had feelings for Joe but would never break up his family. The two kissed again. Not long after, Marienne ended things as their secret affair was hurting her custody battle.
The judge ended up ruling against Marienne in her custody battle, which meant Ryan was in the clear to take Juliette and move to New Jersey. Joe told Marienne that he was ending his marriage for her and the two became more intimate.
But there wasn’t a future. Marienne planned to follow Juliette and Ryan to New Jersey for her daughter’s sake. Joe then killed Ryan so Marienne wouldn’t leave.
Joe told Marienne that he was officially separating from Love (despite Love not knowing anything of the sort) and the two told each other they loved each other, forming plans to run away together.
At dinner that night, Love paralyzed Joe and invited Marienne over through Joe’s phone. Love said they weren’t separating and that Joe lied to her. Then, Love revealed that Joe killed Ryan because he was obsessed with Marienne.
Love prepared to kill Marienne, but Juliette interrupted, causing the impulsive Love to pause. When she realized she couldn’t kill either of them, she instead advised Marienne to run far away from Joe.
Marienne told Love that she should run too, but Love couldn’t — instead dying at Joe’s hands that same night. Joe then faked his own death, posing the scene as if Love committed a murder-suicide.
What happened to Marienne in Season 4?
In Season 4, Joe once again relocated, this time to London. He continued to miss Marienne, who took Love’s advice and ran.
The show flashed back to Joe following Marienne to an art fair in London. When she saw him there, she ran away from him. Joe chased her and cornered her. Marienne told Joe that she didn’t love him anymore and realized that if he’s alive, he must have killed Love and faked his death. She called him a murderer and Joe vowed to prove her wrong. He let her go, telling her “goodbye,” to prove that he would never hurt her.
Most of the season passes without seeing Marienne — although she is always on the forefront of Joe’s mind.
Then comes Episode 8’s twist: Joe had been dissociating all season. He had actually followed Marienne after the art fair, drugged her and kidnapped her so the pair could “work on their relationship.”
In his disassociated state, Joe put Marienne inside his cage. While transferring her from a tied chair to the cage, she tried to escape, breaking her arm in the process. Joe gave her pain medicine, but as a former addict she refused to take it. Time went by as Marienne begged for her life for Juliette’s sake, but a disassociated Joe was still unaware he’d even kidnapped her.
Once Joe realized that he’d kidnapped Marienne, he tried to remember where the cage was. As he tried to remember, Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman) found Marienne locked in the cage and offered to call the police. But Marienne told her not to, as Joe would just get away with it like he always has.
Nadia returned the next day to help, but Joe had finally found the cage. He apologized to Marienne, telling her he never wanted this to happen and promised to fix it. Once Joe left, Nadia proposed killing Joe. Marienne said that she would kill him. Nadia said she could get ketamine and a knife for Marienne. In the process of procuring the items, Nadia was stopped by police.
Meanwhile, Marienne asked Joe to check her phone to see how Juliette is doing. There Joe texted Beatrice — Marienne’s friend watching Juliette — and learned that Marienne was losing custody of Juliette as Juliette’s grandmother believed Marienne had left Juliette and relapsed. The news crushed Marienne and she begged for Joe to kill her, although he couldn’t.
So, Marienne swallowed the entire bottle of pain medicine she’d been resisting — killing herself. She left a note asking Joe to “please leave me where I’ll be found” so Juliette knows what happened.
In the finale, Joe left Marienne’s dead body on a park bench.
But “You” has one final twist: Nadia had given Marienne a backup plan.
Nadia added her number under Beatrice’s contact in Marienne’s phone, faking messages that made her seem like a concerned babysitter. Nadia texted as Beatrice that Juliette’s grandmother was taking custody (although this was false). This gave Marienne a reason to kill herself. Nadia also switched out the painkillers for beta blockers, allowing Marienne to pretend to overdose on the painkillers when she really just took beta blockers that slowed her heart.
Nadia then followed Joe as he left Marienne’s body on a bench. After he left, she injected Marienne with something that woke her up, freeing her from being hunted by Joe across the world.
