Warning: Spoilers ahead for Yellowjackets season 1 finale.
What’s next? Yellowjackets quickly became one of the buzziest shows of the year following its November 2021 premiere — and its finale left viewers eager for answers.
The Showtime series follows Misty (Christina Ricci), Natalie (Juliette Lewis), Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) and Taissa (Tawny Cypress), who were stranded in the wilderness as teens (Sammi Hanratty, Sophie Thatcher, Sophie Nélisse and Jasmin Savoy Brown, respectively) after surviving a plane crash. Their traumatic experience leads the women down a dangerous path — and they aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.
“Showtime does like their gore. But luckily, this is just a natural agreement on all of our parts,” showrunner Ashley Lyle told Slate in January 2022 of the show’s dramatic visuals and dark story lines. “We knew going in that we wanted to have a visceral quality to the show. Our intention is never to be shocking or provocative for the sake of it, but to pick our moments where the frailty of the human body is on full display, and we’re not turning away from it.”
The series was officially picked up for a second season before the January 2022 finale aired, leaving fans wondering what’s in store for the survivors in the next chapter — and whether they’ll be seeing more from characters who seemingly didn’t make it out of the woods alive. Though Jackie (Ella Purnell) froze to death at the end of season 1, some viewers aren’t ruling out a potential return.
Purnell, however, appeared to confirm that her time on Yellowjackets was over after the finale.
“It has been the greatest honour playing Jackie and being a part of this sick little show,” the Maleficent actress wrote via Instagram at the time. “Acting alongside such ferociously talented people, making our chaotic little family, exploring beautiful Canada, getting to work/play & learn from so many good humans, and seeing all of your reactions / memes / theories / general hype – it’s absolutely been one of the brightest highlights of my career .”
The U.K. native continued: “Thank you to all the people who believed in me enough to give me this opportunity, and to our hardworking & fierce crew who actually made this s–t happen To my fellow Yellowjackets, I hope you know how much I love you all! I am so grateful for all of it. Buzz buzz buzz forever bitches! .”
Jackie and the Yellowjackets soccer players fought for their lives after their plane went down, and while the team captain didn’t survive, Lottie (Courtney Eaton) lasted longer. After the shocking finale reveal, Lyle and cocreator Bart Nickerson hinted at the “subtle indications” throughout the season that there were more than just four survivors.
“We wanted to make sure that, ultimately, we want to preserve the ability for our surprises to feel truly surprising so it’s always a bit of a delicate dance,” Lyle told Entertainment Weekly in January 2022. “You want to lay the groundwork and plant the seeds so nothing comes out of left field but at the same time, you don’t want anything to feel so inevitable that it loses its impact as a viewer. In many aspects of our storytelling, that was the balance that we were trying to strike.”
The twists continue as Natalie (Lewis) gets kidnapped and Lottie is joined by teen Misty (Hanratty) and Van (Liv Hewson) in the woods in a final flashback. She whispers a chilling incantation, performing some kind of spiritual offering and leading Ricci to wonder how the cult will factor into season 2.
“You have to understand, we had very little information in the beginning; people played it all very close to the chest, what was going on for the rest of the season. … We still don’t know exactly what it is,” the actress told GQ in January 2022 of Misty’s possible involvement in the cult. “We still have not been told. … I don’t get the feeling that she is in the cult. But I’m not sure.”
Scroll down for more clues about Yellowjackets season 2: