You Season 2 Breakout Star Victoria Pedretti Unravels Love Quinn and That Finale Cliffhanger

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers from season 2 of Netflix’s You.

If we’ve learned anything from You season 2 on Netflix, it’s this: Love. Is. Dangerous.

And, yes, we mean that in multiple ways.

In the final episodes of the season, Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) realizes that his latest love interest, Love Quinn, isn’t exactly the total sweetheart he’s idealized her to be. And, much like he has, she has manipulated and killed multiple people — and has been doing so since she was a teen.

Still, her portrayer, The Haunting of Hill House‘s Victoria Pedretti, has much affection for the character.

“She’s a woman who knows her worth,” Pedretti, 24, tells PEOPLE. “She’s sexually empowered, open-minded, and courageous. And I think we all want to be friends with somebody who we see will be honest with us if we were sitting across from her.”

Below, Pedretti, a graduate of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, opens up about Love’s mindset at the moment of the season’s cliffhanger — she’s pregnant and she and Joe are moving in together! — shooting some of her deadliest scenes, and what she thinks might happen should the show be renewed for another season.

PEOPLE: As the season ends, Joe and Love are very much together — but does she trust him?
VICTORIA PEDRETTI: I think she’s learned that she can’t totally trust Joe, but is accepting of him entirely. She loves him to a fault.

In the final seconds of the season, it appears Joe has set his eyes on his latest obsession: their neighbor. If there is a season 3, how do you think Love will handle that situation?
I don’t think she’d take too kindly to it. I mean, I think that she would know. As any of us would if we knew that the person we gave all our attention to, if their attention was suddenly drifting to someone else. But then, maybe she would handle it super well. She surprises me.

What was something really fun to shoot?
I loved filming that montage introducing Joe and the audience to this place [Los Angeles] and getting to be that person who takes them on that journey. That was really fun, running around, eating tacos and stuff.

What was it like — and how do you approach — shooting big scenes like Love’s battle with Candace (Ambyr Childers)?
That stuff is always weird. You think, “How am I going to do this? How is this going to play?” I felt the same way with Haunting when I had to jump off a high place with a noose around my neck. It was really scary and challenging, and I did it and I was proud of myself. And then when I get home I’m like, “What the f— did I just do?” It was the same thing with these scenes. You do it and you’re like, “Hey, I got it, I did it, it’s over.” And then you’re also like, “Oh my God, what is this show and what am I doing?”

I think me and Amber came together and did our best. It’s a very stop-and-start process. It’s basically an action sequence, so it’s a lot of detail. And it’s not as gruesome seeing it as it is and filming it. It’s stopping, starting, pouring blood. So it’s hard to get too attached to what’s actually going on sometimes. But then you see it and you see the effect of it and you’re like, “Oh this is what we were doing.” I’m starting to get better at that. I’ve only been [acting onscreen] for two years, so I’m starting to understand the process.

After filming something as dark as that, how do you unwind?
I smoke weed. It’s a great thing that California has figured out. I don’t want to get on my high horse about it, I think it should just be acceptable. I don’t know if that’s appropriate for People.com, but I don’t want to be ashamed of it and I don’t think other people should either.

You season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.