Coach Ben’s Shocking Fate In Yellowjackets S3 Ep 6 Addressed By Stars

The following contains spoilers for Yellowjackets season 3, episode 6, “Thanksgiving (Canada).”Yellowjackets stars break down Coach Ben Scott’s (Steven Krueger) heartbreaking fate in season 3, episode 6, “Thanksgiving (Canada).” Having been put on trial for burning down the cabin and deemed guilty, Coach Ben was sentenced to death before Akilah (Nia Sondaya) stopped the execution after seeing a vision that Ben was their bridge home. Coach Ben was kept alive in the animal pen, with Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) bringing him meals. After begging her to kill him for days, refusing to eat, and being forcefully fed, Natalie disregarded the team’s decision to keep him alive.

In an interview with Variety, Thatcher and Krueger discuss the heartbreaking death in episode 6. Thatcher explained that Coach Ben’s final journey in the episode reflects “a huge moral shift in the girls.” Krueger admitted that he knew that his character wouldn’t make it very early on. However, Thatcher had little knowledge of Coach Ben’s death before shooting the episode and found it “heartbreaking” that it was Natalie who granted Ben’s wish. Check out what they said below:

Thatcher: The way that they’re treating him, that was all up to them — it wasn’t for survival. You see a huge moral shift in the girls, and I think there’s something even more heartbreaking, even before the death, with how they treat him and how they force-feed him.

Krueger: Honestly, super early. It was kind of a rare experience. Oftentimes, when you know you have a character that is being killed off the show, you don’t really find out until right before, maybe like an episode or two before. That’s a long-standing protocol, I feel like, in the industry. This was a totally different experience. I’m really grateful to our showrunners for giving us a head’s up: I think they did this with everybody who was going to meet their demise this season. They called us months before we started filming and said, “Hey, just a head’s up — this is the storyline that we’re planning.”

It’s never fun to hear that your character is dying on a show. However, I will say I had kind of been prepared for this; I had talked to the showrunners very early on. I’ve worked with Ashley [Lyle] and Bart [Nickerson] for a long time, so I have a great, close relationship with them, and this was always the plan. Coach Ben was always going to meet his end at some point in Season 3 because, really, this sets off a chain reaction of everything that comes afterward — that eventually leads to all of the things that people are looking for answers to. And I’ll be honest, all I cared about was the storyline. I was like, “Is it a cool death? What are you guys thinking?” And as soon as I started talking about it, I was like, “This is great. This is awesome. This is exactly what the character deserves. I think this is going to be a really beautiful arc for this season.”

Thatcher: I’m the last person to know what’s going on, but I also don’t ask, because I like taking it as the episode comes. But yeah, there were rumors. I didn’t know if it was going to be Misty [Samantha Hanratty] or Natalie, but there’s something really heartbreaking about Natalie doing it, because they have that connection from Season 1. There’s innate trust, whereas I don’t think there’s trust within any of the other characters. It’s like Natalie and Ben are truly the outsiders.

I knew it was going to be really heartbreaking, and I went in anxious and putting pressure on myself, because any time you have a moment on the show, you really want to milk it, because there’s so many characters that you want your moments to stand out without it being too much. It’s a hard balance. The first season, having all those one-on-one scenes, it just felt like a completely different show, because I was always with Travis. So it was also refreshing to have, finally, a one-on-one scene with Steven.

Natalie went through an emotional journey in episode 6, having been the one trying to keep him alive for so long only to do the unthinkable after seeing him deteriorate before her eyes. Krueger teased that Coach Ben’s death stirred the girls in a certain direction and believed that “a lot of stuff” wouldn’t “end up happening” if his character stayed alive. Thatcher pointed out how surreal and isolated the girls truly were in the woods at the point. Read their comments below:

Thatcher: There are a lot of shifts in her during the scene, because you’re playing against a lot of emotions, and you can’t play into it too much. She’s playing against her fear and her own morality, and it’s incredibly confusing. She’s in such a confused headspace, and that’s always the hardest headspace to get into because there are so many conflicting emotions. But I think playing that shift, when she’s bringing up the knife, and you can suddenly see — because she backs away, and for a second, she’s not going to do it — but he brings her in, and playing that shift and earning it, where you realize, “Oh, she is going to do it,” was important. I think playing that in a naturalistic way was something I was very wary of, letting it still be a tender moment, almost beautiful too, where it’s not completely in darkness. It feels like a release. And having that, it was just very technical. It was a lot of moments to map out, and I was really happy with it. It was this very intimate space in the tent; the camera was right there. It felt like nobody else was there. And sometimes you’re very aware of all the crew and everything, but shooting it in the intimacy of the tent was really beautiful too.

Krueger: I don’t think a lot of stuff ends up happening if he’s still alive. I mean, truthfully, his death is kind of what brought those people this direction. And I don’t think that the girls would have reacted the same way if I was just sitting there alive. They had a very visceral, violent reaction immediately, right as those people descended on their camp and discovered them. And I think that was all because they felt like, in that moment, they were caught, and something bad had happened and this could look really bad. If I’m still alive, even if I’m in a really bad condition, I don’t think any of that goes down. So yeah, I really do see this as a very important inflection point in the overall series arc.

Thatcher: Yeah. I think it’s great, because you’re so in their worlds that you forget there’s an outside world. And I think it’s just as much of a shock to the audience, but I think with the timing of the episode, you’re so drawn into their experience that you forget there’s an outside world, and that’s exactly where they’re at. So I think there’s an amazing tonal shift, and I love that it’s played up in a dark, comedic, absurdist way. But I loved it. I loved the way that was pulled off, because it is a serious moment, but it’s just surreal. A very good delivery of, “What the fuck?!” It’s just one line, but it’s amazing.

Coach Ben’s Journey Is More Heartbreaking Than His Final Demise

Coach Ben’s death in Yellowjackets season 3 immediately leads to Natalie losing her “Queen Bee” status. Instead, Lottie supported Shauna as the new leader, and instead of giving Coach Ben a modern burial or cremation, they honored him the wilderness way, which was by holding a feast. Coach Ben’s final journey mirrors the girls’ collective state of mind and how they have abandoned civilization to serve the needs of their isolated society.

Thatcher’s comments further point out how far the girls have drifted from the outside world. With Shauna as their new leader and winter approaching, Krueger’s comments seem to hint that a violent new chapter has unveiled itself alongside Coach Ben’s death. The present timeline confirms that only a handful of Yellowjackets made it out of the woods, and it seems that there’ll be a lot more deaths in season 3.

Our Take On Coach Ben’s Death In Yellowjackets

It’s The Start Of A Violent New Chapter

Every change of leadership in Yellowjackets reflects the girls’ collective needs. Lottie represents spiritual guidance, and Natalie represents mercy and fairness after having to feed on their friends to survive the winter. Shauna, on the other hand, represents aggression and violence, which is what the group wants at the end of Yellowjackets season 3, episode 6. Coach Ben is innocent, but he’s sentenced to death regardless, and upon finding Mari, he had foreseen this would happen.

The way that Coach Ben met his demise is more heartbreaking than the character’s death. There’s no fairness or any hope in his suffering as an innocent man. Coach Ben went through the worst. The girls stripped away his dignity, and in his final moments, Coach Ben resembled more like an animal waiting to be slaughtered than a human. The fact that he ended up as food for the group reveals the chilling reality of cannibalism, where the girls no longer see each other as human beings but as food.

Source: Variety

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Yellowjackets

7/10

Release Date

November 14, 2021

Network

Showtime, Paramount+ with Showtime

Showrunner

Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, Jonathan Lisco

Directors

Benjamin Semanoff, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Deepa Mehta, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Liz Garbus, Scott Winant, Eva Sørhaug, Jamie Travis

Writers

Liz Phang, Sarah L. Thompson, Ameni Rozsa