The first four episodes of “Yellowjackets,” season three have been released on Paramount+, marking the midpoint of the season.
The ’90s-set survival drama follows the New Jersey Yellowjackets, a high school soccer team whose plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness en route to nationals. Stranded with their coach and two boys — the surviving sons of another coach who died — they struggle to survive for 19 months. The story unfolds in two timelines: their fight for survival in 1996 and the lives of the six surviving Yellowjackets 25 years later.
Season 3, episode 1
Six weeks after their cabin burned, the teenage Yellowjackets have made it to Spring and are seemingly thriving. Yellowjacket Akilah (Nia Sondaya) has gathered a hoard of animals to feed the team, while the rest of them used the remnants of the cabin and plane to build tents and shelter. Natalie, having survived the group hunt, is appointed leader by teen Lottie (Courntey Eaton) — who is struggling with schizophrenia and feels an unbreakable connection to the wilderness.
This decision upsets Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), who has lost both her baby and her best friend Jackie (Ella Purnell) in the wilderness. Feeling that the girls owe her their loyalty, she starts a feud with Mari (Alexa Barajas) that causes her to leave the group, while Lottie helps Javi’s brother Travis (Kevin Alves) deepen his spiritual connection to the wilderness.
In the present day, the adult Yellowjackets gather to pay their respects to Natalie (Juliette Lewis). However, Misty (Christina Ricci) is not invited to the funeral. Devastated, she gets drunk at a bar, where a vision of teenage Natalie encourages her to stand up for herself. Her boyfriend, Walter (Elijah Wood), eventually comes to her rescue.
Meanwhile, Shauna’s daughter, Callie (Sarah Desjardins), intercepts a mysterious cassette tape addressed to her mother. Elsewhere, adult Taissa (Tawny Cypress) reconnects with her former wilderness girlfriend and survivor Van (Lauren Ambrose), who is now dying of cancer. The two go out to dinner and impulsively dine and dash, but tragedy strikes when their waiter suffers a fatal heart attack while chasing them.
The time jump was an interesting choice on the show runners end. We know the girls spend a limited 19 months stranded in the wilderness, yet we just skipped past six weeks and a major event — the cabin fire. A huge cliffhanger left over from season 2, but I suppose rebuilding an entire civilization in the middle of the Canadian Rockies was no big deal for the Yellowjackets. Other than a new setting it seems like it’s more of the same for the team, Shauna is still grieving the loss of her baby and best friend, Lottie is trying to reconnect with the wilderness after losing her connection to it last season and Mari continues to be insufferably annoying.
Season 3, episode 2
The teenage Yellowjackets realize Mari has gone missing and separate to look for her. However Misty (Samanatha Hanratty) suspects that Natalie knows where Coach Ben is hiding, she tells Shauna this and is told to stay quiet and not let the other Yellowjackets know.
A missing Mari falls into a pit hidden in the woods and is pulled out by Coach Ben, who set the trap to find food. He rescues her but knowing the teens think he’s guilty of burning down the cabin, refuses to take her back instead leading her to a cave, where Mari catches him speaking to an anonymous figure.
Back at their camp, Shauna relocates the burial site of her stillborn baby after Lottie attempts to bless his grave. She notices Yellowjacket Melissa watching her, and pulls a knife to her throat. In response, Melissa kisses her, and Shauna reciprocates.
In the present, Taissa flees the restaurant after discovering she accidentally killed the waiter while trying to settle an unpaid bill. Lottie unexpectedly visits Shauna and her husband Jeff’s (Warren Kole) house, and Callie persuades them to let her stay. While Shauna and Jeff go to a business dinner they call Misty to come supervise Lottie, but Callie drugs Misty and bonds with Lottie anyway. Walter tells Misty that her friends only use her and to put her trust in him, but she dismisses him. During the dinner, Shauna receives a mysterious phone in the bathroom and later anxiously calls the restaurant to see who retrieved it.
Fans have theorized that the phone’s owner could be an adult Melissa — who has yet to be confirmed as a survivor. Meanwhile, Walter is growing increasingly suspicious, pulling Misty away from the rest of the group and hinting at him having more sinister intentions.
Season 3, episode 3
In present day, Van finds out her cancer has gone into remission and Taissa declares that the waiter’s death must have saved Van’s life drawing a connection to their time in the wilderness, where deaths often brought rewards for the survivors. Later that night, while they’re watching TV, Taissa sees a commercial for an ice cream store featuring the “man with no eyes,” a figure who has haunted her since childhood. She recruits Van to go to the ice cream store and find him, they break in and find the store abandoned.
Misty attempts to spend the day with Shauna to explain what happened the night before, but when Shauna finds her car breaks have failed she immediately blames Misty and throws her out of the car. Callie and Lottie continue to bond and Lottie gives Callie a necklace from the wilderness- a token they place on whoever picked the queen card before she was hunted and killed.
Shauna comes home and finds Callie wearing the necklace. Furious that she put such a symbol on her daughter she berates Lottie and rips the necklace off of her kicking Lottie out of their house.
In the teen timeline, Mari manages to escape Ben’s cave and returns to the group. She attempts to lie about finding him but cracks under Shauna’s intimidation. Shauna demands the group find Ben and kill him, and the girls set off on a hunt. They make it into the cave and split up once it comes to a fork in the road, Van (Liv Hewson), Akilah and Shauna pair off together and make it into a tunnel but are immediately plagued by hallucinations.
Shauna dreams of her son calling her from a lakeshore, but the faster she swims toward him the further she is pulled away. Van dreams of her three near-death experiences, while Akilah hallucinates being swallowed up by the earth. Their dreams all converge as they stand in a classroom with Jackie and Lottie.
At that moment Ben pulls their bodies out of the cave to save them knowing it’s full of toxic gas. This results in him being captured by Natalie and Misty.
This episode of “Yellowjackets” took a different approach than usual, leaning heavily into symbolism through its dream sequences. Yet, these visions didn’t exactly reveal much any information. We already know Shauna will never be able to reach her baby, and that Van’s survival instincts stem from being left for dead so many times. Akilah’s dream, however, might offer some more insight into her fate.
In her subconscious, Akilah dreams of eating elderberries growing in the woods — continuing a recurring motif in “Yellowjackets.” Characters who hallucinate or dream are often offered food, and accepting it foreshadow death. We’ve seen this pattern before with Jackie and her dream sequence where she is offered hot chocolate before she froze outside the cabin, as well as with Lottie, luckily in her case she was pulled away at the last moment before she could eat.
Season 3, episode 4
Shauna learns her breaks were never cut by Misty and volunteers with Jeff in order to rack up good karma. While getting supplies from the freezer Shauna is locked in and begins seeing visions of ghost Jackie who taunts Shauna for causing her death, and for marrying Jeff who was Jackie’s boyfriend at the time of the crash.
In 1996, the teens hold a trial for Ben, with Natalie as judge, Taissa as the prosecutor, and Misty as the defense. Shauna berates Ben for leaving her during labour — resulting in her baby’s stillbirth. Ben apologizes and declares he will do better by the group and he only left them as he was afraid he was next to be killed. Taissa reveals Natalie knew where he was all along — splitting the vote until Shauna intimidates the group into finding him guilty, they sentence him to capital punishment.
Back in the present day, Misty is sleuthing Reddit and finds an image of adult Lottie dead at the bottom of a set of stairs.
Earlier in season three, Lottie showed up at Shauna’s house fresh out of the psych ward, seemingly with a lot on her plate. Her survival reveal in season two, marked by the line, “Who the —- is Lottie Matthews?” hinted at a more antagonistic role, especially given the entire season two adult storyline is revolving around her cult — which ended up leading to adult Natalie’s death.
However, it seems like the show runners rushed to kill her off just to give Misty another citizen detective storyline, similar to the one she had in season one. It’s disappointing to see such a compelling and beloved character die so suddenly, with little apparent impact on the larger plot. But we’ll have to wait for the rest of the season to see where this goes.
You can stream “Yellowjackets” on Paramount+ with the Showtime add-on. New episodes will be released at 11 p.m. every Thursday.
This story was written by Allison Scherquist. She can be reached at allison.scherquist@marquette.edu.
