We're now over halfway through Yellowjackets season 3, and things are getting seriously spooky in both timelines as the wilderness continues to keep the plane crash survivors in a vicelike grip.
There have been plenty of new mysteries in the latest installment of the survival thriller, as well as some shocking plot twists that throw certain events into a whole new light. And there's plenty more still to come, too, with four episodes remaining and a whole lot of questions that still need to be answered – and some previously announced new cast members to enter the mix, including Oscar-winning actor Hilary Swank.
We've got your complete guide to Yellowjackets season 3 right here, from release dates to our review verdict and a recap of the plot so far.
Yellowjackets season 3 release date
Yellowjackets season 3 is airing weekly on Paramount Plus over 10 episodes. New episodes arrive on Fridays at 12am PT and 3am ET in the US and 8am GMT in the UK.
Check out the full Yellowjackets season 3 release schedule below.
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 1 – February 14
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 2 – February 14
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 3 – February 21
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 4 – February 28
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 5 – March 7
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 6 – March 14
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 7 – March 21
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 8 – March 28
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 9 – April 4
- Yellowjackets season 3 episode 10 – April 11
Yellowjackets season 3 review
Our Yellowjackets season 3 review gave the new season four stars, praising the new season's twists and turns, as well as Sophie Nélisse's performance as Shauna.
"As with any mystery-heavy thriller, the proof is in the pudding, and Yellowjackets season 3 will likely live or die by how well the show sticks its landing. Based on episodes 1 to 4 though, it's looking promising – we just hope it continues to keep it weird," our reviewer writes.
Yellowjackets season 3 trailer
The first trailer for Yellowjackets season 3 opens with Mari being chased through the woods, backing up the popular fan theory that she's the "pit girl" we saw get killed at the start of season 1. Elsewhere in the wilderness, we also get glimpses of Coach Ben and a noose, ritualistic behavior from the girls, and Shauna attempting to usurp Nat as the Antler Queen.
In the present day, Taissa and Van share a kiss as Tai catches a glimpse of the Man with No Eyes over Van's shoulder, Shauna receives a letter marked with the symbol of the wilderness from "someone who wants to kill us", and Elijah Wood is back as Walter. It looks like Shauna is also set to get a hallucinatory visit from Jackie thanks to a surprise appearance from Ella Purnell. Plus, there's a new survivor in the picture, played by Hilary Swank, who we get a glimpse of right at the end of the trailer. And, assuming she's just been reunited with the others, she doesn't look too pleased to see them...
This was followed by a second, longer trailer, which you can watch below.
The trailer shows what appears to be the construction of the pit, a key part of the girls' hunting ritual in the wilderness. "Aren't you worried about what we're going to have to tell people if we get back?" Tai asks, but Shauna and Lottie, in particular, don't look too worried…
Meanwhile, present-day Misty is determined to get to the bottom of whoever wants them all dead, and Shauna seems just as bloodthirsty as she was as a teenager. "The only way to be truly safe is to be the only one left," she says. "This is not healthy," Misty replies – before reaching for a knife.
Yellowjackets season 3 cast
- Melanie Lynskey and Sophie Nélisse as Shauna
- Tawny Cypress and Jasmin Savoy Brown as Taissa
- Christina Ricci and Samantha Hanratty as Misty
- Simone Kessell and Courtney Eaton as Lottie
- Lauren Ambrose and Liv Hewson as Van
- Sophie Thatcher as Nat
- Kevin Alves as Travis
- Steven Kreuger as Ben
- Warren Kole as Jeff
- Sarah Desjardins as Callie
- Elijah Wood as Walter
- Ella Purnell as Jackie
- Joel McHale
- Hilary Swank
Yellowjackets season 3 plot recap *spoilers*
Warning: there are major spoilers for Yellowjackets season 3 ahead! Turn back now if you're not up to date on the new episodes and don't want to know what happens.
In Yellowjackets season 3 episode 1, tensions are reaching boiling point between Shauna and Nat, the survivors' 'Antler Queen', as well as between her and Mari. Things come to a head during a summer solstice feast when Shauna spits in Mari's food and the pair start to fight.
Meanwhile, Ben is still alive and stumbles across a concealed hole in the ground containing a survival kit with a torch, protein bars, and other supplies. Back at the camp, Lottie is encouraging Travis to convene with the wilderness and feeding him hallucinogenic tea.
In the present day, Shauna, Taissa, and Van attend Natalie's memorial service, but Misty is still feeling immense guilt about her death and doesn't show up. Meanwhile, Callie gets excluded from school after attacking her classmates for gossiping about her mother and the other Yellowjackets.
Van is staying at Taissa's house but is still keeping her distance, despite Tai's best efforts. She takes Van out for dinner at a fancy restaurant and the pair dine and dash. A waiter chases after them and is nearly hit by a bus before having a heart attack. Back at the Sedekis' house, someone is watching the family and Callie finds a package addressed to Shauna outside their door with a cassette inside, which she pockets.
Back in the wilderness, Mari storms off from the camp after her fight with Shauna – and falls into a trap that Ben has made by obscuring the hole he found. In episode 2, we find out she's dislocated her leg and Ben takes her to the cave he's been living in to hold her hostage as he doesn't want her to tell the others that he's still alive. At the camp, Melissa has started taking an interest in Shauna, and the pair share a surprise kiss after Melissa brings flowers for Shauna's baby's grave.
In the present-day timeline, Lottie turns up on Shauna's doorstep fresh from the facility she was committed to at the end of season 2. Shauna doesn't trust her to spend time with Callie, but the pair start to bond and Callie questions her about what really happened in the wilderness. Meanwhile, Shauna realizes she's being followed – and it's heavily implied that she thinks it's Melissa.
In episode 3, Van finds out that her cancer has stopped metastasizing and she's gone into partial remission. Meanwhile, Lottie and Callie are getting closer and head to the mall together behind Shauna's back, where Lottie shoplifts a dress for her. Taissa tells Van about the waiter, but she now thinks his death was a "sacrifice" and Van's new prognosis is the "gift" they get in return.
Elsewhere, Shauna has a near-miss when the brakes fail on her car. She's convinced Misty is behind it and the two fight, and things go from bad to worse when she gets home and sees that Lottie has somehow gotten her hands on Jackie's necklace – and given it to Callie. She freaks out and kicks Lottie out. Things start to escalate for Tai and Van, who are watching TV when they see a commercial for an ice cream parlor that features the Man With No Eyes. Tai is desperate to track the cafe down, but when they find it, it's abandoned and derelict.
Meanwhile, in the wilderness, Mari convinces Ben to free her, and she heads back to camp. She lies about where she's been, but eventually crumbles under questioning – and Shauna wants to hunt Ben down. When they reach the caves where he's been hiding out, things start to get weird, and Shauna, Van, and Akilah are subject to some seriously weird dream sequences that involve (among other things) talking llamas, being stuck in a burning building, drowning, and Shauna getting attacked by Jackie.
In episode 4, the girls take Ben back to camp. They're hungry for blood, but Nat decides the fairest thing to do is to give him a trial. Nat is the judge, Taissa represents the prosecution, and Misty is chosen to defend Ben. Meanwhile, Akilah tells Lottie about the weird dream she had in the cave, and Lottie tells her it was a vision from the wilderness. Ben apologizes, and the group struggles to vote on a unanimous verdict. Eventually, Shauna sways the vote with intimidation tactics, and he's found guilty.
In the present day, Shauna takes her car to a mechanic, who says the brakes just failed and nothing has been tampered with. Jeff decides this is bad karma for their actions in seasons 1 and 2 and sets out to pay off their karmic debt – which involves signing them up to volunteer at the care home where Misty works, despite the fact that she and Shauna still aren't on speaking terms. While she's working in the kitchen, someone locks Shauna in the walk-in freezer, where she's taunted by a hallucination of Jackie as her body temperature plummets. It's a close shave, but Randy hears her and unlocks the door before it's too late.
Elsewhere, Taissa buys a pack of cards to carry out a hunting ritual, and Van leaves the Queen of Hearts on the street. The pair wait to see if anyone picks it up, and a man pockets it. They follow him to his apartment, and Taissa is keen to go inside, but Van comes to her senses and begs her not to, and eventually Tai relents.
After being kicked out of Shauna's house, Lottie seems as though she's showing signs of remorse, but for what, exactly, we're not sure. She seemingly goes to visit someone and rehearses an apology in the mirror before going in. The next time we see her, though, she's dead – she's fallen (or been pushed?) down a flight of stairs, surrounded by candles. Spooky.
Episode 5 opens with Misty wasting no time in investigating what's gone down. She's in the morgue with Lottie's body, taking samples from under her nails and blackmailing the attendant for her personal effects. We wouldn't expect anything else. She then breaks the news to Shauna, Taissa, and Van and says the coroner ruled her death as accidental, but Shauna thinks Misty is responsible.
Shauna starts following Misty but realizes someone is following her, who turns out to be Walter. Misty, meanwhile, is on her way to the scene of the crime, which turns out to be the apartment building where Lottie grew up, and where her father still lives. When she gets to his penthouse, however, Shauna and Walter are already there conducting their own investigation (and pretending to be WiFi engineers). Shauna realizes Walter is actively sabotaging Misty's investigation, and he says he's trying to win her back with a 'challenge.' Misty finds Lottie's phone in her old room, but Walter confesses he wiped it. Misty is seriously mad, and storms off. Elsewhere, Taissa has a disastrous reunion with Sammy, and Van is suspicious that she disappeared for an hour on the day Lottie died.
In the wilderness, the girls are trying to decide what to do with Ben. Shauna wants to burn him to death, but Nat suggests a firing squad. They draw lots from the pack of cards to decide who'll do it, and it's Tai who draws the King of Hearts. Van tries to draw the other, disassociated version of Taissa out to commit the act, but to no avail.
Lottie convinces Akilah to return to the caves, but Akilah collapses and they have to carry her out. When she wakes up, she describes the dream she had: she was on the edge of a cliff, and a giant version of Ben was acting as a bridge across a ravine. Just as Taissa is about to shoot Ben, Travis tackles him to the ground and Lottie says they have to keep him alive as Akilah's dream means he has a purpose in the wilderness. Later that night, Shauna and Melissa pay him a visit and Shauna gets Melissa to cut his good foot with her knife so that he can't escape.
Episode 6 opens with Callie overhearing Shauna telling Jeff about Lottie, which prompts her to give Shauna the tape that was left on their doorstep in episode 1. Shauna is convinced that what happened to Lottie could happen to them next and orders her husband and daughter to pack a bag so they can leave, and the trio sets up camp in a motel out of town. Shauna contacts Van to ask if she has the right kind of cassette player to play the tape, and Van digs through her boxes of stuff. A landline phone in the same box starts to ring, and when she picks up Taissa is on the other end, but she doesn't sound right. She comes downstairs to join Van in the basement moments later, though, and seems fine. That's not the only instance of strange behaviour, either – later in the episode she does some creepy sleeptalking that freaks Van out.
Elsewhere, Walter sends a limo to deliver Lottie's trash to Misty in case she can find anything of note in there. And she does: a receipt for a restaurant that doesn't serve any food Lottie would have been able to eat, so she goes to stake it out. She discovers that Lisa, one of Lottie's cult members from season 2, works there as a delivery rider, and Misty confronts her. Lisa says the last time she saw Lottie was the day she died, when she tipped her $50,000 in cash – and then went to meet up with Taissa.
Meanwhile, Shauna, Van, and Tai listen to the tape. The scene cuts away before we really get to hear what's on it, but it's clear it's got something to do with their time in the wilderness. "The only people that know about this are either us or dead," Van says. Shauna realizes that Callie planted her phone in Shauna's pocket and was trying to record what happened, and Shauna deletes the recording – which Callie later retrieves from the recently deleted folder.
In the wilderness, Ben keeps asking Nat to kill him, but she refuses each time, and he goes on a hunger strike. Meanwhile, Akilah keeps going back to the caves with Lottie, and Travis is worried about her. She's struggling to hear anything the wilderness is supposedly trying to tell her, until she has a peculiar vision of a bear with three eyes.
Nat eventually caves and stabs Ben, who thanks her before she does it. When the girls find out what happened, Lottie says that Shauna should be their new leader, and Shauna orders Nat to prepare Ben's body for a feast as punishment. During the feast, Lottie begins to scream and encourages the others to join in. Suddenly, there's movement on the outskirts of the camp, and a man and a woman approach the girls – and promptly spot Ben's head on a platter.
If you're up to date with Yellowjackets, fill out your watch list with our guide to the best new TV shows coming our way in 2025 and beyond.
