Loss of life runs rampant in Yellowjackets, however by no means a lot because it did in Season 3. 4 characters had been killed off within the third season, two of which had been a very long time coming and two that got here as an enormous shock to longtime followers. Liv Hewson and Lauren Ambrose‘s Van Palmer, the grownup model of whom was debuted in Season 2, has escaped loss of life so many occasions that Van fancied herself to be “unkillable.” So says Hewson themselves within the video interview above breaking down Van’s arc in Yellowjackets Season 3. However the loss of life knell rang for this pop culture-obsessed character, who met their tragic finish by the hands of a shock grownup survivor from the wilderness, Melissa, performed by Jenna Burgess in flashbacks and Hilary Swank within the current day.
Van was solely meant to be a one-season character, however Hewson bought bumped as much as sequence common when the Paramount+ With Showtime drama bought renewed for Season 2 (Yellowjackets was renewed for Season 4 on Might 20). Van survived the ugly wolf assault that left her face completely scarred in Season 1. Hewson tells TV Insider that they’ll’t say for certain that this was meant to be Van’s loss of life within the unique plan, however they suppose that may’ve been the case. Hewson was the one actor solid to play Van within the debut season, leaving the character’s destiny post-rescue a thriller till Ambrose’s casting was revealed pre-Season 2. Van almost died within the hearth contained in the airplane post-crash, survived the wolf assault, and averted any an infection of her wounds, and, in Season 3, even noticed her terminal most cancers miraculously go into remission. Tai (Tawny Cypress), nonetheless, would have you ever consider it was as a result of they made a human sacrifice to “It” and had been rewarded (nicely, Different Tai thinks that, no less than). However the unkillable Van was, in reality, killed within the penultimate episode of Season 3.
Her loss of life had been foreshadowed all season by means of dream-like sequences that gave Hewson and Ambrose the possibility to share scenes. You’re led to consider that these moments are the results of Van’s most cancers killing her, however then her loss of life turns into far more violent and surprising. Hewson was there on set when grownup Van’s demise was filmed. They acquired phrase from the showrunners that Van could be dying in Season 3 after which shared issues about how Van would meet her finish.
“Due to the meta choice to maintain me on, [Van’s] relationship to loss of life is exclusive,” Hewson explains. “She has this actually loaded relationship to loss of life as someone who’s averted it again and again. So if she’s going to die, her loss of life needs to be saying one thing particular.”
Of their talks with the showrunners, Hewson mentioned they expressed a need for Van’s loss of life “to be one thing that couldn’t have occurred to anyone else,” saying, “I wished it to be about her. I didn’t need it to be a rug-pull or an accident. I felt protecting in the same approach to the way in which my character does within the scenes she has with herself, in order that was fairly lovely.”
“Her relationship to loss of life is critical, and it means one thing for that relationship to alter,” Hewson provides. Saving her lover, Tai, in addition to Misty (Christina Ricci) and Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), from a fuel leak triggered by Melissa was a heroic final act for the character, nevertheless it was instantly underscored by the plot twist that was Melissa abruptly recommitting herself to their murderous rituals from their time within the woods.
Hewson says they felt a robust have to be on set when Ambrose and Swank filmed this scene in Melissa’s kitchen. Burgess joined as nicely. The youthful actors had been initially simply within the video village (an space on set with screens for individuals to observe what’s being filmed in actual time) watching all of it go down, after which Ambrose requested Hewson to hitch her.
“At one level, Lauren comes out and grabs me and says, ‘Come and be in right here with me,’” Hewson reveals. “So whereas Hilary and Lauren are filming Melissa murdering Van, I’m really off digicam within the kitchen watching it occur, which once more was this fascinating, meta layer to what was occurring, as a result of afterward within the episode as younger Van, I’m sat within the airplane watching that occur. We’re watching it collectively. So it was eerie on this lovely approach.”
Victoria Will / Paramount+ With Showtime
What occurred subsequent was much less lovely. Van’s physique was rolled up in a rug and brought to a random location the place Tai would bury her. Hewson was despondent once they first learn the script for the Yellowjackets Season 3 finale. They couldn’t consider that Van’s physique could be positioned in an unmarked grave in the midst of nowhere. However the nature of her loss of life needed to be stored secret. That secret is likely to be laborious to maintain in Yellowjackets Season 4.
“It’s vital to me, plot-wise, that Van’s physique is buried within the floor in a rug along with her coronary heart lacking, and he or she’s a recognizable Yellowjacket who’s a small enterprise proprietor who could be missed,” Hewson factors out. “I believe that may be a fairly loopy smoking gun. I’m undecided what the plan is within the present-day timeline, however I believe that’s an attention-grabbing alternative to kick just a few issues off.”
Waiting for the fourth season, Hewson says the solid is keen to discover what occurred to the kids after they had been rescued. We already know that Van and Tai (Jasmin Savoy Brown within the Nineteen Nineties timeline) broke up in some unspecified time in the future after they returned residence to New Jersey and that all the survivors ended up at Shauna (Sophie Nélisse and Melanie Lynskey) and Jeff’s (Warren Kole) wedding ceremony. However what Hewson is most intrigued to discover is how being “tabloid fodder” within the ’90s would influence every of the kids, particularly somebody like Van and Tai, whose lesbian relationship could be some extent of scrutiny on this time interval, and Van, whose scarred look would little question generate unsavory headlines about her within the salacious press.
In a final act of honoring the love of her life, and in tribute to their cannibalistic rituals within the wilderness that grew to become a twisted type of faith for the survivors, Tai ate Van’s uncooked coronary heart earlier than burying her. Hewson explains the attraction of utilizing cannibalism in love tales within the full video interview above, along with breaking down extra key scenes from the top of Yellowjackets Season 3.
Yellowjackets, Seasons 1-3 Obtainable Now, Paramount+ With Showtime