‘Yellowjackets’ Star Melanie Lynskey on Finale S/h/o/ckers, Shauna ‘Reclaiming Her Power’ and Season 3 Deaths: ‘I Wish We Had More Time’

That’s when the ugly truth sets in: this isn’t Misty’s latest chaotic scheme — Callie and Jeff left all on their own. Though Misty (and the viewers) may have seen it coming, Shauna is blindsided by her family leaving her and returns home to lick her wounds. While drinking in the kitchen, she finds the note Melissa sent her (the one that allegedly explains everything) and finally reads it.

It’s an emotional, heartfelt apology from Melissa, and Shauna tears up as she reads it — before ripping the letter up and shoving it down the garbage disposal. Still in tears, Shauna scribbles on a notepad what becomes the narration for the wilderness timeline, as teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) is anointed the hive’s new Antler Queen.

While the teen survivors chow down on the latest sacrifice, Mari (Alexa Barajas), adult Shauna speaks reverently about her time in the wilderness: “The person I was back then — not a wife or a mother,” she says. “I was a warrior. I was a fucking queen.”

In an interview with Variety, Melanie Lynskey discussed Shauna’s finale manifesto, her reactions to the season’s many unexpected deaths, and what might happen in a potential fourth season.

What was your reaction to reading that final scene where Shauna comes home to an empty house — and snaps?

It almost felt like a relief to me because she’s been repressing. To have been playing for almost three full seasons somebody who’s trying to repress the most powerful part of themselves, it felt exciting and like a relief. To see her own up to the fact that this is not necessarily where she’s the happiest, but definitely feels most like herself and feels the most powerful. It also made me very curious for what is going to come next if we get another season.

Has Shauna just been trying and failing to hold it together all these years?

I think she’s really developed a persona that is keeping her safe and keeping people around her safe. She’s worked very hard on not being noticed, just being able to go about her life as somebody who looks very ordinary, who isn’t starting any problems. She’s been very aware of a restlessness within herself. In the moments we’ve seen where she gets to do something dangerous or crazy, she really does come alive. In Season 1, all of the illicit stuff with Adam [Peter Gadiot] was where she felt most herself. She was kind of like a teenager again. She’s the most capable when she’s doing something dangerous; she’s the most herself.

Shauna writes on a notepad that, in the wilderness, she wasn’t “a wife or a mother,” but a “warrior” and a “fucking queen.” Does Shauna resent being a wife and mother?

It’s difficult for her. In my mind, she loves Jeff and she loves Callie; I don’t ever doubt that she loves them to the best of her ability. But there is something within herself that doesn’t trust that she’s lovable. She’s not allowing herself to really be loved, and she does not trust herself to love anybody. There’s a distance she’s keeping between herself and Jeff and Callie; it’s just never going to be a satisfying relationship.

And she does not like household duties. She’s not a person who can make herself happy busying herself around the house. I really do love at the beginning of that scene where she realizes she’s alone in the house, and she looks around and she sees they’ve left a fucking mess for her to clean up. Part of her is like, “You know what, you guys? Thanks. You abandoned me, and now I have to clean up whatever you decided to make for lunch.” It’s very rude. She’s still a little resentful about it, even as she’s sort of reclaiming her power. It’s not that she would not have made the choice. I think she wants to be a mother to Callie; I think she really does love Jeff. She just does not know how to do it.

Is there room in Antler Queen Shauna’s life for Callie and Jeff?

I don’t know. I hope so, because I want to continue to have scenes with those actors. I think Jeff trying to have a conversation with completely unleashed Shauna would be really interesting. I think he’s a bit excited by that aspect of her personality, but also very scared of it.

Now that she knows they’ve left, does Shauna want to get her family back?

At this particular moment, the panic of them leaving has kind of worn off. When she had a moment to just be back in the house and look around and be like, “It’s so quiet now in this house that I can hear myself think, and this is what I’m thinking” — that feeling is quite exhilarating for her.

Sometimes it’s like that; there’s a huge change in your life and you don’t want it to happen, but the moment you stop and take a breath, you go, “Oh, actually this is what I want to happen.” It’s not like she wants them to have left her, but I think she does need a moment to figure out what she’s doing. I don’t think she’s going to make any good choices, but I think she does need a minute.

Shauna finally finds and reads Melissa’s letter. If she’d read it from the beginning, do you think it would have made a difference in how she reacted to everything?

Absolutely! She cries reading that letter. Part of her crying is kind of like, she can’t believe that she did it again. It’s Adam all over again: she jumped to a conclusion, assumed the worst, and she absolutely lost it. She attacked somebody; he died. Melissa didn’t die, but Shauna is like, “Why am I like this? There was this letter the whole time that explained?”

She would have had questions about the letter, and she would’ve been like, “Don’t reach out after all this time if you don’t want to start something,” but I don’t think she would have rushed over there with her brand new, very sharp knife. She would maybe have taken a beat.

When did you find out Van and Lottie [Simone Kessell] were being killed off? What was your reaction to how each of those stories ended?

I adore both of those characters, and I adore both of those women. I don’t have favorites, but we were super close. So they both told me themselves. The writers didn’t tell me that that was happening, and it was hard. It was not what anyone expected. I didn’t think they would be gone so quickly. There was a lot of processing that and listening to how they felt about it, and I felt a certain way about it. Obviously, I’m not in the writers’ room.

I think people have an idea that they’ve mapped out the entire series arc for me, and they very much haven’t. Season 1, I got told in great detail what was going to happen. That was kind of all I needed to hear at that point. I was like, “OK, they really have a plan.” Then they said, “Season 2 is gonna focus on this. Season 3, we think this is going to happen.” It was very vague for the rest of it. I just needed to know that they actually had a plan, not just, like, a cool pilot. So I don’t know where the story is going. I have no idea. After this season, I have less of an idea.

It could be anything. I could be killed off in Episode 1 of Season 4. I literally don’t know. But both of those were really surprising to me. I wish we had more time. I trust the writers, I trust what they’re doing, but I would have loved to have had more scenes with Simone and more scenes with Lauren.

How much did Shauna know about Lottie’s obsession with Callie?

I don’t think she really understood it. In typical Shauna fashion, she just jumped to what her worst-case scenario is and decided that it is the truth. Her worst-case scenario is kind of what happened in the wilderness, where her child is taken from her and used by Lottie as the symbol of whatever their weird religion is. That was deeply painful and traumatizing for her. She doesn’t want Lottie to have anything to do with this child. She’s already aware that she’s fucked up this relationship with Callie, she’s aware she’s not doing things right, but she desperately wants it to be OK. She just doesn’t know how to get there.

For Lottie to come in and be beautiful and charming and fun, and for Callie to want to hang out with her, let alone the fact that she does not trust Lottie at all. She doesn’t trust her intentions; she’s always so threatening. In Shauna’s mind, it’s just like, “Danger, danger. She’ll take her away, you’ll never see her again. You’re going to feel how you felt back at that time.” And she would do anything to avoid feeling like that again.

Does Shauna know Tai blames her for Van’s death?

I think she’s aware that Tai blames her. When I filmed that scene with Tawny, I physically felt her anger. Tawny is such a great actor; she’s so clear. You always know with her arc over the course of the season, which is “Other” Tai and which is regular Tai. The way she tracked two energies was really incredible. So in the scene after she buries Van, I was like, “Oh, she’s pissed. She is mad.”

As Shauna, all I wanted to do is apologize, but that’s hard for her, as people know. She knows that Tai is angry; I don’t think Shauna thinks it’s her fault. It’s the usual kind of, “But there was this thing that happened and this thing that happened and an unfortunate combination of circumstances.” She’s not very good at isolating the fact that if she had not driven to that house, none of this would have happened.

Is she worried that Tai might want revenge?

I don’t think so. I think that’s going to take her by surprise, and I’m very excited by the prospect of that, honestly — really excited by it. She has lots of respect for Tai and a lot of love. I have always felt like Tai is the person she trusts the most, she likes the most, and respects the most. It would be very unsettling to Shauna to have problems there.

Is this the beginning of Misty and Tai versus Shauna? Is Shauna the “big bad” of Season 4?

I don’t think I can play this person and think she’s a villain. I’m playing a person who rationalizes everything, even when it’s very difficult to do that. She is able to figure out a “why” for any crazy action. It all makes sense to her, so it has to make sense to me. I think she’s a person who’s traumatized, and to be honest with you, I look at what everybody else has done, and nobody’s innocent.

Everybody’s done crazy things. Misty is pretty crazy, but I feel like people are like, “But she’s so adorable!” It’s definitely a double standard. I have a hard time with it. I don’t think she’s the villain, but I do think she is the most comfortable when things are very tense and very dangerous.