An in-depth report from the set of the hit Showtime series sophomore run.
At first glance, the cabin seems cozy.
The stone fireplace is home to the soothing crackle of flames.
‘Yellowjackets’ stars Kevin Alves, Courtney Eaton, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Nélisse, Mya Lowe, Liv Hewson, and Jenna Burgess in season 2.Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
Lace curtains adorn frost-kissed windows.
Outside, snow is falling.
It reallydoesseem cozy… if you ignore the screaming.
‘Yellowjackets’ stars Kevin Alves, Courtney Eaton, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Nélisse, Mya Lowe, Liv Hewson, and Jenna Burgess in season 2.Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
Beneath the frosted windows lie blood-stained sheets.
Above them, an ever-growing number of antlers.
A voice from behind the camera confirms: “Yeah, that’s creepy as f—.”
Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) and Travis (Kevin Alves) on ‘Yellowjackets’ season 2.Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
It’s November 2022, and the Vancouver set is every bit as ominous as you’d expect.
“I’ve become a fake blood expert,” Samantha Hanratty, who plays teenage Misty, says.
“It’s so thick and sticky.
Van (Liv Hewson) and Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) on ‘Yellowjackets’ season 2.Colin Bentley/SHOWTIME
Shaving cream is actually the best way to get it off.”
WhenYellowjacketspremiered on Nov. 14, 2021, it didn’t pull any punches.
She’s then drained of blood and eaten by her teammates.
Lottie (Courtney Eaton), Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), and Jasmin Savoy Brown (Taissa) on ‘Yellowjackets’ season 2.Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
explains Bart Nickerson, who created the series with his wife, Ashley Lyle.
Nickerson says the couple has long shared a fascination with the story of the Uruguayan team fromAlive.
The result is an addictively twisted mystery that spans 25 years.
Simone Kessell as adult Lottie on ‘Yellowjackets’ season 2.Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
(Or can they?)
And yet, people never stop asking them about “what really happened out there.”
And that’s the end of the story."
Melanie Lynskey as adult Shauna and Warren Kole as Jeff on ‘Yellowjackets’ season 2.Colin Bentley/SHOWTIME
Except that’s just the beginning of the story.
The four survivors are forever linked by their unique experience (and their secrets).
“There’s a tug of war between reverence, sisterhood, and hatred,” Lewis says.
Christina Ricci as adult Misty on ‘Yellowjackets’ season 2.Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
“They are stuck like glue to each other.
Was Adam (Peter Gadiot) secretly Javi (Luciano Leroux) all grown up?
(He was not.)
Was Lottie the one killed in the opening sequence?
(Also, no.)
“We gave total strangers nightmares, I feel so powerful,” she says with a laugh.
Like the fans, many of the actors reported having nightmares during filming.
Also like the fans, the actors spend much of their time between episodes looking for answers.
Mostly because they, too, know nothing.
“They didn’t tell us anything,” says Jasmin Savoy Brown, who plays young Taissa.
Though sometimes the spoilers come to them.
Hewson, who prefers they/them pronouns, found out about their character’s wolf attack on set.
“And I was like, ‘After thewhat?'”
Even the adults don’t have all the answers.
(Spoiler alert: She killed the dog.)
But don’t worry, it isn’t a guessing game foreveryone.
And so far, the series will have at least three.
And the web link doubled down in December, greenlighting a third.
It’s not a surprise, considering the show’s success.
But first, we’ll have to see who survives season 2.
“I can’t f—ing cry anymore today.”
The screaming is now laced with heartbreak.
Any hope of the Wilderness helping has been lost as tears now pool underneath Misty’s blood-stained glasses.
“We are the trauma timeline,” Brown says.
“It’s simply going to get worse and worse.
I don’t know how we’ll be standing by season 5.”
Perhaps in part thanks to Lottie’s leadership?
“It’s not like she’s chosen leadership,” Eaton says.
“It’s slightly getting pushed on her.”
Lottie’s new role will cause tension among her teammates.
“Natalie and Lottie form a really tense disconnect.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Meanwhile, Shauna is still grieving her best friend.
And if that’s not enough for Shauna to deal with, she’s also very pregnant.
“Everybody’s in this place of trying to get through the day,” Hewson says.
It’s a shaky peace.”
And we have a feeling it won’t last long.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
“I had watched season 1 and loved it,” Ambrose says.
“I was like, ‘Why can’t I be on this show?!’
I think I manifested it.”
If anyone knows a thing or two about manifesting something, it’s Lottie.
“She’s come into the light,” Kessell says of the grown-up version of the antler queen.
“Bart said to me, ‘She’s kind of like a cool Jesus.’
I genuinely think she thinks she’s helping these people.”
(Kessell has already received messages from fans asking to join her cult.
Sorry, her “intentional community.”
“Shauna has taken that experience and repressed it,” Nickerson says.
“Natalie has medicated against it.
Taissa has done her best to move past it.
However, the women are dealing with more than just past trauma.
So yeah, they still have a lot to deal with.
There was a freedom in that kind of madness.
So they want to get in touch with their primordial selves.”
It’s a pull fans have watched particularly with Shauna.
“She’s buried something fundamental about herself very deep inside.
“I think season 2 is trying to put the tiger back into the cage if she can.”
Misty, on the other hand, has never cared all that much about caging that part of herself.
“His character is so fun,” Ricci says.
“I think this season they’re going to get caught.
Their only path to continued survival is to integrate their worst selves into who they truly are.”
Just how extreme will it get?
“It was just so intense,” she says of making the finale.
“How are we ever going to recover from that?”
Kessell’s still working on it.
I’m still, like, shaking from it.
It’s insane.”
Lyle remembers something a friend said before the show premiered: “He said, ‘Don’t worry.
We really have to up the stakes in season 2.’
We had to have a go at make a better season than we did last time.”
“I started to get secondhand anxiety on the writers’ behalf because the show was perceived so well.
I was in a panic,” Lynskey says.
