Yellowjackets is returning for one final round, and Season 4 will end things in a different genre from the previous seasons. The Showtime and Paramount+ show focuses on dual timelines: following a group of teenagers who are forced to survive together in the wilderness after a plane crash, then jumping ahead 25 years to follow the survivors in their adult years. All throughout, Yellowjackets has been an intriguing blend of genres, switching from teen drama to mystery thriller to survival horror, and for the final season, the creators are leaning harder into one aspect of the genre than ever before.
Yellowjackets creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson revealed in the latest issue of SFX that Season 4 of the show will go even harder into the horror genre. Lyle shared that "this season we got to play a bit more in the sandbox of psychological horror," as the teenagers left the wilderness and returned to their everyday lives. This will transition into "a whole new territory of horror" by the end of the series.
"Out in the wilderness, we had a lot of opportunities to explore survival horror with the extremity of their situation. This season, we got to play a little bit more in the sandbox of psychological horror, the domestic and the banality of every day. Without being spoilery, we go into a whole new territory of horror towards the end of the season, which I think is fun."
This will mark another genre shift for Yellowjackets, which, while maintaining a similar tone and style throughout its entire run, has dipped its toe into different genres in particular seasons.
The debut season of Yellowjackets had a distinct coming-of-age flavor, particularly in the teenage timeline, as the girls established their high school selves before the plane crash and began to figure out how to survive in the wilderness, all the while navigating their cliques and relationships. The adult storyline presented a distinct mystery, as the survivors unraveled what happened to Travis, also intertwining the mystery of how Jackie died with the past and present storylines.
Season 2 of Yellowjackets shifted much further into a survival horror. Deaths became more frequent in the wilderness, and the lengths the team had to go to in order to survive became more extreme. The adult storyline leaned into crime, as the women banded together to cover up Shauna's involvement in Adam's murder, which instigated a police investigation.
The third season of Yellowjackets then altered its genre slightly again. In the past timeline, teen drama and survival drama clashed as Shauna and Natalie grappled for power, and the psychological horror of the wilderness increased as the identity of the Antler Queen was finally revealed. On the adults' side, the stakes were raised as mystery and psychological horror collided while the group investigated another death of their own.
Yellowjackets has always had a consistent mix of psychological horror and mystery thriller, but now, in its final season, it will lean harder into pure horror than ever before. One question that's always persisted is whether the horror in Yellowjackets is psychological or supernatural, a question the show will address in its final episodes.
Nickerson said that the "genre energy" is the "most important metaphor of the show," alluding to the mysterious, supernatural, and psychological presence that haunts the girls, both in the wilderness and at home, decades later. The showrunner confirmed that this mystery would be solved in the final episodes, hopefully answering questions fans have had since Yellowjackets' first season:
"The genre 'energy' is maybe the most important metaphor of the show. Telling the story of their connection to it, and how much of it goes with them and when, we've been trying to turn up that quality in the present-day story. Their coming together reconnects them to that."
Yellowjackets Season 4 debuts on November 20 on Showtime and Paramount+. The series stars Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, and more.
Yellowjackets Embraces Its Horror Side
After three seasons of death, murder, cannibalism, and everything in between, it's difficult to imagine what kind of fresh horrors Yellowjackets might have in store for fans in its final season.
Nevertheless, Lyle's promise that the show will enter a "new territory of horror" hints that the show will find new ways to amp up the fear, potentially with more deaths, grisly acts, and supernatural scares. Particularly in the adult storyline, none of the characters are safe, meaning anyone could die (and plenty have already).
The teen storyline will shift things significantly as the group emerges from the wilderness and no longer has the horrors of survival to lean on. Instead, it seems the show will lean into the psychological terrors the group experienced, particularly as they try to hide what happened in the wilderness and characters like Lottie grapple with whether what they did was due to a supernatural presence or their own primal selves.
Yellowjackets has always erred on the edge of horror, but this final season has the potential to go hard on the scares, delivering more deaths and finally revealing the truth about the show's supernatural elements.
