Netflix: “You,” Season 3, starring Penn Badgely

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said there are no second acts in American lives. Fortunately he said nothing about third acts, and for that the viewers of Season 3 of the Netflix series  “You” can be grateful.

In Season 3, our favorite psycho-killer couple Joe and Love (played by Penn Badgely and Victoria Pedretti) have fled Los Angeles and are living their best lives in the fictional San Francisco suburb of Madre Linda. They have a new baby, a beautiful home, and a built-in babysitter in the form of Love’s alcoholic mother Dottie (Saffron Burrows).

But that’s not enough excitement for Joe and Love whose roving eyes lead Joe, on the one hand, to mess around with Natalie the flirtatious, lonely wife next door (Michaela McManus); and Love, on the other, to lead on Natalie’s almond-eyed stepson Theo (Ryan Arnold) who’s got a college-boy crush on her.

Without giving too much away, this leads to the

sudden disappearances of certain prominent citizens of Madre Linda, courtesy of several very sharp axes, a hermetically sealed glass cage, and hypodermic needles. If all this high-class mayhem weren’t enough to engage you, viewers can also revel in the show’s sendup of the town’s super-bougie residents. These include Sherry Conrad (Shalita Grant), the insufferable lifestyle blogger who lives every minute of her life on social media (I don’t know anybody like that, do you? Yeah, right Aug.) Her studly husband Cary (Travis van Winkle) embodies every 6-percent-body-fat, New Age California-dude cliche imaginable. Meanwhile, Joe has fallen for Marianne, his sexy librarian boss, (Tati Gabrielle), turning her into a romantic obsession for whom he is willing to sacrifice everything.

Shirley Jackson once wrote that the suburbs are “where it all starts to come apart.” And in Season 3 of “You,” it all comes apart masterfully and wittily. Props to Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti for their masterful comeback from the underwhelming Season 2. Haven’t already devoured the latest season? Devour away. You’ll never look at a knife sharpener the same way again.