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Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Yellowjackets season 3, episode 4, “12 Angry Girls and 1 Drunk Travis.”Yellowjackets‘ cast explain how the trial acts as a turning point in season 3. In episode 4, the group holds a trial to determine whether Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) is guilty of setting the cabin on fire. Misty (Sammi Hanratty) defends Ben against Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown), while Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) serves as the judge. However, when the group fails to reach the two-over-three majority vote to determine his fate, Shauna (Sophie Nelisse) overrides Natalie’s authority and forces a result.
In an interview with People, the cast discuss the trial’s importance in the show. Van’s actor Liv Hewson believes that the trial is a “big old episode” that serves as a “reminder” of “how young these characters are,” while Hanratty thinks that Misty takes the trial seriously and truly wants the best outcome. Check out what she said below:
Hanratty: [Misty] takes it very seriously and wants to win, wants to win for herself, wants to win for Ben, who she loves very deeply, wants to win for Natalie, who she’s seeing this blossoming friendship with and she sees that Natalie cares for Ben as well. So, she’s wanting the outcome to be him to survive.
Krueger believes that for Ben, “the guilty verdict was maybe to be expected,” since he doesn’t think his character “held out much hope for anything else.” Brown, on the other hand, sees “definitely a shift” and “a scary moment.” Check out what she said below:
I think at first, Tai feels vindicated because she won. And then, it’s perhaps a bit scary because it’s like, “Wait, what did I win? And do I really believe everything I am fighting for and against? Or did I just wanna win? Is it a little bit of both?” It brings up a lot of questions.
Alves echoes Brown’s sentiment that the trial is a “turning point for the show” because of how it acts as the thing that divided the group, while Nelisse and Thatcher explain the change of power dynamics. Check out what they said below:
Alves: The entire group felt like one unit and the trial ended that unit for good. There will always be two sides to this story no matter what now — and that’s a really interesting dynamic to have between the group for the rest of the season.
Nelisse: In a very subliminal way, I think Shauna keeps planting these like little seeds that she has control over the group more than Natalie does. The power dynamic will slowly start to shift her way.
Thatcher: You see a shift in the power dynamics too. You see that Shauna really does have that power through manipulation rather than reasoning or fairness or any sense of believing in human good. You just see that manipulation can get you so far when you really are susceptible and everyone’s really vulnerable right now.
The trial also sees the group taking control over the fate of one of their own instead of having it being determined by the wilderness, and Shauna, being the person to lead the group to find a potentially innocent man guilty, crosses a line. What they’ll do to Ben is “a big responsibility.” Check out what the cast said:
Hanratty: it’s interesting because it’s always been the wilderness that has chosen things, at least for the most part. When they’ve done really bad things, they’ve kind of always given it to the wilderness and this is the first time that it’s them. Whether or not you believed in the wilderness, they are having to make a decision at the end of the day.
Hewson: It’s also interesting that with the decision to put him on trial and the verdict being guilty, we have to decide what to do with him afterwards. Like, it’s a big responsibility that the group assumes and that is scary.
Nelisse: I think it’s a very interesting emotional point in Shauna’s life as well, because I think it’s probably, when you think about it, she sentences what may be an innocent man to his death. And I think it’s a line that she’s crossed that I don’t think she’ll ever be able to forgive herself for. And so I think that might be one of the moments that will haunt her the most for the rest of her life.
Courtney Eaton (Lottie): I think as an actor it was a challenge because I knew what the outcome was going to be and I, it’s not that I didn’t agree with it, but I just had to come to a realization of why she flips. I think it’s that she sees as she’s on this journey to find who she is in the wilderness, she sees something reflected in Shauna that sways her more, and she’s willing to sacrifice Ben to find out what that is and who she is, which is a big moment. And she knows the power that she also holds when she sways.
More to come…
Source: People