Get ready to go back to the Wilderness because Yellowjackets will be returning to Paramount+ with Showtime, with its season 3 premiere date set for Friday, February 14, 2025. Since the season two finale's airing in May 2023, fans have been eagerly waiting to discover what happens next in both the 1996 and present-day timelines. In the teenage timeline, Natalie was just declared the leader, and the Yellowjackets were facing the harsh reality that their home, a cabin in the woods, had just been burned, leaving them without the comfort of familiar shelter. Meanwhile, in the adult timeline, Natalie had just died, and the rest of the group was facing the repercussions of reviving rituals, such as the hunt, from their time in the Wilderness.
Given how season two focused primarily on the winter, it is likely that season three is moving beyond that, heading back to warmer temperatures that allow the survivors to rely more on wild animals than resorting to hunting each other. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and the pilot episode of Yellowjackets, which takes place at a certain point in time after the season two finale in the 1996 timeline, suggests that the group's time resorting to cannibalism is not over yet. But how quickly will they be to continue to face off against each other? Tensions certainly rise among the group, and there is always the option for someone to challenge Natalie for power.
Yellowjackets has never held back when it comes to the intricacies and danger of survival. It is ruthless and psychologically damaging to the point that twenty-five years later, the survivors are still coming to terms with what they did as teenagers or ignoring it entirely in the hopes of trying to live a normal life. It will be expected to see Yellowjackets push the envelope even more of what these characters are capable of surviving, even if the harsh cold of winter is no longer a factor. But, will the adult timeline reveal any other shocking plot twists, such as revealing anyone else who had survived the Wilderness that has not been introduced yet in the adult timeline?
So far, Yellowjackets had confirmed that Natalie, Shauna, Lottie, Taissa, Van, Misty, and Travis eventually made it home. But, not all of them were revealed at once, with Lottie's survival not being confirmed until the conclusion of season one, and Van's not revealed until season two. So, there is still time to address other potential survivors from the group but still leaving enough people to offer more devastating deaths in the wake of the need for the group to survive. Of course, there is still the reality of how heavily the characters who have already passed away sit on the shoulders of those who have survived.
Jackie, Laura Lee, and Javi are not characters that are likely to entirely disappear easily. As adults, Shauna and Lottie have shown themselves to still hallucinate Jackie and Laura Lee. Meanwhile, Javi's death solidified Natalie's survival as a teenager but meant Travis lost his brother. If Shauna still hallucinated Jackie's ghost as an adult, then there is still a lot to unpack in the teenage timeline about how Jackie's death continues to impact Shauna.
As a series that encourages complicated relationships, Yellowjackets will have a host of them to deal with coming into season three. All the main characters in each timeline are undergoing an emotional hardship that ties them to each other in ways that no one else could understand. As the group's nineteen months in the Wilderness head toward the group's rescue, it is only a matter of time before discovering exactly what led to them finally being found. Season three is one step closer to determining the total horrors this group went through in the Wilderness and what continues to be so horrible that no one wants it to be revealed to the public.