Meanwhile, Penn Badgley revealed that an entire subplot that saw Joe get bitten by a wolf was cut from the episode.
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This article contains spoilers for You Seasons 2 and 3.
While most You fans would agree that Victoria Pedretti’s character, Love Quinn, is one of the highlights of the show, there is one particular scene that would make even the most hardcore Love stan shudder.
Netflix/ Courtesy Everett Collection
For context, Love is introduced in the second season of the hit Netflix series, with protagonist Joe Goldberg, played by Penn Badgley, quickly falling in love with her when he moves to Los Angeles.
The two even end up getting married and having a baby together before Joe kills his wife at the end of Season 3.
But it is Episode 5 of Season 2, which premiered in 2019, that contains the highly divisive scene from the early days of Joe and Love’s relationship.
Cuddling with Joe in bed while holding a toy wolf, Love asks: “Can I tell you I love you yet?”
View this video on YouTube
“Whenever you’re ready,” Joe replies. “In the meantime, let me say. I love you, Love.”
“It’s a complicated word,” Joe then adds, going on to ask: “Is there another word we can use? Our word?”
Looking down at the wolf, Love smiles as she declares: “I wolf you. I like it. It’s like you’re part of my pack.”
Netflix / Via youtube.com
While the moment was presumably intended to be sweet, and no doubt an indicator of what was to come with both Love and Joe arguably turning out to be sheep in wolves’ clothing, it was widely regarded as completely cringe-inducing by viewers.
And Victoria herself has admitted that she found the line “ridiculous” and “fought” to get rid of it during filming.
During Victoria's appearance on Penn’s Podcrushed podcast, one of Penn’s cohosts asked: “Fans want to know how you guys felt about the ‘I wolf you’ scene, and was it hard to keep a straight face filming that?”
Arturo Holmes / Getty Images
“I fought it a lot,” Victoria immediately admitted. “I really didn’t want to do it.”
“I don’t recall struggling with it,” Penn countered, which Victoria confirmed was true. She said: “No, I think there were many moments where I was like: ‘Why are we doing this?’ and you were like: ‘Victoria, just do it!’”
When asked why she fought the line, Victoria bluntly replied: “Because it’s ridiculous,” with Penn arguing that there is a “fine line between ridiculous and iconic.”
“That’s something people say to me now,” Victoria continued. “They’ll come up and they’ll be like they’re the first person to ever say it to me, they’ll be like: ‘I wolf you.’ And I’ll just be like: ‘Oh my god, what the f*ck is my life.’”
Penn then revealed that the episode initially featured a real-life wolf, but the story point ended up being cut.
@podcrushed The ‘I wolf you scene’ all is revealed between @Penn Badgley & @victoriapedretti Watch & Listen the full episode of this Podcrushed podcast re-run episode by searching “Podcrushed Victoria Pedretti” on all streaming platforms (video episode is out tomorrow ) 💙 #victoriapedretti #victoriapedrettiedit #you #netflix #netflixseries #pennbadgley #podcrushed #iwolfyou #love #lovestory #relationship #pennbadgleyedit
♬ original sound - Podcrushed
Podcrushed / Via tiktok.com
“There was a scene where Joe gets bitten by a wolf, they cut out the entire…” Penn began. “I was limping through the entire latter half of the episode and either everybody’s like: ‘That’s a choice!’ or the limp is just gone.”
“The wolf is still there,” he then clarified. “But the wolf was featured so much more prominently in the episode, and it was cut out because it was so hard to get the wolf to do what we needed.”
“They couldn’t have the wolf actually lunge at me,” Penn explained. “What it came down to was they would have needed hundreds of thousands of dollars for a CG wolf to come for me, and so I think they basically edited around this whole story point, which was: Joe gets bitten by the wolf, and that is a thing.”
He then admitted that he wasn’t sure if the wolf bite came before or after “I wolf you” in the script.
Needless to say, when it comes to "I wolf you," most people were on Victoria’s side in the comments of a TikTok from the podcast, with one reading: “The ‘I Wolf You’ scene is the cringiest scene in the history of cinema.”
Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
“My gf rewatches their season over and over and I always leave the room when that ‘I wolf you’ scene comes on. Idk but I get second hand embarrassment 😭” somebody else admitted.
“I cringed so hard, it was absolutely horrible 😭” one more added.
But some defended the line, with one person asking: “Why do people hate on the ‘I wolf you’ scene I think it's so sweet 🙏😭”
Somebody else added: “It may be cringe but in real life couples do cringe stuff like that all the time, it was cute.”
Meanwhile, another user couldn’t help but be tickled by Victoria’s energy on the podcast, writing: “'I fought it alot,' girl looked like she fought for her life, lost, and is now traumatized.”
Penn recently wrapped filming for the fifth and final season of You, which is expected to hit our screens either later this year or in early 2025.
- Victoria Pedretti
- Love Quinn
- Penn Badgley
- Stephanie SoteriouBuzzFeed Staff
