What Are You Willing To Do To Survive?

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Yellowjackets season 3 finale.Yellowjackets‘ show co-creator breaks down the major characters’ deaths in season 3. Weaving two timelines together, season 3 takes place after the harsh winter in season 2 and sees the titular soccer team facing another leadership change as they encounter strangers in the wilderness. With shocking deaths continuing to be a recurring theme, two of the surviving Yellowjackets in the present timeline didn’t make it alive by the end of season 3.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, show co-creator Ashley Lyle unpacks the deeper meaning behind adult Van (Lauren Ambrose) and adult Lottie’s (Simone Kessell) deaths. She explained that Lottie’s death is more in conversation with the show’s discussion about faith, taking away “the concreteness” of the girls’ belief system. Van’s death, on the other hand, is about survival and morality, serving to show what would happen to a character when they are “not willing” to cross the line. Check out her comment below:

I’ve seen some speculations that it was about coming back to the core cast, and that genuinely wasn’t part of the thought process. It really was character-specific for us. Lottie and Van serve very different purposes in the world of our characters. Lottie wields a lot of influence. She is the genesis of this belief system. She is representative of the wilderness. She’s the most in touch with it. She’s the one who introduces the concept [of sacrificing someone to save yourself]. So to take away someone who they see as having a connection to or a relationship and conversation with this presence that they believe in, to some extent or another, and obviously that varies amongst the characters, we wanted to take away the concreteness of that. When it comes to belief, and I don’t mean to get completely high-handed with this, but there’s this sort of Kierkegaardian concept that faith with any kind of proof is no longer faith. We wanted to explore that with the characters.

And then Van, in a completely different way, the premise of this show is: what are you willing to do to survive? What lengths are you willing to go to? How much will you let it change you? I think you can make a case with Shauna that it’s not changing her, it’s opening something up within her. And for Van, her arc this season was very much asking that question in a more literal way: what is she willing to do to survive? And to have a character who is not willing to cross a certain rubicon felt very important for us, because it presents a much more clear question for the rest of our characters. Van is unique amongst the women in having a limit. I think that needed to be said. It needed to be shown, and it allows for the characters who are willing to cross a rubicon to begin to cross it.

Lottie & Van’s Deaths Destabilized The Group

Revolving around the 18 months a group of teenage girls were trapped in the woods, one of the main themes in Yellowjackets is survival. In the past timeline, the girls had to eat human flesh to survive the harsh winter, and in the process, they realized the game lies in surviving each other. In a separate interview, director Ben Semanoff explained that Van had successfully saved Taissa from Melissa, which is what her heart wanted, but being killed by Melissa reminded viewers that the game was still on 25 years later.

With Lottie, who is regarded as a “representative of the wilderness,” with the introduction of sacrifice, her death destabilizes the ground the survivors were standing on. In the same interview, Lyle shared that Callie’s decision to kill Lottie came from “instinct.” While Callie made a conscious decision, she may not fully understand why she did what she did, which makes her character arc particularly interesting to see in Yellowjackets season 4.

Our Take On Van & Lottie’s Deaths In Yellowjackets

The Wilderness Is Inside All Of Them

While Van’s death concluded the character’s story in the present timeline, it kick-started adult Melissa’s story in Yellowjackets, who may be more interested in bringing the hunting game back than she initially appeared to be. Without Lottie, the last-standing members now have no spiritual leader to guide them or offer them insight, which makes them more vulnerable than ever.

Yellowjackets season 3 finale sees the girls being divided more than ever in both timelines. Jeff has taken Callie away from Shauna, while Taissa and Misty are turning against Shauna. It seems like Shauna, who once was the fiercest and most bloodthirsty of them, has become a target, all while Melissa’s whereabouts are unknown. With two major characters’ deaths, the show has turned the present timeline into the playground for a lethal game of survival.

Source: THR

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