Episodes 01

“And They Lived Happily Ever After”

Love and Joe find themselves overwhelmed with their newborn son Henry, which strains their relationship. Meanwhile, Joe struggles to bond with Henry and becomes infatuated with their next-door neighbor Natalie Engler, a real estate agent and the wife of wealthy tech mogul Matthew Engler. Love tries to fit in with Madre Linda’s social circle by befriending Sherry Conrad, a local Instagram influencer. Natalie notices Joe’s interest in her and invites him for a wine night. They kiss but Joe has second thoughts and returns home to have sex with Love for the first time in months. The following night, they attend a party hosted by Sherry where Love overhears her gossiping about her family and the death of her brother Forty. Following a brief conversation with Natalie, Love accuses Joe of being obsessed with her, which he denies. Later, Natalie shows Love a vacant store to open a bakery; Love murders her on the property basement after discovering Joe’s box of paraphernalia he stole from Natalie.

Episodes 02

“So I Married an Axe Murderer”

Joe and Love attend couple’s therapy to address their struggling marriage. Meanwhile, they develop a strategy to dispose of Natalie’s body at a nearby forest and create a convincing alibi for her disappearance. Love meets Theo, a college student, on a chance encounter at the supermarket, while Joe befriends Marienne, Madre Linda’s librarian, who allows him to restore rare books to sell for money toward Ellie. Upon discovering at the Conrads’ children’s birthday that Madre Linda’s residents all wear a biosensor developed by Matthew on their rings, Joe and Love exhume Natalie’s body, remove her wedding ring, and bury her beneath the foundation of a construction site. The two then reconcile and make a vow to no longer commit murder. Love opens her bakery called “A Fresh Tart” – beneath which she and Joe build a new plexiglass cage – and discovers Theo is Matthew’s stepson.

Episodes 03

“Missing White Woman Syndrome”

As Natalie’s disappearance attracts media attention, Joe and Love decide to frame Matthew for her murder by planting Natalie’s bloodstained scarf in his home. Henry contracts measles and is rushed to the hospital. While breaking into the Engler home, Joe discovers he too has measles and collapses; Matthew nurses him to health, and Joe suggests he make a statement to the press to clear his name, which Matthew does during a vigil for Natalie. Theo begins flirting with Love, who refuses his advances, though the two later bond at the hospital over Theo’s strained relationship with his stepfather. Dottie reveals she and Love’s father are divorcing, putting the family’s finances in flux. As Henry recovers, Joe and Love decide not to frame Matthew and burn the scarf. The police recover Natalie’s wedding ring. The next day, Gil, a neighbor, reveals to Love at her bakery that his daughters, whom he refused to vaccinate, gave Henry measles. An enraged Love bludgeons him unconscious as he leaves.

Episodes 04

“Hands Across Madre Linda”

Joe and Love lock Gil in the plexiglass vault in the bakery’s basement. Realizing they cannot release Gil without assurances that he will not report the assault, Joe and Love search for incriminating information they can use as leverage for Gil’s silence. Love discovers through her family’s private investigator that Gil’s son is a sexual predator who they link to a recent assault case on a college campus. Gil, disgusted to learn that his son has continued his abusive behavior, hangs himself inside the cage. Joe and Love decide to frame Gil for Natalie’s death: Love plants the murder weapon with Gil’s fingerprints in the forest where Sherry has organized a community search for Natalie, while Joe moves Gil’s body to his residence and fabricates a suicide note from Gil declaring that he killed himself out of guilt over murdering Natalie. The ruse works and six months pass by in relative peace. Theo kisses Love after a heartfelt conversation, while Joe starts to become obsessed with Marienne.

Episodes 05

“Into the Woods”

Joe and Love’s therapist suggests that Joe should make new friends, so he agrees to go on a hunting retreat with Cary – Sherry’s husband and a self-improvement guru – and his friends. Joe discovers that Love has been paying for Theo’s Uber trips and confronts her. Love says that Theo has nobody to look after him and confesses that Theo kissed her at the bakery. During the retreat, Cary takes Joe on a night hunt provokes him into fighting him; Joe pushes Cary over a cliff, knocking him out. Joe carries an unconscious Cary back to the camp, where he awakens and declares that he has helped Joe find his inner strength. Joe cries cathartically and embraces his newfound friends. Theo calls Love from the police station after getting detained for driving an electric scooter while inebriated. The two ride the scooter together and end up having sex. Dottie realizes what Love has done after she gets home, and Love decides to cut ties with Theo. Joe sets off the bakery’s alarm to give himself an alibi to leave the house and stalk Marienne.

Episodes 06

“W.O.M.B.”

Joe begins probing into Marienne’s private life and discovers she is a recovering addict in the middle of a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband Ryan Goodwin, a local news reporter. He later intervenes in an argument between Ryan and Marienne at the library, but Marienne chastises him. The library’s sprinkler system suddenly malfunctions, and as Joe spends the night helping Marienne salvage books, she opens up about her personal struggles and they kiss passionately. Love, still reeling from Forty’s death, believes she may be pregnant with Theo’s child, but later realizes she is only menstruating. She gets drunk after an argument with her mother and hallucinates Forty’s presence, which helps her grieve him. Theo discovers that Matthew has been illegally spying on Madre Linda’s residents in an attempt to find Natalie’s real killer, and warns Love. Joe and Love agree that the latter should keep Theo around as a source of information on Matthew’s investigation.

Episodes 07

“We’re All Mad Here”

Marienne decides not to pursue her feelings for Joe out of morality. Matthew enlists an expert programmer from his company to help him hack into Madre Linda’s security feeds. Love unsuccessfully initiates foreplay with Joe – who is now solely interested in Marienne – and later has sex with Theo again. Sherry enlists Love to help cater for the library’s fundraiser event. Joe plots to take down Ryan by engineering his relapse, but the plan fails when an apparently healthy Ryan confronts Joe at the fundraiser, aware that Joe has been following him. Love meets Marienne at the event; Sherry later approaches Love and tells her that she and Cary want to try swinging with Love and Joe. Dottie, devastated after losing both Anavrin and her vineyard to her ex-husband in her divorce settlement, kidnaps Henry and burns down the vineyard. She is sentenced to a stay in rehab, and Love cuts ties with her. Dottie confides to Joe that Love may have murdered her first husband, James.

Episodes 08

“Swing and a Miss”

Joe goes along with Love’s interest in swinging with the Conrads, hoping it will expose their marriage as broken and enable him to pursue a relationship with Marienne. At Marienne’s request, Joe testifies at her custody hearing for she and Ryan’s daughter, but Marienne later calls Joe and tearfully reveals Ryan publicized sexually explicit photos she had sent him in an attempt to sabotage her case. Joe learns Ryan is friends with the judge in the case. Theo breaks into Matthew’s office and discovers his database of Madre Linda’s security feeds; Matthew catches him and tells him he suspects Love in Natalie’s disappearance. While having sex with the Conrads, Love notices Joe fantasizing about someone else and confronts him in private, loudly reminding him that she killed Natalie out of commitment to her marriage to Joe. The Conrads, who overheard the argument, attempt to flee the house, but Joe and Love subdue them and lock them in the glass cage. The two have passionate sex afterwards, realizing that they are aroused by violence.

Episodes 09

“Red Flag”

Joe finds Cary’s gun while cleaning up the house. He later finds a dejected Marienne outside a liquor store, where she tells him Ryan is taking their daughter to New Jersey. Joe encourages her not to give up on her daughter, and the two have sex. Ryan later discovers Joe stalking him, leading to a struggle that ends with Joe stabbing Ryan to death. In an attempt to free herself and Cary from the cage, Sherry suggests to Love that she expose Matthew’s illegal surveillance on Sherry’s lifestyle blog. Love gives them Cary’s gun and offers to set one of them free if one kills the other, hoping to stage a murder-suicide. Theo offers to obtain a copy of Matthew’s surveillance footage, believing Love to be a victim of Joe’s domestic abuse based on a video feed of the two of them arguing. Matthew’s legal team demands that he delete his footage; Matthew complies, but not before Theo recovers a backup of the data. Theo analyzes the footage and discovers Joe leaving the bakery with Natalie’s car. He goes to the bakery to tell Love but finds the Conrads imprisoned in the cage. While leaving, he encounters Love, who bludgeons him with a fire extinguisher.

Episodes 10

“What Is Love?”

Love admits to Joe that she attacked Theo and left him in the basement, and suggests the two have another baby. Joe discovers Theo is alive and takes him to the hospital. Love finds Joe’s discarded shirt stained with Ryan’s blood and realizes Joe is obsessed with Marienne. She confronts him at dinner, where Joe asks for a divorce. Love paralyzes Joe with aconite (with which she confesses to have accidentally killed James) and calls Marienne to the house, planning to kill her. While Love is away to deliver an order, Matthew discovers a paralyzed Joe, who reveals Theo’s location to him. Love returns and reveals to a horrified Marienne that Joe killed Ryan, but relents from killing her when Marienne’s daughter interrupts. After Marienne leaves, Love prepares to kill Joe, but he injects her with a lethal dose of aconite, having known about the poison and taken an antidote beforehand. Joe stages a murder-suicide, writing a note framing Love for all the Madre Linda murders and setting the house on fire. The Conrads find Love’s spare key inside the cage and free themselves, strengthening their marriage in the process. Matthew and Theo grow closer over the latter’s recovery. Joe leaves Henry in the care of Dante, his coworker at the library. He then adopts a new identity and escapes to Paris in search of Marienne.