We’re not out of the woods yet: Yellowjackets is returning for a second season.
The breakaway psychological thriller has taken over the internet. Set across two timelines—1996 and present day—Yellowjackets follows a high school soccer team whose plane crashes in the wilderness. In 1996, the survivors must battle the elements, their demons and each other to stay alive for 19 months before rescue. In the present day, four of the remaining Yellowjackets are fighting to keep the true story of how they survived a secret.
It’s a gripping story that left fans dissecting theories each week, diving into everything from trauma and ritualistic cannibalism to mean girl politics. Yet despite (or perhaps because of) the brutal notes it hits, Yellowjackets has struck a chord with fans, scoring a rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
“This show has just exploded,” Showtime’s President of Entertainment Gary Levine told Deadline. “For it to be embraced as quickly and as deeply as it was by both audiences and critics alike, that’s a little like catching lightning in a bottle — you can never anticipate that but boy, it’s awfully sweet when it rarely happens.”
It’s been exactly a year since the season one Yellowjackets finale aired on January 16 in the US, before it became available on Paramount+ for Australians.
Luckily for us, Yellowjackets will be making a return very soon, with Showtime renewing it for season two halfway through the first season.
Levine said the writers room and showrunners Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson and Jonathan Lisco would begin writing season two in mid January, but he was as in the dark about season two as the rest of us at the time.
“I do know that there will be some surprises in terms of the characters,” he said. “There are still lots of questions about who survived, what happened out there. There will be some real surprises in terms of that and I think some characters you may not even have met yet.”
Lynskey, who plays adult Shauna, asked producers to give her the season one rundown (and beyond) when pitching the show to her.
“I was nervous and I wanted to be sure that they had a plan,” she told Collider. “You can write a cool pilot and have a cool idea, and not really know where to take it. That was my concern.”
However, her fears were abated. “They had answers to everything,” she said. “It was so meticulous and so well thought out, and that was really impressive. I just trusted them and I was right to because, the whole season, the writing was really, really good and really, really strong.”
Is There A Trailer For Yellowjackets Season 2?
WATCH BELOW: Yellowjackets Season 2 Official Trailer
After a long wait, we finally have our very first look at season two, with Paramount+ releasing a trailer (which you can watch in the video player above) to give us a hint of what’s to come.
Premiering on Friday, March 24 this year, the highly anticipated second season of the Emmy-nominated drama Yellowjackets will answer all of our burning questions, after ending on that cliffhanger.
Set in the chilling winter, the trailer prominently features the unexplained stick-figure symbol of a person with a line through their torso — which was found beneath the body in the cabin in season one.
Who is cast in Yellowjackets Season 2?
Melanie Lynskey will return for season two as Shauna, Christina Ricci as Misty, Juliette Lewis as Natalie, and Taissa Tawny Cypress as Taissa. The actors who play the teen versions of the adults will be back too, such as Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Sophie Nélisse, and Ella Purnell.
Kevin Alves, who played the teenage Travis, will also be a part of season two, along with Elijah Wood, who makes an appearance in the trailer, Simone Kessell, Lauren Ambrose, Nuha Jes Izman and Jason Ritter.
