Yellowjackets' Season 2 Finale Resulted In A Sob Fest Behind The Scenes
This post contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of "Yellowjackets."
"Yellowjackets" is the type of show that's able to elicit a half-dozen different emotions from viewers in the span of just a few minutes. One second, you can be laughing at Jeff (Warren Kole) as he laments that he won't be able to Google himself anymore if he goes on the run, and the next you can be gasping over Kevyn's (Alex Wyndham) death. The show is often scary, funny, and often deeply emotional, but arguably no episode has been more downright heartbreaking than last night's finale.
The hour saw multiple deaths, losses, and changes of fortune for the Yellowjackets, from the aforementioned poisoning of Kevyn to the fire that engulfed the hunting lodge to the crowning of teen Natalie as the new antler queen. Decades later, though, we also saw grown-up Natalie (Juliette Lewis) meet her end, as she sacrificed herself to save cult member Lisa (Nicole Maines) when Misty (Christina Ricci) lunged for her with a syringe full of medication. Misty meant to protect Natalie, but a split-second movement meant she ended up killing her instead. It was a genuinely heartbreaking moment, and according to Ricci, it was even more emotional on set.
'I think we were all very upset and sad'
The actor who plays adult Misty Quigley spoke with Variety about the shoot and revealed that it got pretty emotional, both the day it happened and the next day when — in a moment that sounds like it could've been fated by the antler queen spirit herself — she randomly crossed paths with Lewis. "Those were really tough scenes, and really upsetting," she told Variety. "I ran into Juliette the next day in the airport, and we both started crying again."
In typical twist-heavy, prestige TV fashion, the character's death wasn't actually revealed to the cast until fairly late in the season's production cycle. "I didn't know until very shortly before we shot the episode," Ricci admitted. She said the cast — which also includes Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Simone Kessell, and Lauren Ambrose — loves Lewis and has a familial bond that made the death scene extra difficult. "We've all gone through so much on the show and gotten so close, and fought and reconciled and love each other — and we're like sisters," Ricci said.
Though the reaction viewers see from the survivors when watching the episode is as shocked as upset, Ricci said that the shoot was "very emotional." "I think we were all very upset and sad that Natalie was dying," she told the outlet, "And it was tough to shoot." The sequence audiences see is heartbreaking enough on its own, as the women gather around Natalie while Misty realizes what she's done and confirms it's too late to save her friend, but it was made all the more upsetting by an afterlife-like scenario in which Javi (Luciano Leroux) and young Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) sit next to Nat on an empty plane and encourage her to let death in.
Misty's impulsive choice has disastrous results
Ricci said that she and Lewis filmed even more moments from the aftermath of the accident that didn't make it into the final cut. "We shot a lot more than ended up in the episode of me holding Juliette while she was dying and stuff," she told Variety. The version of the scene viewers saw was certainly impactful anyway, especially given how deeply Misty claims to care about Natalie. For her part, Ricci says that care is genuine: "It was a complete mistake," she said of Nat's death. "[Misty] made an impulsive choice — another characteristically immature, impulsive, selfish choice where she was going to kill the person who was going to hurt her friend."
Across two seasons, "Yellowjackets" has perfected the art of twisting the narrative knife in surprising ways, whether it's with the tragic fake-out of Shauna's childbirth episode, the collapse of the border between reason and superstition, or this final, tragic moment that left the show's cast understandably upset. With a third season already in the works, there's surely plenty more misery in store — especially for Misty, who has to come to grips with killing a best friend again.
"Yellowjackets" seasons 1 and 2 are now available on the Showtime streaming service.