Yellowjackets Creator Teases Big Questions Will Be Answered in Season 3

The questions surrounding Showtime and Paramount+’s spooky thriller, Yellowjackets, have not ceased since the show premiered back in November 2021. But with the third season, answers are on their way, according to one of the show’s co-creators in a new interview with Vanity Fair.

Speaking with Vanity Fair ahead of the new season, co-creator Ashley Lyle explained that “there are at least two very big questions with very clear answers.” This will undoubtedly come as a thrill to fans who have spent the past two seasons obsessing over the mysterious, often supernatural-seeming terror at the heart of the show. The interview also confirmed that we can expect Season 3 to premiere in early 2025.

Yellowjackets follows a group of teenage soccer players who were involved in a deadly plane crash in 1996, and the consequences of the events that have resulted in their adult lives years later. It features an ensemble cast led by Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Samantha Hanratty, Liv Hewson, Courtney Eaton, Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, Lauren Ambrose, and Simone Kessell. Ricci has previously called the third season “brutal.”

Yellowjackets Wants to Answer Your Questions

And, according to Lyle, Season 3 is set to be a major culmination as well as a return to form. “This season is really when we start bringing those pieces together,” she explained, adding “that was always the plan. It is very satisfying to have elements of this season that were planned from the very beginning. … [T]here are a couple of big things in this season that were in the very initial pitches before we even took it out to networks, that we’ve finally got the chance to execute and to play out.”

Given that the show actively exists within two timelines, themes around identity and nature vs. nurture are constantly in the writers’ minds.

“We love to play with the idea that in some ways, you are who you are. … How do you change while you are in your core, in your essence, the same person you always were? How much are you hiding that, and how long are you able to do that, is a question that we’re playing with this season.”

Yellowjackets Season 3 Set Photos Hint a Haunting Return to Wilderness

Yellowjackets Season 3 is officially in production with the release of new set photos.

Season 3 also gave the cast and creators a sense of ownership after a mixed reception to Season 2. “In a way, season three allowed us to just come back to that a little bit,” explained Lyle. However, in “this season, they were making it for themselves again. That’s how we felt as well. Of course, you hope that people love it, but if you’re trying to make something based on feedback, you’re going to go a little insane, because the feedback is so wildly varied. We just tried to make a show that we loved, and that we felt proud of and that we felt good about.”

Of course, fans of the show are still desperate for answers to some of the series’ bigger questions. To quell those worries, Lyle insists that, “[w]e are going to learn more about what happened in the wilderness that they are so afraid of coming out.” Will new guest stars Hilary Swank and Joel McHale play a part in this? One can only hope! Lyle concluded:

“We hope it will be both satisfying and at times unexpected. And I think that we have found ourselves—let me think of how to say this. [
Pause
] The stakes are pretty high in the present-day storyline, perhaps in a way that they did not feel in season two, and that was really exciting for us to delve into.”