Yellowjackets Season 3 Trailer Adds Hilary Swank To The Hive

By the end of "Yellowjackets" season 2, it seemed we'd met all the survivors of Flight 2525's fateful crash into the wilderness. But the CCXP teaser trailer for "Yellowjackets" season 3 has just introduced a new wild card: a mystery character played by Hilary Swank ("Million Dollar Baby"), who is around the same age as the rest of the present day cast, and is seen standing in the road with a bloodied face and makeshift bandage on her arm. 

"The past will come back to hunt you," the trailer warns, before teasing fresh mysteries and more reveals from the past. Though some character deaths have been revealed as the 1996 storyline has progressed, many characters' fates are still technically ambiguous, and fans are holding out hope that there might be more crash survivors out there. Liv (Lauren Ambrose) seems to think that everyone else who was on the plane is dead, but it certainly looks like someone is stalking the remaining Yellowjackets.

Check out the first look teaser for "Yellowjackets" season 3 above. 

"Yellowjackets" season 1 was a tough act to follow. It had all the fun of setting up a mystery box, complete with hints of the supernatural. The 1996 narrative dealt with the early days of life in the wilderness, which are arguably always the most fun part of a survival thriller story. After that barnstormer of an opening, season 2 was a disappointment for many fans as the storylines began noticeably treading water.

The pressure is on, therefore, for "Yellowjackets" season 3 to pick up the pace, and the introduction of a new mystery character is certainly one way to draw viewers back. Of course, it's possible that Swank is simply playing a detective investigating the recent trail of bodies, or perhaps a relative of one of the other survivors. But one theory already gaining popularity is that she's playing the adult version of Melissa (Jenna Burgess), a plane crash survivor who has mostly been kept in the background so far, but is seen sharing a scene with teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) at the start of the trailer.

Hopefully we'll get some answers when "Yellowjackets" returns to Paramount+ with Showtime on February 14, 2025.