Yellowjackets Almost K/i/l/led Off a Fan Favorite Character in Season 1, Creator Reveals
Yellowjackets’ present-day timeline confirmed which of the survivors lived long enough to be rescued out of the woods. Series creator Ashley Lyle admitted they almost killed off young Vanessa early in the show.
Yellowjackets showrunner Ashley Lyle said they initially meant to kill off teenage Vanessa Palmer (played by Liv Hewson) after the pilot episode; this erases Vanessa’s present-day arc, fleshed out by Lauren Ambrose. “Liv, who plays young Van, was not initially meant to be long for this world,” Lyle told Vulture. “Liv is such an incredible actor, and they brought so much to so little in the pilot. We wrote the pilot, we shot the pilot, and then COVID happened, so we had quite a bit of time before we actually had a writers’ room and got green-lit. In that interim, we were able to see what Liv could do. We said, ‘We can’t kill Van! We can’t do it!’ And then here we are, Season 3!”
That early death would have altered the storyline of the teenage and adult Taissa Turner (played by Jasmin Savoy Brown and Tawny Cypress), who nurtured a secret relationship with Vanessa in the early episodes. Both made it out of the woods but their relationship fell apart in the aftermath. They’re estranged as adults but there’s hope of reconciliation in Season 3; adult Van was diagnosed with cancer in Season 2. Series co-creator Bart Nickerson said Season 3 would explore that arc, hinting the couple would finally find redemption.
Why kill a character now when people don’t know her yet?
Lyle also revealed Laura Lee (Jane Widdop) was supposed to die in Season 1 Episode 2, but they decided to flesh out the character for six more episodes. “We just loved Jane Widdop so much that we thought, ‘Why kill a character now when people don’t know her yet?'” she quipped. A devout Christian, Laura was initially written as the sole casualty of the entire ordeal. “She was meant to be sort of a Christ-like sacrifice, that the Believer was the only one who died,” Lyle explained. “…It could accelerate the sort of anti-faith that would be slowly subsumed by the faith in the wilderness that took over.” They instead flipped the script, killing off Laura in an act of blind faith.
Lyle asserted they were set on Jackie Taylor’s shocking death from the start, and it’s all because of actor Ella Purnell’s one-season deal with the show. They made sure Purnell would earn her exit, however; Season 1 ends with Jackie freezing to death. “We all knew what was gonna happen in the finale, and Ella would come to us and be like, ‘Are you sure?'” Lyle recalled. “And we were like, ‘No, we don’t want you to go, but we have to! Like, we built this entire season around this!'”
Series Exits Need to Feel Earned
“Killing off a character means nothing but good story, and it’s often really heartbreaking,” she continued. “I think it’s really lovely that the actors have started having funeral parties for each other.” Purnell’s character died in Season 1, but her ghost returns to taunt teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) to nibble at Jackie’s frozen body. The Yellowjackets cremate Jackie, but they soon realize they’re also roasting her corpse.
