Yellowjackets is ready to tell its rescue story.
“After 19 months, the Wiskayok High Yellowjackets have been FOUND and rescued” — that’s the lead headline from the hit Showtime series as it promotes its fourth and final season with a clip from MTV News anchor Serena Altschul.
The series has dipped into the nostalgic well of MTV News previously, when announcing the premiere date for season five as Nov. 20 — also about 19 months after season three concluded. Now a new teaser (below) shows what co-showrunners Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson and Jonathan Lisco have been hinting at all along — there’s more to the story once these teens returned home to their native New Jersey.
The series has centered around the survivors and the secrets they have kept (including the one about “Pit Girl”) when, as teenagers, their high school soccer team plane crashed and stranded them in the Canadian wilderness. The show has unfolded in 1998, after the team named the Yellowjackets crashed, and in present day, to follow the adult survivors played by Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Tawny Cypress, Hilary Swank and (formerly) Juliette Lewis, Lauren Ambrose and Simone Kessell.
Now the long-anticipated third timeline will finally play out in season four, following the cliffhanger ending to season three.
After a deadly season that was the darkest one yet, season three had a revelatory ending that answered big and even bigger questions, and then followed teenage Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) to a mountaintop where she makes a connection with the outside world. The final scene put the teenagers on the precipice of being rescued, giving the coming-of-age horror-drama the opportunity to explore the most anticipated timeline of all: when these cannibalistic teens finally got rescued and reassimilated into society after everything they’ve done.
The teaser announces that, in season four, the Yellowjackets players will return home to fame and celebration (including crowds in front of MTV’s famed TRL Studios). The show also recreated an iconic Alanis Morissette moment (the show is known for its needle drops), where the singer dedicates her MTV Unplugged rendition of “Ironic” to the rescued girls, now a “symbol of hope.”
The final season of Yellowjackets will star Lynskey, Ricci, Cypress, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Thatcher, Samantha Hanratty, Courtney Eaton, Liv Hewson, Warren Kole, Kevin Alves, Sarah Desjardins, Nia Sondaya, Jenna Burgess and Swank.
Lyle and Bart Nickerson created the series, which is produced by Lionsgate Television. They are co-showrunners and executive produce with Lisco, Drew Comins of Creative Engine, Jeff W. Byrd, Sarah L. Thompson, Ameni Rozsa and Julia Bicknell.