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Warning: This story contains spoilers from the two-part Yellowjackets season 3 premiere.
After nearly two years, Yellowjackets is finally back with season 3 — and the first two episodes didn’t disappoint as the series about cannibalistic young survivors stranded in the wilderness wasted no time with asking new questions and delivering some unexpected moments.
One of the biggest shockers involves teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), who is in a really dark place following the events of season 2. And even though it’s been about six months since she and the rest of the group feasted on one of their own and she has dealt with the loss of her baby, she’s clearly still struggling.
In fact, the group has embraced springtime by building new huts, creating animal pens and hunting for food again. As Liv Hewson tells PEOPLE, they are “really in the mood to just repress a bunch of stuff, ready to move on and not think about the winter anymore and just pretend that everything’s good forever.”
“As a village, they’re thriving,” Nélisse, 24, says, “but I don’t think Shaun’s quite thriving mentally.”
“She needs a few more therapy sessions and unfortunately Lottie’s the only one around and not very resourceful,” the actress jokes, referring to Courtney Eaton’s character, who initially took up the mantle of Antler Queen before the group drew cards and it was determined that Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) would take over moving forward — a decision that Shauna’s not all that happy with either.
“I think she’s probably at the lowest point of her life. I think she’s undergone so much loss and trauma that she has nothing else to lose. I think all of that guilt and shame is too much for her to bear on her shoulders. So I think she needs to shift all of that energy and … convey it into anger, which she’ll project on all of these other characters,” Nélisse continues.
Because of this, Shauna starts taking things out on her teammates — including fighting with Mari (Alexa Barajas), who ends up lost in the woods before Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) finds her — as well as testing the limits of the other girls.
So it comes as a surprise when Melissa (Jenna Burgess) takes a liking to Shauna, even leaving flowers on the new grave she created for her baby. However, before Shauna can make good on her threat to kill Melissa, the two start kissing.
Sharing her reaction to the moment, Nélisse says, “I mean, I can’t say that I was that surprised ’cause I’m like, ‘Out of all these girls, there’s only one couple? There’s only two girls making out?’ But yeah, I was surprised that it was Shauna because she’s at such a low point in her life and not at a point where she’s able to hold space for anyone else’s feelings because she’s already very caught up in her own.”
“I think that she’s not able to love herself,” the actress continues. “And I don’t think she’s then able to love anyone else, even though I think that what she desperately needs is to be held and told it wasn’t her fault and told that everything’s gonna be okay and that someone forgives her.”
Nélisse adds, “Unfortunately, that’s just not how it works. And so, I think she feels very conflicted towards her feelings for Melissa. But at the same time, I think she just sees her as another pawn. I think she sees Melissa as, like, a pawn on her chess board and sees her as, like, another way to manipulate the group. And she’ll see her as an ally in being able to turn all of these girls in Shauna’s favor.”
And given that Shauna is seemingly on the outs with a number of her teammates, she will need all the allies she can get moving forward, especially as the divisions within the group take hold.
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New episodes of Yellowjackets season 3 debut Fridays on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME before airing on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
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