If there’s one thing that Season 2 ofYellowjacketstaught us, is that, fan-favorite character or not, no one is safe. What we didn’t know was that showrunnersAshley Lyle,Ameni RozsaandJonathan Liscowere originally a lot more cruel than that, with characters that we love biting the dust as early asSeason 1. During an interview withVulture, the writers talked about which characters got to live another day once they fell in love with some of the actors' performances.
During the interview, it was revealed that at least two characters from the series lived on borrowed time. Van, played byLiv Hewsonwas one of them. The writers revealed that Van “was not initially meant to be long for this world,” but Liv’s performance was so compelling that they started thinking over as they rewatched the pilot during COVID (“we had quite a bit of time before we actually had a writers’ room”) they decided thatVan just couldn’t go. Needless to say, the character is still alive and kickingas we veer into Season 3.
Laura Lee Also Lived on Borrowed Time in ‘Yellowjackets’
The other was Laura, played byJane Widopp(It’s a Wonderful Knife). As Colliderpreviously reported, the young version of the character originally never made it past a couple of episodes, but Lyle revealed thatLaura’s deathwouldn’t be just for the shock factor, but to actually mean something for the characters that remained:
“[Laura Lee] was meant to die in Episode 2, and we just loved Jane Widdop so much that we thought, ‘Why kill a character now when people don’t know her yet?’At first she was meant to be sort of a Christ-like sacrifice, that the Believer was the only one who died. We thought that there was something really interesting in that and it could accelerate the sort of anti-faith that would be slowly subsumed by the faith in the wilderness that took over. But then we were like, ‘Ah, she’s too good!’ And then we were like, ‘What if she tried to leave in a plane?’ We just got so excited at the idea of little Laura Lee being like, ‘I’m gonna fly this fucking plane!’ So she lasted eight episodes, and we are so happy for it.”
Thenew season ofYellowjacketsis set to premiere onFebruary 14, 2025. So far, we don’t know much aboutwhat is going to happen, but it’s safe to say that the new episodes will cover the aftermath of Natalie’s (Juliette Lewis) death. The new season will also bring new heavyweight cast members likeHilary Swank(Million Dollar Baby) andJoel McHale(Community).
You can stream both seasons ofYellowjacketson Paramount+.
Yellowjackets
A wildly talented high school girls’ soccer team become the unlucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the Canadian wilderness.
watch on paramount+
