Spoilers ahead for Yellowjackets season 3.
Yellowjackets season 3 has come to a close, with a big body count (RIP Mari, the adult versions of Lottie and Van, Coach Ben Scott, Joel McHale, and that guy from New Girl), answers, and new questions. So of course we had to ask showrunners Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, and Jonathan Lisco about some of the deaths, and what comes next after the finale’s cliffhanger teasing the team’s return to society from the Wilderness.
“As writers, you start to go, Oh, but I love her so much, and I don't want to do this,” says Lyle of Mari’s death, in what might be a useful framing for all the character losses the show saw this season. “We had a conversation in the [writers] room, and you start to realize that that's actually the very best sign that you're actually on the right track. If it hurts us to kill a character, then that means that we should probably kill that character, and we're doing the right thing.”
Below, we talk to the Yellowjackets showrunners about their intentions for Shauna Shipman in both timelines, some of their favorite scenes from season 3, and what they’re looking forward to for a possible season 4.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Bart Nickerson: There was something that was very meaningful about getting to return story wise to some of the kind of footage — literally from the pilot, so many years ago —and then getting to interact with it in a slightly different way. Getting to make it match but feel different felt very creatively and spiritually meaningful. I’m a very different person from, what was it, 45 years ago, that we shot the pilot? A lifetime ago.
BN: So getting to revisit that, both as closing a loop, but also a new beginning of sorts, will be one of the treasured creative experiences of my life and career.
Ashley Lyle: We always knew; we also enjoyed Alexa's [Barajas] performance so much this season. She really brought it. Some of my favorite scenes from this season are her in the cave with Coach Scott [Steven Kreuger]. That's always the hope, and the plan is that you can then fill out and flesh out this character in a way that her death becomes truly impactful and meaningful for the audience.
Mari's journey was really satisfying because she's been a bit of a favorite in the writers room from season 1. She was just such a little b*tch, and I say that with so much love. And Alexa can land a one liner like nobody's business. But to get a chance to flesh out her character a little bit more fully, to bring in some backstory… She's, I think, very complicated, because you kind of love to hate her, and then you kind of start to hate to love her.
This season, she's equally lovable, and [other times] sometimes you just want to shake her, like when she's ratting out Coach almost immediately. I would say, in Mari's defense, I'm not sure that she's the deepest thinker.
BN: And I’ll also say, part of it is I think we all just love a gutsy, scrappy character. The moment where she goes for Shauna's knife, just before the countdown, to me, it's such a quintessential Mari moment. She's got a gambler’s spirit, and is scared of Shauna, but is not scared to the point of kind of inaction. I will always have a lot of respect for that kind of person and character, that actually goes for it.
Jonathan Lisco: I totally agree. And don't forget, it's not just the knife. Even when she gets restrained and she's about to run off into the woods, she has a zinger, I hope you get what you deserve. And guess what? Shauna might.
AL: I think that Melanie's Melanie-ness was almost too effective in the first two seasons. We've been very carefully attempting to thread through hints at the true darkness under the surface of Shauna Shipman, from the very opening, when she's sleeping with Jeff and she's killing rabbits, to the moment where she's telling the guy in the Chop Shop that her hands aren’t shaking because she's afraid, it's because of how badly she wants to kill him, and she's talking viscerally about skinning people alive. So it's very interesting to me that we get to this season and people are like, what?! Hey!
It's always been there just under the surface, but it's been really fun to work with both Sophie [Nélisse] and Melanie in starting to have all of that bubble up and be much more clear, and be expressed in this really honest way. And I think that both of them really embraced it.
Obviously, we chose, from a structural standpoint, to have it come through with Shauna in the Wilderness a little bit earlier than Shauna in the present day. But I remember we were almost all on set when we had the “eat it” moment [in episode 8], and we were just cheering at the monitor. So, our hope is that, as much as people are horrified by Shauna, and probably angry with Shauna, I would argue for me, at least personally, it's a lot of fun to watch someone go really dark. I think it's even more fun when it's a Melanie Lynskey or Brian Cranston, where that's just the last thing you expect. For us, as producers and creators and showrunners, that's the dream.
JL: It's interesting to me that some of our fandom continues to disbelieve that this trauma has had as dark an impact on some of the characters, like they're somehow gonna find their angels again and act appropriately. Our answer, at least mine personally, is how could they? How could they possibly ever re-find normalcy? And then, of course, you could always ask what is normalcy to begin with? Because we all go through something. So there's a way to sort of iterate on this trauma [in order] to talk about pretty much everybody who consumes the show. But I find it very fascinating that some people are still saying, no, no, Shauna’s not that bad, it's still going to be okay. I don't know, I feel like we've kind of crossed that Rubicon at this point, but I throw it to you, Ash and Bart.
BN: I don't know if this makes me derelict in duty, but I don't know that we're trying to concretely land on our feet in terms of moralizing our characters, as much as we love them. Judging them from an ethical standpoint, they've done many, many, many things that are horrible, but in terms of whether or not they are redeemable or evil, in a binary way, I don't know, it's too big a question, I think, for a television show — or a hundred lifetimes.
I think there's always understanding and empathy, especially, towards our characters that we're going to extend and try to make the experience as human as possible. Those are the terms that I think we've always thought about it, not necessarily that we were crossing a Rubicon of darkness this season, because, you know, they ate their friend so fast. I feel like we've been in a place with them for so long.
AL: Absolutely the dream would be for them to be perceived as feminist icons, but I don't know that perfect snowflakes should be in that same sentence. I find it fascinating that the media landscape and the world of storytelling has so many examples of Tony Sopranos and Walter Whites and Don Drapers, and I am hard pressed to think of as many characters who are women who are given the opportunity to be f*cking terrible people and to still get their story told. I think that because people are unaccustomed to that, it's a little bit more shocking, and it's clearly having an impact on the fandom. I've taken a step back from Reddit and social media, but enough of it gets through to me that I am at least aware that there is some kerfuffle happening on this front.
From our perspective, the most feminist thing we could do, and we always went into this with this perspective, was just to have a world that is predominantly women, have a lot of queer characters, and just let them do their f*cking thing. And it's not about them being women, necessarily. So often in television, it's about being a woman or it's about being queer, and we just wanted to have them be the population of our world, and then let them be deeply complicated, f*cked up characters who are fun to watch and do bad things and that, to me, is sort of the point. That's what we're being allowed the opportunity to do, and that's really rare. So I hate to break it to anybody, but they are not perfect snowflakes.
AL: One thing that we've always been excited about from the conception of the show is telling the story of them attempting to reintegrate into society post-rescue. I think that's really right, juicy stuff. And if we're given the opportunity to tell it, we're going to be really excited to dig in.
JL: For me, I think now that Shauna is untethered to family, to obligation, to this domestic prison that she's put herself in, we believe sort of on purpose, at the beginning of the show, because she was trying to live normally — now that it's out in the open, that all has fallen away and those conventions have kind of eroded and come down, now I want to really see what she does.
AL: Yeah. In the pilot, there's a scene in rehab when Natalie says, You got to keep the tiger in the cage. And the tiger was always Shauna.
BN: Yeah. And for my part, continuing to explore the relationships, particularly in the present day, for Taissa, Shauna. And honestly, how Misty is able to continue to insert herself-slash-take advantage of discord will always be one of my favorite things.
BN: They’re coming into winter, it could be plowing driveways.
