'YOU' Season 3 Showrunner Reveals Anti-Vaccine Storyline Was a Coincidence

Joe Goldberg (played by Penn Badgley) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) will do absolutely anything to protect their young son Henry, and the lengths they are prepared to go to become very apparent in Season 3, Episode 3 of YOU.

Earlier in the season, Joe and Love attended the birthday party of one of their neighbors, which was attended by Madre Linda's elite. A few days later, their son Henry was diagnosed with measles and was critically ill in hospital, fighting for his life.

At the end of Episode 3, it is revealed Henry had contracted measles from Gil's (Mackenzie Astin) unvaccinated daughters. Following Henry's recovery, Gil visited Love at her bakery to apologize and explained his anti-vaccine stance.

He confessed to Love: "Our girls were pretty minor. We hope you won't hold it against us. We just don't believe in subjecting kids to toxic injections they don't need to fight things their bodies were created to fight. We don't judge people who do of course."

In typical Love fashion, in a fit of rage she hit Gil over the head with a rolling pin and imprisoned him in the infamous glass cage in the cellar of her bakery, absolutely furious he endanger Henry's life.

The anti-vaccine storyline in YOU could not be more culturally relevant. Governments across the world are trying to fight the coronavirus pandemic with a vaccine program that has faced opposition from those who refuse the injection.

The anti-vaccine stance is not a new phenomenon. There are people who do not vaccinate their children for many reasons, leaving their children vulnerable to contracting measles, a highly infectious and potentially life-threatening disease.

Showrunner Sera Gamble told Newsweek the anti-vaccine storyline in YOU was not intentional and simply a coincidence amid the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said: "In terms of the episode about measles, we opened the writer's room in February of 2020, so it was before the pandemic started and we were all in person.

"That idea for that story came out of conversations that were really about, 'when you're a parent, what scares you the most?' and the immediate answer of so many parents said 'if my child is sick and I can't help them' and that is the most helpless that I have ever felt in my life.

"The obvious next question when you're dealing with parents like Joe and Love is 'what kind of situation would your child be in that would push you to like the extremes that you're capable of?' We had written that idea of her story in February and early March [2020], we were already well into writing all of this and stuff, and then we all went home [due to the COVID-19 related lockdowns]."

She added: "People are really going to read a lot more into it, which is fine. I mean, it feels like it's amazingly psychic of the writers but it's just a terrible, catastrophic, worldwide timing that we are all so focused on vaccines right now."

Regardless of the coincidence, YOU's anti-vaccine storyline emphasizes the importance of vaccination in childhood, especially as Joe contracted the disease as an adult. Shortly after Henry fell ill, Joe began to show symptoms of measles. He suffered so badly to the extent he began hallucinating and found himself waking up on Matthew's (Scott Speedman) couch.

Thankfully, both Henry and Joe made a full recovery from measles, as did Gil's two children.

Unfortunately for Gil, his anti-vaccine stance came with a deadly cost—his life at the hands of Joe and Love.

YOU Season 3 is streaming on Netflix now.