With the release of “Yellowjackets” Season 2 on the horizon, Showtime dropped an official teaser that offers a glimpse at the horrors in store for the Wiskayok High School women’s soccer team.
The preview presents a first look at “Lord of the Rings” star Elijah Wood as a citizen detective named Walter, who is confirmed to join the series for a season-long guest arc.
“Kidnapping, cults, death… your friendships are a little more complicated than most,” Wood’s character tells Misty in the teaser, as clips from the upcoming season flash across the screen.
Derived from William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies,” “Yellowjackets” similarly exposes an innate human capacity for brutality: when a plane crash on the way to the 1996 nationals leaves the high school athletes stranded in the wilderness, it’s not long before their primal instincts kick in as a mode of survival. As the show flips between the past and the present, viewers get closer and closer to finding out who survived the tragedy — and who didn’t.
Returning stars include Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher and Samantha Hanratty as well as their adult counterparts Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci, respectively. Courtney Eaton, Liv Hewson, Steven Krueger, Warren Kole and Kevin Alves will also appear throughout the season.
“The first two scripts that I read for Season 2, I was audibly gasping,” Christina Ricci, who plays the adult version of the character Misty, said at a Dec. 1 screening of the show’s Season 1 finale. “I did not think it could get any more intense and wilder, but it does … I was reading to myself, gasping privately.”
Beyond the teaser, the full plot details of Season 2 have been kept under close wraps. But Lynskey, who plays the adult version of the character Shauna, told PvNew that fans can expect a lot of intense, dramatic moments from Nélisse in the coming episodes.
Nélisse said Season 2 will be a slow burn with a pay-off that’s grizzlier than ever, citing Episode 6 as being a particularly intense episode to read and film: “You’ll look at it, and you’ll understand, but I don’t think you’ve ever seen such a scene in TV before,” she said.
The series, created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, premiered in November 2021, and has since been nominated for awards in seven categories at this year’s Emmys.
Season 2 of “Yellowjackets” will be available for streaming through Showtime on March 24, followed by an on-air premiere March 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Watch the teaser below.
