You Season 5: The Show Finally Reveals What Love Quinn’s Mother Has Been Doing After Her Death
According to an article on ScreenRant, You season 5 pays homage to previous outings by bringing back familiar faces, with one returning character solving a Love Quinn mystery from four years ago.
Joe Goldberg finally gets his comeuppance at the end of You season 5, but he’s exposed as a potential abuser and killer before his convictions make it official. When he goes viral after killing Clayton, many people from Joe’s past come out and speak about their experiences with him. Most support the notion that something’s off, though there are a few characters who say things in his favor.
As reported by ScreenRant, all of these cameos come from minor players Joe comes into contact with over the course of the series, and many of them are connected to his previous victims. This includes one character introduced in You season 2, who is surprisingly absent from season 4. Even with Joe faking his own death and leaving the country after the end of You season 3, it’s shocking that Dottie Quinn is never heard from or mentioned in the following outing. Fortunately, season 5 fixes that, bringing Dottie back for a brief but very in-character appearance.
Love’s death at the end of You season 3 is one of the biggest of the entire series — probably falling just below Beck’s season 1 demise — but season 4 doesn’t spend much time on it. This is because Joe sets off for a new life in London at the beginning of season 4. The show takes on a different premise from there, with Joe becoming the "Eat the Rich Killer" and confronting the two parts of himself, instead of dangerously obsessing over one woman the entire season.
ScreenRant notes that without You season 4 digging into the aftermath of Love’s death, we don’t see how her family responds to the incident. But You season 5 does bring Dottie back, as Love’s mother takes to social media to share her suspicions about Joe. This solves a major Love mystery that’s largely ignored in season 4: whether her family believes Joe’s story about their daughter and what they do afterward. If unaddressed, this would be a major loose end, especially since Joe is responsible for both of Dottie’s kids dying.
The Netflix series addresses a major loose end by bringing Love & Forty’s mom back, as noted by ScreenRant. There’s no way Love’s overbearing mother wouldn’t seek out Joe. Although Joe does an impressive job of covering his tracks after You season 3, Dottie Quinn is a major loose end on the heels of Love’s death. After all, while Dottie isn’t the greatest mother, she’s overbearing enough that she wouldn’t let Love’s death go easily.
ScreenRant quotes that Dottie complains that she hasn’t seen Henry in her social media post, and she claims to have been suspicious of Joe killing Love and Forty the whole time. While it’s unclear if this is actually the case — Dottie certainly eats up some of the tales about her children in You’s earlier seasons — it’s still bizarre that she doesn’t show up before. Her post answers the question of where she is and how she’s handling both her kids being gone. But it doesn’t go far enough, as Dottie is definitely the type to make a bigger scene after learning Joe is still alive.
In general, the Netflix series forgets about Love too easily, according to ScreenRant. Although You season 5 offers further closure to Love’s story with its Dottie appearance, the series doesn’t do enough to showcase the aftermath of her death. After Beck, Love is Joe’s most prominent and important love interest in the Netflix series. However, you wouldn’t know it, based on how easily the show moves past her. Love Quinn’s cameo in You season 4 is minimal, and season 5 doesn’t do a much better job of honoring the character.
As ScreenRant notes, Joe hardly thinks of her, though Beck continues to haunt him. The fact that Dottie claims to be suspicious of Joe makes her short appearance even worse, as she could have pursued him. Her short appearance still feels too small after Love’s role in the show, and it’s a wasted opportunity, as Dottie would be an interesting challenge for Joe.
