The Yellowjackets will be back for their third season, but first, there’s a little teaser.
Yellowjackets has received 10 Emmy bids, including acting nods for Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci. With a loyal fan group after its two seasons, the show is scheduled to return for season 3 in early 2025, as reported by Deadline. However, series co-creator Ashley Lyle also revealed that there will be an extra episode released to curb viewers’ appetites before the Yellowjackets season 3 release.
The story is about the high school girls’ football team called the Yellowjackets, their coach Ben, and the coach’s kids, Travis and Javi. They are stuck in the Canadian wilderness after their plane crashes in 1996.
The series takes place in different time periods and includes a lot of ’90s references. It shows how the events impacted the survivors 25 years later and how they are living now.
Lyle said that there are still many questions to answer in season 3 of her coming-of-age survival drama action series.
“Will we become stranger?” Maybe! She posted on X (formerly Twitter), asking if *redacted*’s death will have a big impact on our (anti)heroes. “Will our girls’ struggle to survive against the elements (and themselves) get even down and dirtier? Do we still need to share the story of Pit Girl? You betcha!”
Here’s what you need to know about Yellowjackets season 3.
What is the Start Date for Filming Yellowjackets Season 3?
In an interview with Comicbook.com on April 3, 2024, Sophie Nélisse, who plays young Shauna, announced that shooting would begin about a month later, in early May.
“Yeah, we begin in about a month,” Nélisse said. “We’re going back to Vancouver in a month.” I have my flat there. We haven’t looked at any files. We don’t have any information. I wish I could share some secrets with you. “I don’t have any.”
In an interview with Deadline in 2024, Lyle stated that filming will start in May 2024. That month, Ricci posted a picture on her Instagram Stories of herself dressed as Misty, suggesting that she was on set and that the show is filming again.
This information was verified when the official Yellowjackets Instagram account announced that filming started in a post on May 14, 2024.
The post showed several pictures from the set along with a caption that said, “We know you’re starving… #Yellowjackets Season 3 is officially in production.”
What is the Release Date for Yellowjackets Season 3?
The writer’s strike started the day after writers began working on Yellowjackets season 3, causing a slowdown in the show’s production. In November 2024, a promo movie stated that Yellowjackets will return on February 14, 2025.
A special extra episode has been revealed to keep fans entertained until Yellowjackets comes back next year. In June 2023, a Yellowjackets fan on X asked Lyle if she was staying up for the release of a bonus episode. Lyle replied, stating that a bonus episode will be released.
“Noooo. Time to sleep! Take a break and relax! Lyle wrote on X that there will be a special show between seasons, but he doesn’t want you to worry or lose sleep thinking it’s tonight. He loves you all.
Which Cast Members Will Be Back for Yellowjackets Season 3?
Yellowjackets has a great cast, featuring Christina Ricci, who received an Emmy nod for her role as adult Misty, and Melanie Lynskey, who received two Emmy nominations for her role as adult Shauna. Both actors will be coming back for Yellowjackets season 3, and Lynskey mentioned to PEOPLE that she hopes to keep playing Shauna for many years.
“I’m open to anything the writers want,” Lynskey said. “I’ll do this show for as long as I can honestly.”
Juliette Lewis, who was nominated for an Academy Award, will not come back because the character adult Natalie has died. Sophie Thatcher will be back as young Natalie.
All the main cast members who survived the first two seasons are set to come back. This includes Nélisse as teenage Shauna, Samantha Hanratty as teenage Misty, Jasmin Savoy Brown as teenage Taissa, Courtney Eaton as teenage Lottie, Liv Hewson as teenage Van, Kevin Alves as teenage Travis, and Steven Krueger as Coach Ben. The returning adult characters will also feature Tawny Cypress as adult Taissa, Lauren Ambrose as adult Van, and Simone Kessell as adult Lottie.
Supporting figures Warren Kole as Shauna’s husband Jeff and Sarah Desjardins as Shauna and Jeff’s daughter Callie are also set to return. Elijah Wood, famous for playing Frodo in the Lord of the Rings movies, is likely to reprise his role as Walter, Misty’s music-loving police partner and possible boyfriend.
In August 2024, it was announced that Joel McHale will be a guest star in the next season. The next month, Deadline announced that Hilary Swank had joined the group as a guest star and might become a regular on the show. No information about either character is known yet.
Another possible cast member is Lynskey’s husband, Jason Ritter, who was supposed to join in season 2. Ritter will appear in the show at some point, but it’s not known if it will be in season 3, even though he had a cameo that didn’t air. This was revealed to PEOPLE.
What Happened at the End of Yellowjackets Season 2?
In the 1990s, the situation got worse for the Yellowjackets as they were hungry in the winter and couldn’t find any animals to hunt for food. They made a hunting rite where the person who drew the Queen from a deck of cards would be killed and eaten, as they practiced cannibalism.
“It was gross, but also sort of tasty.” “That’s all I’m going to say about that,” Savoy Brown joked while talking to PEOPLE about shooting the eating scene.
Natalie chose the Queen, but it was Javi who fell through the ice while they were hunting. The group decided not to save him, so he ended up being food for them to survive the winter. After surviving the hunt, Natalie is chosen by Lottie to be the new leader of the group and receives the antler crown.
After Coach Ben sees what the survivors did to Javi, he chooses to hide in Javi’s old spot before the survivors’ cabin catches fire in the season finale. It wasn’t clear who burned down the cabin, but Coach Ben was unhappy with how the teens were treating one another. He was missing and had taken the matches from the cabin.
In the adult timeline during the 2020s, Lottie, Van, Natalie, Taissa, Misty and Shauna were all reunited at Lottie’s health property. The meeting was short because Lottie told the adults that their lives were out of control. She said they had brought back the wild spirit with them and needed to “feed” it.
To do this, they revived the custom of choosing who would be killed by selecting a Queen from a deck of cards. At first, the girls didn’t want to go along with Lottie’s plan. However, as they started the routine again, they were reminded of their past experiences and began to chase after Shauna when she chose the Queen card.
Callie kills Lottie in a non-lethal way to protect Shauna and stop the chase. Lisa, a member of the group who used to be friends with Natalie, sees a dangerous situation and threatens to kill Natalie. Misty tries to help her friend, but Natalie moves Lisa out of the way to protect her and accidentally gets stabbed by Misty with a deadly injection.
In ShowTime’s Behind the Buzz segment after the season end, Nickerson explains that they like to give hints about big moments. They then show a clip of adult Lottie saying that sacrificing Natalie to the woods will make their lives better. She looks at Van, who has cancer, as Shauna’s chances of being seen as a suspect in Adam Martin’s murder are fading. This could suggest that Van’s cancer might improve and the other adult Yellowjackets will have better luck.
What Can We Expect from Yellowjackets Season 3?
There haven’t been many details about the plot, but there are still a lot of open questions in both the 1990s and 2020s storylines.
“We think season 3 feels a bit like season 1 in terms of its atmosphere.” Lyle told TheWrap that the girls have been out there for a long time and are doing well.
In Season 1, the Yellowjackets acted more like typical teenagers, focussing on romance, having fun in good weather, swimming in the lake, and laughing with each other. In contrast, Season 2 showed them in a more serious survival situation.
The creators of Yellowjackets have said their original plan was to make the show last for five seasons. The Yellowjackets have been out for 19 months, which means each season lasts about four months. Since the girls came in the summer, it’s possible that the snow will melt during the season.
Hanratty might have hinted at this in a clever way during her 2024 interview on Entertainment Tonight when she talked about what she hopes for in Yellowjackets season 3.
“Season 1 was hectic and disorganised.” Season 2 was quiet, cold, and dark because it was winter. Now, Hanratty thinks that Season 3 is going to bring a big change. “We’re gonna see the melting of, like, what these people are.”
In season 2, there was a new storyline showing the survivors returning to the world after they were saved in 1998. Many people are curious about how they were saved and what happened right after they returned to society. Series director Karyn Kusama hinted that these topics will be covered in season 3.
“I’ve been really excited about this.” Kusama spoke with Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast. “I think there’s a lot to explore about what happens right after coming back into the world. It could fill an entire season.” This is a long game for each character as they try to adjust to what normal life should be. I believe we’ll discover that their usual way of life is very different from ours. There are many things that need to be worked out between season 2 and season 3.
In a June 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ricci mentioned that the upcoming season will be “even more shocking and surprising” than previous ones.
“It’s going to be really tough.” They also added a lot of humour to it. “I think it’s going to be very much like Yellowjackets,” she said.
In an interview with Vanity Fair in October 2024, author Ashley Lyle mentioned that fans have at least two important questions, and they will get clear answers in the next season.
“We are going to find out what happened in the wilderness that makes them so afraid to come out.” “We hope it will be enjoyable and sometimes surprising,” Lyle said. “I believe we’ve discovered who we are—let me figure out how to put this.”
She said, “The stakes are very high in the current story, which wasn’t the case in season two, and that was exciting for us to explore.”