Yellowjackets fans received a chilling surprise in the first teaser trailer for Season 3, as Ella Purnell’s Jackie Taylor is confirmed to make an unexpected return to the series. The trailer reveals Jackie appearing as an apparition to her former best friend Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) in the present-day timeline, marking a significant departure from her previous posthumous appearances. Until Season 2, every scene in which Jackie shows up as a hallucination has been contained in the past timeline, where a young Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) has to accept her role in the death and cannibalistic consumption of her former best friend.
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Jackie’s return carries immense weight within the show’s mythology, as her death in Season 1 marked a pivotal turning point for the survivors. After freezing to death during the group’s first winter in the wilderness, Jackie became the first victim that the team consumed in their cannibalistic rituals, setting off a chain of events that would haunt them for decades to come. Her presence in the present timeline suggests that Shauna’s guilt and trauma continue to manifest in increasingly disturbing ways. That echoes what appears to be the central theme of Season 3’s present-day timeline, as the survivors are hunted down by a mysterious force who knows their darkest secrets.
The new trailer showcases the return of several key cast members, including Elijah Wood reprising his role as Walter, the musical theater enthusiast and murderous billionaire who became entangled with the survivors in Season 2. The upcoming chapter introduces significant additions to the ensemble, including Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank, who appears in the trailer covered in blood and running from an unseen threat. Community and Stargirl’s Joel McHale also joins the cast of Season 3, with Sara Desjardins, who plays Callie, being promoted to a regular role in the upcoming season.
[Related: Yellowjackets: What Happened to the “Bonus” Season 2 Episode?]
What We Know About Yellowjackets Season 3?
The new season of Yellowjackets will feature a double time jump. In the past, the story moves into spring following the harsh winter that dominated Season 2, with the teenage survivors adapting to life without their cabin shelter. In the present-day timeline, the story picks up several months after Natalie’s tragic death, with the adult survivors dealing with the aftermath of losing one of their own.
Curiously, in real life, fans have also experienced a time jump between Yellowjackets seasons. The long gap between Seasons 2 and 3 directly stems from the 2023 Hollywood strikes. Production on Season 3 initially began in May 2023, but the writers’ room only managed a single day of work before shutting down due to the WGA strike. The series remained in limbo throughout both the writers’ and actors’ strikes, with filming finally resuming in May 2024. This extended delay pushed the premiere to February 2025, creating the longest gap between seasons since the show’s debut – almost two years since the Season 2 March 2023 premiere.
The wait might prove worth it. As showrunner Ashley Lyle promised in a Vanity Fair interview, Season 3 will finally provide “very clear answers” to significant questions that have haunted the series since its beginning, particularly regarding the events in the wilderness that the survivors have kept hidden. The path to truth is a bloody one, though, as the hit series’ cast has been quite vocal about how Season 3 will take Yellowjackets’ brutality to a new level. “This season is going to be even more shocking and surprising than the previous seasons,” star Cristina Ricci has said.
Yellowjackets Season 3 premieres February 14, 2025, on Paramount+ with Showtime.
