Yellowjackets Creators Didn't Know If We'd Ever Meet Adult Van

Spoilers for "Yellowjackets" follow. 

The dual timelines of "Yellowjackets," set 25 years apart, show both how a high school girls' soccer team was stranded in the Canadian Wilderness and how they cope with that experience as adults. This structure means we already know the main cast's fate, at least to a point. In season 1, the presence of Shauna, Taissa, Natalie, Misty, and Travis in the 2021 timeline confirmed they got out of the wilderness alive. Two supporting characters in the 1996 timeline, Laura Lee and Jackie, didn't show up in the present. Sure enough, it's because they're dead.

However, season 1 ended with the reveal that Lottie Matthews (Courtney Eaton) was still alive, though she was never even mentioned in the 2021 timeline. Come season 2, she's now a regular in both timelines (played by Simone Kessell as an adult). The bigger surprise in season 2 is that Vanessa "Van" Palmer (Liv Hewson) survived too. She got mauled by a wolf back in season 1, leaving the inner parts of her jaw exposed. This seemed to mark her for death, but all she got was a scar. Co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco, alongside creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, discussed with Collider why they chose to spare Van. Lisco said:

"I think what's interesting is that it's not that she was ever definitely meant to die, it's just that the opportunity for her death kept coming up and then we kept writing away from it. And I think part of that is very much a credit to Liv because they are phenomenal. And even in the pilot itself, Van was not given a particularly big part and Liv found some great moments."

They backed so far away from Van's death they decided to bring her into the show's present-day timeline.

The ending of season 2, episode 4 ("Old Wounds") finally introduced us to her adult self (Lauren Ambrose), confirming she survived all 19 months in the wild. She's living the cinephile's dream: running a vintage video rental store in the middle of small-town Pennsylvania. Tragically, the store doesn't seem to be paying all the bills.

During the 1996 timeline, Van and Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) are in a secret relationship. Present-day Tai (Tawny Cypress) is married to a woman named Simone (Rukiya Bernard). Bringing Van back means explaining why she isn't in Taissa's life anymore. The next episode, "Two Truths and A Lie," is a little vague on this — they were together as recently as Shaun and Jeff's wedding, but have been separated "a long time." What the episode does dwell on is what brought them back together.

Taissa has been suffering from sleepwalking, hallucinations, and a possible split personality or supernatural possession; Van helped Tai cope with these while they were in the woods, and it doesn't take her long to realize that's why Tai showed up at her doorstep.

That's the reasoning writers found to bring in adult Van; to further Taissa's development, just like how adult Lottie has been furthering Natalie's (Juliette Lewis) this season. However, this does risk starting a trend that could harm "Yellowjackets" long-term.

Among the Yellowjackets, there are seven confirmed survivors so far. Plus, three confirmed casualties — Laura Lee, Jackie, and now Crystal (Nuha Jes Izman). That means there are still six question marks: Coach Ben Scott, Javi, Mari, Akilah, Gen, and Melissa. Are they all doomed? Not necessarily, according to Lisco. In the aforementioned Collider interview, he continued to explain:

"The more fun these characters are, the harder it is to part with them. The one who was legitimately going to die in the pilot from our conception and our pitch was Laura Lee, and Jane [Widdop] brought so much humanity to that part that we were like, 'Okay, well, we have to kill somebody at some point.'"

They should be mindful of that last point. The premise of "Yellowjackets" demands blood and guts, especially when the Pilot showed glimpses of where the girls' savagery will lead them. We still don't know who the butchered "pit girl" is and the list of potential suspects is thinning. Extending the list of survivors could lessen the impact of the Yellowjackets' suffering. At the same time, the show hasn't yet spent enough time fleshing out Mari et. all to make their deaths/and or surprise survivals matter.

"Yellowjackets" is a show I know to be bold and creative, so I don't doubt that Lisco and the other writers can make this work. However, Showtime has a nasty habit of running promising shows into the ground. Just take a look at "Dexter" and "Homeland," to name a couple. I'll pray to the Antler Queen to avoid that fate befalling "Yellowjackets."

New episodes of "Yellowjackets" premiere in the Showtime app and on Paramount+ on Fridays and air on Showtime's cable channel on Sundays at 9pm ET.