Of all the upcoming horror TV shows set to send shivers up audiences’ spines, I’m personally most enthused and hungry for Yellowjackets Season 3, which will add a blood-red shade to Valentine’s Day when it arrives on the 2025 winter TV schedule. Now that the new episodes are readied enough for promotion, Showtime has been giving fans plenty to look at and think about, with a footage-filled First Look trailer now our most recent hint for which characters may be killed off next.
The trailer certainly makes it look like one of our main survivors is doomed, while also setting up a bloody introduction for the new character portrayed by Oscar winner Hilary Swank. Let’s do some dissecting!
Looks Like Coach Is On His Last Legs...Er...Leg
The Season 2 finale ended with things looking all but hopeless for the survivors, with the cabin burning down. Coach Ben was seemingly the arsonist who set it ablaze, possibly due to his judgment of everyone else for eating the recently drowned Javi. Which means he could be suspected and treated harshly by the soccer team in Season 3, while also suffering from extreme hunger.
After watching the Season 3 trailer, I can’t think of anyone who looks worse off than Coach in the few moments where he’s shown. His beard is longer and scragglier. He looks to be screaming desperately in one moment, possibly while being attacked. And then there’s that extremely foreboding shot of him standing in the background and looking at the knotted rope hanging. But is that implying he’ll one day succumb to suicidal urges, or that his fellow crash-mates will be stringing him up and feasting on his still-present limbs?
Melissa Might Be Doomed As Well
Jenna Burgess' Melissa was first introduced in Season 2 as an outlier player for the Yellowjackets team, and hasn't had too much of a major impact on the drama so far. But she's front and center for several moments in the trailer, and one of them makes it look like her time in the spotlight won't be threat-free.
It's unclear who the aggressor is, but one quick blip in the trailer features one of the teens pushing Melissa back against a tree and holding a knife up to her throat. Given how trailer logic works, this tease 100% isn't going to end in Melissa dying of a throat slashing. But I think it does imply she'll be enough of a prominent character in the season to earn such a trailer moment, thus setting her up as body count fodder later in the season. Sorry to be such a pessimist, Melissa.
Hilary Swank's Character Is Seemingly In Trouble As Well
Likely Yellowjackets' biggest Season 3 casting addition, Hilary Swank is set to play a character who...well, we don't know yet. The few seconds we see her in the trailer are essentially all we've had to go on since she was first cast, but they thankfully provided multiple takeaways.
For one, it's not entirely clear which timeline Swank is in. One would presume she's in the adult characters' timeline, since she's obviously also an adult. But nothing seems to confirm this, though I'm not educated enough in vehicles to know whether or not the ride in the shot would indeed have confirmed it. Whatever the precise setting, the character is clearly injured in various places, and looks to be facing some kind of a frightening threat.
The way she reacts makes me think it's something large-scale and inhuman, like a tidal wave or a giant swarm of bees. But what if this isn't in the current timeline, and what Swank's character sees is a large group of maniacal teens in makeshift masks howling running at her from the woods? That would certainly warrant an uncensored "Oh, shit!"
Check out the trailer below if you haven't yet already!
The new trailer also features a moment where it appears as if Ella Purnell’s long-dead Jackie shows up for Melanie Lynskey’s Shauna, presumably as a hallucination. And there’s also a shot of Elijah Wood’s Walter, just in case anybody thought he wasn’t coming back. I cannot wait.
Yellowjackets Season 3 will debut on February 14, 2025, with the first two seasons available to stream with a Paramount+ subscription or a Netflix subscription.
