Actor Ella Purnell knew that Jackie Taylor, her character in the hit series Yellowjackets, was going to die a horrible death. But she wasn’t prepared for just how horrible it was going to be. At FanExpo Chicago, Purnell spoke on a panel hosted by Collider’s Steve Weintraub about not wanting to risk her mental health by watching the episode in which Jackie is “cooked and eaten” by her buddies. For those who might not be aware, Yellowjackets is a thriller series in which a high school girls’ soccer team goes full Darwin on each other after being stranded in the woods because of a plane crash.
Answering a fan question at the Expo about Jackie’s demise, Purnell said that she was in the middle of an extremely demanding shooting schedule for Fallout when she received scripts for the second season of Yellowjackets. But because she was so busy, she didn’t get time to read the episode in which Jackie gets eaten. Instead, she discovered what was going to happen because her castmates sent her selfies of themselves posing with Jackie’s “charred corpse.” In her own words:
“Yeah, it was weird! It was funny, because I was actually… Look, I knew it was going to happen. I’d put two and two together. I was filming Fallout, and the schedule was very, very demanding, and I was exhausted. I was getting the scripts for the second season, but I wasn’t reading them as quickly as I should have. I had a lot going on! I just woke up one morning, and I had all these pictures from my Yellowjackets cast mates taking selfies with my charred corpse. You know when you wake up and you don’t know where you are? It was like that, but on steroids. So, it was a little bit disconcerting.”
‘Yellowjackets’ Will Return for Another Season Next Year
Purnell confessed that she hasn’t had the courage to actually watch the episode in question. “I don’t know what it’s going to do to my mental health. I don’t want to risk it, so I haven’t seen it,” she said. Yellowjackets was one of the OG pandemic-era hits, capturing the zeitgeist and drawing comparisons to the classic show Lost. The first season premiered in 2021, and the second season premiered in 2023. A third season is in the works and will debut in 2025. The show has received positive reviews for its narrative scope, the performances of its cast, and its strangely effective ‘90s nostalgia.
Stay tuned to Collider for more updates. You can stream Yellowjackets on Paramount+ with Showtime.
