Yellowjackets S3 Premiere Sets a Comfortable Buzz Before Brutal Season

Buzz, buzz, buzz!

After a nearly two-year hiatus, Yellowjackets is back on our screens. Winter in the wilderness has thawed into spring, and with it comes new life — and new deaths. Ravenous fans have been hungry for more of the unnerving mystery to be unraveled, and the cast and crew are promising season 3 is set to be the darkest yet.

With high stakes and a high body count on the horizon, the bar for these would-be soccer champions has been set with great fear and anticipation from fans. Their theme song might promise “No return, no reason,” but let’s dissect that exhilarating two-episode premiere as we catch up once again with the girls from Wiskayok, N.J.

Oh yeah, there will be spoilers.

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Previously on Yellowjackets…

Seasons turn and so do allegiances as we’re reintroduced to our split timeline — it’s springtime in the wilderness, roughly 1997. The survivors will be rescued in the next winter, but they couldn’t be further from that right now. Several weeks have passed since the cabin burned down, and the snow that kept them all trapped is a distant memory.

Meanwhile, in the adult timeline (circa 2021-2022), the ladies are dealing with the aftermath of Natalie’s (Juliette Lewis) shock death at Lottie’s (Simone Kessell) wellness commune (cough cough cult). The caftan-wearing guru was last seen being committed to a psychiatric facility, while made-murderer Misty (Christina Ricci) is moping about the loss of her best friend.

The premiere does a smart and playful thing, having teen Van (Liv Hewson) perform a mythologizing monologue for team morale to remind viewers of the story so far. She quite literally begins, “Previously on Yellowjackets…” while lightheartedly recapping and transforming the traumatic events of last season into a tale of resilience, sacrifice, and miracles. While to some (namely Sophie Nélisse as the embittered Shauna), it seems trite and dismissive of the true horror of their circumstances, it plays perfectly into the show’s overall commentary about grief, truth, and the ongoing commodification of the survivors’ story.

Tell All the Truth (But Tell It Slant)

This season promises to give a lot of answers to persistent mysteries that have been growing since the first season. Viewers themselves have become like the curious, consumer masses that try to pry the truth of “what really happened out there” from the women for the rest of their lives. The adults have routinely mentioned agreeing upon one “truth” to tell their friends, family, and the media. Hired investigator Jessica Roberts was even killed to protect their story.

In the wilderness, the starving, stranded soccer team is sorely lacking the bread part of “bread and circuses,” leading Van to step into the role of mythologizing storyteller. The redheaded goalie’s role has always been that of a protector, deflecting the blows of a soccer ball and the sting of the cold, unfeeling truth. Gone are her nostalgia-bait movie recaps for distraction — now she’s transforming their pain and suffering into folk tale and a shared legend.

It’s a stark transformation when we later see adult Van (Lauren Ambrose) desperate to drop the pretense and lose the euphemisms about their cannibalistic past. In the end, these words have true power — just as Shauna’s raw, unfiltered journal entries catalyzed the extortion plot in season 1.

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Ghosts, Roasts, and Toasts

No one of name has died yet this season, but death is all around. In the wilderness timeline, the girls are carrying their ghosts with them — and no one more so than young Shauna. With her best friend Jackie Taylor (Ella Purnell) and her stillborn child in the ground, she’s lost everything she ever held dear. And Travis Martinez (Kevin Alves) is still reeling after the death of his brother Javi, who was butchered and served to the team after the wilderness “chose” him to die. Their springtime camp even has three makeshift graves as memorials to the fallen.

But the biggest absence is felt in the adult timeline, as Natalie marks the next of the original survivors to lose their life (the first being Travis, offscreen in season 1). It makes for a fascinating and sad watch, as Sophie Thatcher solely carries on the character in the teen timeline. There’s still an element of tension, even though though we know she’s bound to survive until rescue. Half the fun of watching the show is splitting between the adult and teen versions of the characters across the ages. But that doesn’t mean Nat’s spirit isn’t alive in other ways.

Gone But “Nat” Forgotten

While the showrunners have stated they have no plans for a ghostly adult Natalie this season, Misty is still holding a candle for her, adopting her leather jacket and tough attitude for herself. Her memorial service is laughably, depressingly short, but it does prompt self-reflection from the adult women, who wonder what will be said about them after they die. Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) begins by eulogizing herself as the “worst wife and mother” on the planet.

Van puts their pity party on pause, promising that, “No one is dying tomorrow,” so they have time to workshop their epitaphs before they all “reconvene in hell.” This moment, while darkly comedic, ties nicely back into the theme of words, the framing of the truth, and what our adult characters will and won’t admit about their days in the wilderness.

Die and Dash

We said that no one of name has died, but adult Taissa (Tawny Cypress) and Van’s actions have directly resulted in one accidental death. After dining and dashing from Pas D’ame (a frou-frou restaurant whose name means “no soul” in French), the waiter who chases them down is nearly hit by a bus, having a heart attack from the shock shortly thereafter. While Tai and Van share an amorous moment set to Bush’s “Glycerine,” the foreboding Man With No Eyes appears just in the periphery.

Now, we know for a fact young Jackie will be back this season thanks to some shots in a few trailers, but the true depth of the hauntings — which now might include that mysterious screeching in the woods and even Shauna’s dead child — has yet to be uncovered. We’re sincerely hoping for more answers on Tai’s ocular omen.

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Payback Is a Mother

One of the most deeply magnetic hallmarks of the series is a healthy heaping of female rage. It simmers, it stirs, and often boils over in delicious, dramatic ways. The wilderness is free from social pretense, but the scars of survivorhood that the characters carry with them lead to plenty of repressed anger.

Callie Sadecki, Shauna and Jeff’s daughter, has to live with the legacy of her mother’s trauma while being kept from the truth. Things started to unravel last season when she witnessed (and helped end) a hunt wherein the surviving Yellowjackets were prepared to sacrifice Shauna to the wilderness. And her father admitted the truth about her dead sibling, the baby who was stillborn in the wilderness. So when kids at her school start to speculate horribly about the truth and Callie’s own mother, she takes matters into her own hands.

Pig guts are not a traditional source of mother-daughter bonding, but Shauna gets a kick out of the TikTok’ed revenge plot that would make even Carrie White blush. Meanwhile, in the past timeline, we see hints of Shauna’s own capacity for vengefulness as her conflict with Mari, which has been quietly building since Jackie’s death, comes to a dangerous head.

On Wednesdays, We Wear Animal Pelts

What is so compelling about these characters in either timeline is how deeply messy they are. There are no survival manuals on how to behave in the unforgiving wilderness — or instructions on how to reintegrate after rescue. These women are traumatized, repressed, and have unresolved secrets spilling over and impacting their children, their marriages, and their relationships with one another.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that these characters are ’90s high school jocks, especially when the older cast are so distanced from the few soccer scenes we saw in the pilot episode. But even at the bar after Natalie’s memorial, we get a delicious reminder that they’re incredibly petty — they continue to bully Misty, a fellow survivor and the team’s equipment manager, in true mean girl fashion. There’s a part of them that never grew past the high school social structure, morphed into whatever feral hierarchy they established in the wilderness.

And with a fully enraged teen Shauna gunning for Natalie’s leadership over the surviving tribe, we’re bound to see a struggle for the Antler Queen* crown.

(*Worth noting, still an entirely fandom-coined name for the mysterious robed character who features prominently across series marketing.)

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Hearing the Wilderness

Another large thread being teased in these premiere episodes is the continuation of Lottie’s (Courtney Eaton) communications (or now lack thereof) with the wilderness. She’s dosing Travis with magic mushrooms and forcing him to have hallucinations to better hear the sounds of nature and what “It” wants. She opens up to him about her own mental illness, admitting that she stopped taking medication fairly early in their time in the wilderness and then began to have her schizophrenic visions.

Contrast this with the adult Lottie who just cleared her psychiatric hold to show up on the Sadecki family doorstep, much to Shauna’s chagrin. In Shauna’s mind, Lottie has already co-opted one child from her (using her stillborn son’s memory as part of their pagan-adjacent wilderness rituals), and now she’s terrified of losing her daughter. Callie, however, sees Lottie’s arrival as an opportunity to get the truth out of someone who might actually open up to her. And while Lottie seems to be more balanced thanks to her intentional community, this balance is just as precarious as anyone else’s.

Girls, Girls, Girls

Late in the premiere, we’re also left with a few intriguing moments of adult Shauna experiencing these unexplained “sixth sense” moments — likely building up to the reveal of Hilary Swank’s new character, who has yet to make an appearance. But how is she related to their past? Fans are already speculating, thanks to a bombshell moment (but not wholly surprising if you’ve really been paying attention) where young Shauna passionately, furiously kisses fellow teammate Melissa (played by Jenna Burgess and known for her signature baseball cap in past seasons). Could she be another survivor?

Either way, Melissa definitely got the better end of the stick when it comes to “swapping spit” with our butcher. Sorry, Mari.

Shauna’s story isn’t necessarily about coming to terms with her latent sexuality, though. While Taissa and Van have more open discussions using the word “lesbian” in both timelines, including about respectability politics and Taissa’s image as a politician, Sophie Nélisse has stated that Shauna’s behavior here is more about rage and the depths she’s willing to manipulate others. A happy ending this clearly is not, but queer she certainly is.

(JackieShauna truthers, how are we feeling tonight?)

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Quick Highlights

• Melanie Lynskey’s comedic timing as stoned Shauna discussing human entrails and DoorDash is a brilliant example of how the show balances drama and humor. Cling to the funny, because it’s going to get so, so dark.
• Van singing Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” — A+ karaoke choice! Needle drops in the show remain as strong as ever.
• Christina Ricci said it was difficult playing drunk, but she nails Misty’s energy after seven rail whiskeys. Also, the bartender is the man Shauna pointed a gun at in season 2. Is that important?
• Lottie and Misty in hydrating animal face masks instead of their murderous hunt masks from last season? Self-care and visual comedy at its finest!
• “It’s not a hotel, it’s an experience.”

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Yellowjackets season 3 is just barely getting started — bodies will be hitting the floor very soon. Who do you think is dying? Who else do you think survives the wilderness?

Join the conversation with your fellow-jackets over at Sideshow Social Network or in side.show/geekgroup, and don’t forget to Let Your Geek Sideshow!