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Yellowjackets Cast And Writers Tease What's In Store For Season 2
Co-creator Ashley Lyle also shares how long the series is meant to run.
With only a few weeks left to go before Yellowjackets returns to our screens, the creative team is opening up about their expectations and experiences with season two.
Showtime’s girls-soccer-team-turned-cannibals series swept viewers away with season one, and the mysteries created as the show bounces between the time the characters spent in isolation after crash landing in the wilderness and the present, where we’re still learning who survived and returned to civilization and how the experience has changed them, has everyone itching to see what’s next.
“They didn’t tell us anything,” Jasmin Savoy Brown, who plays the teen version of Taissa, told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview about the show. “So we all became our own citizen detectives, going to hair and makeup and wardrobe and getting whatever pieces we could.”
Both cast members and the writers held their cards close when speaking with EW, but we got enough tidbits to help tide us over as we countdown the days to Yellowjackets’ return. Here’s some of what we learned:
Sophie Nélisse, who plays teen Shauna, told EW that “because of the circumstances, [Shauna’s] not really coping the way you would normally cope,” in regards to the tragic death of her best friend, following a fight between the two of them.
Adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) wasn’t doing so hot herself last season, but it sounds like she may be working to pull herself back together.
“She's buried something fundamental about herself very deep inside. You see it starting to unravel as she experiments with doing things that are risky, and eventually doing things that are very dangerous,” Lynskey said. “I think season 2 is trying to put the tiger back into the cage if she can.”
In the present timeline, Lottie (Simone Kessell) is a cult leader of sorts, and has kidnapped Natalie (Juliette Lewis). But in the past, Lottie’s rise to ruling has only just begun, and it will create tension within the group this season.
“They’re butting heads ideologically,” said Sophie Thatcher, who plays teen Natalie, while Courtney Eaton (young Lottie) notes that the role of leader is “slightly getting pushed on her.”
Misty has been the perpetual outcast in every timeline, but that will shift to a certain degree with the appearance of Walter, a fellow citizen detective played by Elijah Wood.
“It’s interesting to see Misty, who’s been so desperate for a connection, react to someone who is interested in her,” teased Christina Ricci.
“We are the trauma timeline," Brown said of the teens stuck in the wilderness. “It's simply going to get worse and worse. I don't know how we'll be standing by season 5.”
Meanwhile, co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco added of the adults: “They’re haunted by their guilt and their anger and their pain, but you know what else haunts them, whether they're ready to admit it, is the fact that they never felt in some ways more alive than when they were in the wilderness. Maybe they went crazy, but it was also a world free of the stereotypes and expectations that society had thrust upon them, specifically as young women. There was a freedom in that kind of madness. So they want to get in touch with their primordial selves.”
Yellowjackets has already been renewed through season three, but if it continues to do well, co-creator and co-showrunner Ashley Lyle hopes they’ll make it a little longer than that.
“The original plan was five seasons, and we feel like we're still on track for that,” she said. “There's always room for things, but we don't really see this as being more than a five-season show.”
Yellowjackets season two premieres March 24 on Showtime streaming, and on the network March 26.
Yellowjackets has been renewed for seasons two and three.
The first season of Yellowjackets is streaming on the Showtime app. Season two will premiere there on March 24, and on the network March 26, with new episodes following weekly.
The teenagers were in the wilderness for 19 months before they were rescued.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
